Very strange problem indeed...

[dubxero]

I'm a total DAW guy and I'm trying to move away from using my current proggie of choice, Reason, which I feel is just way too limited. I've had Ableton for some time and just set up Cubase and loaded up all 12 discs of Native instruments in Komplete 5 to get started on learning these two programs with some decent sounds in my arsenal.

The problem I'm having is that whenever I play any of these instruments in either program I get serious drop outs in the audio and it's driving me mad. I use a Presonus Firebox and it seems like the drop outs may be related to a clocking issue because if I have a metronome going the time gets very erratic along with the drop outs. This particular machine is also a bit short on memory, only having about a gig until my other 2 arrives in the mail next week.

The really weird part about all this is the solution I discovered by accident. I run Auslogics BootSpeed, including the memory utility that runs in the taskbar and I found out one day that I can remedy all of my audio issues simply by hovering the mouse over the icon, causing the little window to pop up. If I play my midi controller too hard and the mouse moves off of the BootSpeed icon then the drop outs return.

I have no idea what that means.

I've tried disabling a number of items that could potentially hog system resources including the network card to no avail. Running DPC Latency Checker nothing fixed my problem except the mouse over phenomenon.

The computer itself is a 3.06 GHz Pentium 4 machine running Windows XP Service Pack 3, I believe.

Anyone have any ideas?

 

[noisewreck]

What is the CPU usage when this occurs?

Have you tried increasing the buffer size/latency in your Presonus?

P4 might not be enough processor to run Cubase.

Do you get the same problems when you load the NI instruments in standalone mode as well?

What kind of controller are you using? More importantly, is it plugged in using MIDI cables or USB? I used to have some serious MIDI timing issues when using my audio interface's (Aardvark Pro Q-10) MIDI ports. I switched to a dedicated MIDI interface and haven't had issues since.

 

[dubxero]

cpu peaks around 15% though my memory is definitely taxed. Like I said I have another 2g on the way.

I've slid the latency settings all over the place on the software and hardware end to no avail.

The audio is fine for the standalone instruments, it seems to be just when the DAWs are running as well.

I am using a cheap M-Audio usb KeyRig controller but the trouble is not isolated to midi. I have the same issues when clicking out midi data as well.

The thing that's bothering me the most is the whole weirdness with the Auslogics mouseover magically fixing it.

 

[kubeek]

Try changing the windows setting, which sets the priority for applications or background tasks. (in system properties)

 

[Chili]

First try disabling the Auslogics thing. Then optimize your win xp for audio. Here's a good write up on things to try:

http://www.sweetwater.com/sweetcare/ts/detail.php?Index=30058

My guess is your loading up your memory. The forthcoming 2 gig should help a lot. I'm thinking the NI 5 is pretty expensve, therefore loaded with tons of samples. A 3ghz P4 will run Cubase with no hesitation, untillll, you load it down with a lot of virtual instruments.

Also, what's your sampling rate??? If you're running at 96khz, you should seriously consider lowering the sample rate to 44.1khz. It frees up so much cpu resources. especially when vi's are involved.