dropout when looping w/synth HS2004xl

[Tillamook]

Why, when I add a software synth track (Dyad, Dreamstation, or Edirol), do I lose the ability to loop? It works a couple times and then when it hits the end of the loop it goes to the beginning of the loop and stops, and the dropout indicator lights up. Once it starts doing this, it does it all of the time. Even if I delete all the events in the synth track, it still glitches. If I delete the track altogether, looping behaves properly. I've gone through all the steps advised by the help function for dropouts.


Bill


XP
512 megs
Athlon 1800
Audiophile 2496

P.S. I loaded AVG virus software this morning, but I have turned it off and task manager does not show it running.

[Tillamook]

an update:

I uninstalled the virus program, no difference.

I created a new project, created one synth track (2 tracks really, one to record the midi from my keyboard and send it to the softsynth Edirol and one to send Edirol to the audio outs) and played a few measures. I then created loop points and it looped ok until I started from outside the loop, then when it got into the loop it would dropout at the end. After the first time I start outside the loop, it will drop out whether I start from inside or outside the loop.

I don't have any problems when recording regular audio tracks, guitar, drum machine outputs, etc..

Bill

[BluesMeister]

Tillamook,

I too have experienced problems with looping MIDI, but mine were with with HS2002.

When I loop, I don't get dropouts, but what does happen is quite bizarre! The tempo and speed both increase for a half measure or so then settle back to normal.

I haven't tried this with my new MoBo & P4 CPU yet. My looping problems were with a Celeron 466 and 128MB RAM.

I was rather hoping that HS2004 XL would have cured this particular anomoly because I'm hoping to upgrade soon.

I think a polite note to CakeWalk Customer Service is in order for you.

--
BluesMeister

[Tillamook]

Thanks, Bluesmeister. Even if you didn't have a fix, misery loves company. It's a bummer, I have new mb, cpu, just upgraded to XP, and bought the latest HS, thought I was on easy street. Everything else seems to be working great, I've been piling on the audio tracks, no dropouts, slowdowns or freezes, so far. Just this looping bug. I'll take your advice and send a note to customer service.

Cheers,

Bill

[Wurlitzer]

Yep, I have similar problems.

Not generally dropouts, but my system just freezes when I loop a project containing some soft synths. Like yours, it will work OK for a few times then go wrong.

Generally I need to completely restart the PC to get it working again.

I think the part of Sonar's code that handles looping needs some serious work. I hope they've looked at it for Sonar 3.

[brzilian]

Originally posted by Tillamook
Thanks, Bluesmeister. Even if you didn't have a fix, misery loves company. It's a bummer, I have new mb, cpu, just upgraded to XP, and bought the latest HS, thought I was on easy street. Everything else seems to be working great, I've been piling on the audio tracks, no dropouts, slowdowns or freezes, so far. Just this looping bug. I'll take your advice and send a note to customer service.

Cheers,

Bill

Have you installed the patch from the HS2004 website?

http://cakewalk.com/support/HomeStudio/HS2004Patch.asp

[Tillamook]

"Have you installed the patch from the HS2004 website?"

Thanks for the suggestion, but the patch has been installed.

Funny thing, this morning I fired up HS for a few minutes and the bug seems to have disappeared. I didn't mess with it much to see if it was going to start glitching again. It's not the rebooting that did it, I shut down and started up several times yesterday.
I did convert my midi and outboard tracks to audio tracks, maybe that effected the looping bug, or maybe it's just a random thing. I'll experiment a little more tonight.

[BluesMeister]

Tillamook

Now you could be on to something here! My looping glitcheroonies were associated with MIDI tracks.

I'm going out on a limb here, I'm guessing that pitch and tempo information would be stored at the beginning of the MIDI track. Maybe the MIDI-loop goes temporarily haywire while it's trying to sort out and/or find that information. Is that plausible?

Once it's converted to audio I presume it's no longer a problem.

