Backing tracks glitching. Tried everything. Please help!

  • Thread starter Thread starter NaxxSEEEE
  • Start date Start date
N

NaxxSEEEE

New member
Hi!

I play in a band and we use backing tracks (Synths, some vocals). We are having this annoying problem with some backing tracks glitching during gigs and rehearsals (when I launch the backing tracks at home they work fine). The tracks just stop for a few seconds (mostly in one song, but sometimes in another one, it's random) and then they return. They return on the correct tempo (that's part of the mystery) so we can continue playing, but it is still unacceptable.
I have checked this with some friends, this is what we have already done:
* Dual boot (I also use my notebook for other jobs, but not too often. The second partition has no antivirus, no net connection, only audio soft)
* Temperature check (this is ok, and I use a cooler)
* Audio drivers checked (official drivers)
* Defrag (this helped a little)
* External audio card: We set the buffer size to minimum and this also seemed to help a little. The hard drive makes some peaks of usage right when the track fails.
* Anti-impact case

My hardware:
Notebook: Positivo BGH (win 7 ultimate, 64 bit)
*Processor: Intel i5 (3rd generation) 2.60GHz
*RAM: 4 GB
*Hard drive: 500 GB

External audio card: Focusrite 2i4 Scarlett (USB 2.0)
(brand new. We had a Presonus Audiobox USB before, same issue)
We send stereo audio out and a click track for the drummer.

My software:
Mostly Nuendo 4.3.0
Also tried Ableton Live 8, same issue.

We have some important gigs coming, so any help will be much appreciated! (sadly right now new gear is not an option)

Thanks in advance!
 
I am about to wipe my C drive and reinstall my OS because I couldn't do a damn thing musically anymore (play WAVs/Mp3's, record, edit, etc.) without hiccups on every play. I've got a 4 year old XPS Dell i7 with 16 Gb of RAM. It happened about 6 months ago, and it's been driving me crazy, and enough is enough. Hopefully the new install will solve it. That would be my advice to you--there are many things that could be causing your problem, and it's not worth it, believe me, to start trying to search the web for the answer. Try a reinstall.
 
"* Dual boot (I also use my notebook for other jobs, but not too often. The second partition has no antivirus, no net connection, only audio soft)"

Good ^ but that will still, AFAIK, have left wireless hardware active and that is notorious for screwing audio.

Then there are basics like, have you stopped Windows sounds and the On Board Sound card?

Run DPClat Latency checker for 10mins and see if anything spikes. After that is it trial and error I am afraid to track down the culprit.

Dave.
 
I wouldn't use a computer. An old DAT player would be a good thing for what you're doing.
 
Do you get this issue when playing in something like media player? I would check the task manager and keep an eye on resources. As was stated above, if WIFI is turned on, I would turn it off. Check for virus scanning is going on.

Since this is happening with two different interfaces and two different DAWs, it would be reasonable to think it may have something to do with the computer. Could be the USB port, could be HD sector issues, could be system memory. If you haven't tried another USB port, then try that (I am sure you have), do a scan disk and click on fix errors, also do a RAM check.

If it is none of the above, you could have an MB problem, I would save that for last. You could try a different computer to make sure your music files are causing an issue. They can become corrupt.
 
I'd start by wiping every bit of cracked software from your system and start out legit...

Pirated software can cause all sorts of issues. If this is that important to you, then keep it real.
 
One quick try. Save the files in a new folder under different names...Song 1 becomes 1 Song, or whatever. Do not copy. Load them and Save As. That will put them in different sectors on the hard drive. If the same songs are causing the glitches at the same points, it's not the hard drive
I'm inclined to believe that the problem is memory or MB related, but let's get that out of the way.

Next step: remove your memory sticks. Use a NEW CLEAN pencil eraser and rub it on the contact surfaces of the memory sticks and reinstall. That will rule out corrosion problems with the contact.
I'm wondering why it works fine at home and not in a venue. Likely culprit is difference in temp or humidity, so this is a best next test.
 
Have you tried running the tracks from a thumb drive?
Last night I dumped 904MB of piano music onto a drive and stuck it into this HP i3 laptop. It played out perfectly. Normally to play such a file I would copy it to the desktop, do the bizz then delete it but this time I just opened it in Samplitude SE8.

The laptop CPU wandered from about 5% to 20% and memory held steady at 2.4G of 8G*.

This morning I repeated the exercise on my "music" desktop. AMD 3.5G 6 core and a similar pattern emerged. CPU up to 24% and ram usage 2.24G of 6G. With both machines I was also using internet and monkeying with Task Manager. None of these activities cause the slightest glitch.

I though of the test because, AFAIK this avoids the hard drive?

*Your 4G of ram SHOULD be enough but just maybe, sometimes it er, ain't?

Dave
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top