Dropout..

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channels3

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Lately, I have been having 'dropout' problems in Cakewalk, and also, I have been having clicks and pops during recording. I have played with the various buffer size settings (buffers in playback queue - buffer size - and enable read caching - enable write caching), all with varying degrees of success. The frustrating thing is when it seems like it is working well, and then I get a pop or two that throws everything off again. Could someone give me a few rules of thumb to follow? My 'wave profiler' never comes up with the right combo. I recently defraged by 1.2 GHz Compaq 256 RAM laptop and it seemed to help some. I would like to have a stable setup in the Audio settings, and just can't seem to find it..

Thanks in advance for your help!
 
Try to raise the latency (Options -> Audio -> "The Latency Slider"), this helps in most cases.

What soundcard are you using? The built in on your laptop? In that case, that could be the problem. Sonar isn't very happy with "low budget"-soundcards... ;)
 
Also, how full is your hard drive? If a good percentage of it is being used, that could contribute to problems as well.

But start with raising your latency. That's the most likely thing to help.
 
Soundcard

Yes, I have an ESS Allegro soundcard on the laptop, but I don't select that in Cakewalk. I use the USB audio driver which uses my Edirol USB device and driver (at least I thought that's the way it works). When I plug in the the mic in for the soundcard and record there, I don't have these problems, but of course the quality is really bad, and there is a lot of noise.. There is no 'line in' for the soundcard..
 
That's the Microsoft USB Audio Driver, right? Doesen't the Edirol have it's own drivers? If it does, then you would be better off using them...

And is the ESS-card activated in Sonar? Maybe it helps to deactivate it (Options -> Audio -> Drivers, deselect any ESS-driver).

And once again, if you haven't tried to raise the latency, then that's almost guaranteed to work... ;)
 
Will give it a whirl..

I will give the suggestions a try tonight, and let you know how it goes!

Thanks again for your help!
 
Some people make the mistake of "deleting" bad takes instead of "undo"ing them. Always use undo on anything you won't need to revert back to. Deleted takes hog resources.

Also, a disk defrag should be performed at least once a week.
 
It's simple, you can undo a delete. If you can undo it, it still has a "holder" in RAM. If you pile up tons of these, you start to get dropout.

It's much easier to undo bad takes than to keep having to reboot.

I've recorded with more tracks than ever before lately and not had my CPU or memory usage levels jump at all since I've started doing this.
 
Well, and an "undo" can be "redone" if you catch my drift. I don't see the difference... ;)
 
I don't believe you can redo an undo any further back than your most recent undo. (lol) You can literally pile up 1000 deletes, and undo back through all of them.
 
Jammer said:
I don't believe you can redo an undo any further back than your most recent undo.
Click to expand...
Yes, you can. No problem. ;)

Say I record 37 takes of a guitar solo. I undo the one I just recorded before I recorded the next. Then I could undo my way back to the 1 recording if I want to....
 
undo vs. delete:
the difference is that you can only have 1 redo. after you perform an undo, and then record something else, the previous take is completely forgotten by sonar.

usb problems:
I had problems with USB and dropouts (US-428) until I downloaded WinXP service pack 2. there is a known USB bug in WinXP.
 
"Yes, you can. No problem.

Say I record 37 takes of a guitar solo. I undo the one I just recorded before I recorded the next. Then I could undo my way back to the 1 recording if I want to...."

Back to the 1??! You just repeated what I said.
1 take is much less on the system resources than 50 takes.


"undo vs. delete:
the difference is that you can only have 1 redo. after you perform an undo, and then record something else, the previous take is completely forgotten by sonar."

Exactly.
 
Last edited:
crosstudio said:
after you perform an undo, and then record something else, the previous take is completely forgotten by sonar.
Click to expand...
Really? Okay then... :)

I've just never thought of it as a resource hog. I haven't had any problems with it...
 
Last edited:
Jammer said:
[BBack to the 1??! You just repeated what I said.
1 take is much less on the system resources than 50 takes.[/B]
Click to expand...
Okay, I was wrong. :)

Don't hate me... ;)
 
Heh, we users of old and feeble computers have to do whatever we can to avoid problems.

PIII 1Ghz
512MB SDRAM133
SBLive! 5.1

Works fine, just proceed with caution... :)
 
My computer is not so much better than yours

Athlon XP1900+, 1.6 GHz
512 MB DDR-RAM
80 gig HD

Soundcard: Audiotrak Inca88 (:))
 
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