I'll try converting MIDI to audio and see if that solves my looping mayhem.

--
BluesMeister

[PhilihP]

Originally posted by BluesMeister
Tillamook,

I too have experienced problems with looping MIDI, but mine were with with HS2002.

When I loop, I don't get dropouts, but what does happen is quite bizarre! The tempo and speed both increase for a half measure or so then settle back to normal.

BluesMeister

BluesMeister,

I had a tempo problem like that:

View> Tempo to open up the Tempo Dialog Box.
Near the upper right corner, click on the little blue and white rectangle buttom to display all the tempo changes on the right side of the screen.

You can highlight and delete what doesn't belong.
Phil

[Tillamook]

blues:

When I converted the midi tracks to audio, I did not delete the original midi tracks, so I'm not sure about your theory. I haven't taken the time to backtrack and figure out exactly when the loop function restored. However, I did start a new project this morning, laid down a drum track, added a softsynth, and immediately lost the ability to loop. :-(

If anybody else is running HS2004xl with the patch update and is able to loop consistently with a DXi synth track in the mix, could you let me know? At least that would tell me that it has something to do with my setup.

[brzilian]

Originally posted by Tillamook
blues:

When I converted the midi tracks to audio, I did not delete the original midi tracks, so I'm not sure about your theory. I haven't taken the time to backtrack and figure out exactly when the loop function restored. However, I did start a new project this morning, laid down a drum track, added a softsynth, and immediately lost the ability to loop. :-(

If anybody else is running HS2004xl with the patch update and is able to loop consistently with a DXi synth track in the mix, could you let me know? At least that would tell me that it has something to do with my setup.

I'm sure I haven't had problems with that, but I'll double check tonight.

[Tillamook]

Thanks, brzilian.

I just talked to Cakewalk tech support and he suggested increasing audio buffers in my Audiophile 2496 and unchecking a couple checkboxes in the project options>midi output menu. I'll try his suggestions tonight.

[brzilian]

Tried looping a couple MIDI tracks triggering DXi's - no problems to speak of.

[moskus]

Originally posted by brzilian
Tried looping a couple MIDI tracks triggering DXi's - no problems to speak of.

Just try it when your CPU usage in Sonar is up to 90%. Then Sonar will DropOut too...

[Tillamook]

brzilian:

Thanks for testing it on your machine for me. Are you running HS2004XL?

[brzilian]

Originally posted by Tillamook
brzilian:

Thanks for testing it on your machine for me. Are you running HS2004XL?

Yep.

[BluesMeister]

Originally posted by PhilihP
[B]View> Tempo to open up the Tempo Dialog Box.
Near the upper right corner, click on the little blue and white rectangle buttom to display all the tempo changes on the right side of the screen.
You can highlight and delete what doesn't belong.[B]

Thanks Philip. I am familiar with the Tempo Dialogue Box and I've used it to clear up tempo changes that I didn't want happening.

Are you perhaps suggesting that clicking on the Tempo icon during replay actually changes the tempo in the MIDI file rather than just allowing me to fast-forward to another section - which is what I was attempting to do. So if I don't save the file, the updated Tempo is discarded? So what about the pitch change. How does that happen?

I must confess at this juncture that I haven't tried looping or clicking on the Tempo icon with my new, you-beaut system. I will give it a go this evening and report back.

--
BluesMeister

[BluesMeister]

I tried looping a MIDI file last night and the results were better than the previous results. However, I did suffer audio droput after the third or fourth loop. On one particular occasion, the playback sounded reminiscent of a CD skipping!

Clicking on the Tempo icon gave precisely the same results as before. The Tempo increased, but there was also a change in pitch. Surely this isn't supposed to happen!

Incidentally, my system still hangs on Shut Down after I've used HS2002. The only reliable method for me to shut down is to Ctrl+Alt+Del and click on Shut Down. Nothing else works. My OS is Win98SE.

--
BluesMeister