Subject:Still skipping in Acid Pro 5.0 playback

Posted by: Dodger27

Date:1/21/2005 8:45:59 PM

OK, so I bought a liquid cooled Pentium IV 3.4GHz Vaio PC with 1 Gig of DDR Ram. I put in a new RAID 1 - 10,000 rpm 8 Mb cache WD Hard Drive to stream my music. I closed every program in my tray. My "music only" hard drive is cleaned and compacted (not compressed). I upgraded to Acid 5.0 Pro...(I don't see a 5.0a on the Updates but everyone keeps talking about it)

I have minimized my one shots and wav tracks. I have minimized the number of FX that I have on all tracks, to the point where I have sacrificed sound quality in order to get my tracks to play smoothly....

AND I get exactly the same performance I had with Acid Pro 4.0 on my old Pentium III 1.8 GHz - - - $5,650 dollars ago......

I can have around 16 tracks, and maybe 1 or 2 wav tracks or 3 or 4 one shots.....THAT's IT.....

any more and the playback skips continuously

All the advice has been fun....but it has not helped me gain but maybe a track or two in playability..... and has cost a bundle....

Am I able to do more tracks with CuBase or the CakeWalk series or Pro Tools, because at this point, that would only be a small expenditure more than this...

....or with an average music cut of 17 - 26 tracks am I attempting too much for a PC driven world???

Dodger

Subject:RE: Still skipping in Acid Pro 5.0 playback

Reply by: pwppch

Date:1/22/2005 9:15:09 AM

Even with less hardware you should get far more tracks. However, you don't talk about what FX you are using and how you are using them. FX are typically the weakest link WRT track count.

Are you working with ACID loops on these tracks or disk based tracks?

Are you still using the Audigy as your audio device?

Are you using ASIO or the Wave Classic Drivers?

Are you running at 48 kHz? I believe I mentioned the reason for this before.

Peter

Subject:RE: Still skipping in Acid Pro 5.0 playback

Reply by: Dodger27

Date:1/22/2005 4:04:13 PM

I am using exclusively the Sony Express FX for the most part and Sony other effects when I don't use those.

I am using Acid loops except for the drums, when I use production loops. But I play most of my own instruments so even my loops are my own, but are converted by AP 5.0a to a loop or a one shot except where I really need a .wav, but I try and minimize those. I combine tracks in Sound Forge 7.0b when I can, but I usually find myself locked into the result and unable to remix that easily when I do that.

I am set at recording 48KHz on the Audigy card...(with a bit depth rate of 24?)

Windows Wave Classic Driver

I have set the device to 12 or 16 audio buffers of 16384 Time Critical and.35 or .50 seconds buffering..

As of the last two days I have instruments dropping completely out of play, not just skipping and it is getting worse...

I am using Best sample rate conversion on the Audigy from the XP playback settings....

Subject:RE: Still skipping in Acid Pro 5.0 playback

Reply by: Dodger27

Date:1/22/2005 4:13:51 PM

I set my buffers to MME and corrected the tracks dropping out....so I am back to skipping only, about midway through a 4 minute cut.

I use on average 2-3 FX per track, and only have them attached if I really use them.

If I edit FX parameters during playback of couse it immediately skips....Is this the norm or should I reasonably be able to adjust FX while doing playback?

Dodger

Subject:RE: Still skipping in Acid Pro 5.0 playback

Reply by: pwppch

Date:1/22/2005 5:22:58 PM

>>I have set the device to 12 or 16 audio buffers of 16384 Time Critical and.35 or .50 seconds buffering..
<<

I just tried these settings with an Audigy and they really mess things up.

Use the defaults for this.

Audio Buffers : 4
Buffer size(samples) : MME
Priority : Time Critical

Set your overall Playback buffering (seconds) to 0.10 to start with. If you still hear gapping, try increasing in increments of 0.05.

Note:
These advance settings are intended for use with native (i.e. REAL) Wave drivers. The Audigy uses WDM based drivers. Cards like the RME Hammerfall and Echo cards in PureWave mode can take advantage of these settings to achieve lower latencies.

Why did you change them from the defaults?

The only setting that may help in the advanced page is the Priority setting. Don't increase it but lower it to Highest, Above Normal, or Normal. This setting is for situation where you are running many shared tasks - i.e. a ReWire device is connected to ACID or a second host app is sync'd manually through MTC or MIDI Clock.


For the Audigy I recommend using the ASIO drivers. Is there a reason why you are not using the ASIO drivers?

Peter

Subject:RE: Still skipping in Acid Pro 5.0 playback

Reply by: pwppch

Date:1/22/2005 5:26:30 PM

FX count is very critical here. 2-3 FS per track in a heavy track count can easily lead to gapping depending on the FX being used and the types of tracks.

What type of CPU useage are you seeing from Taskmanager when you gap/skip?

Peter

Subject:RE: Still skipping in Acid Pro 5.0 playback

Reply by: Dodger27

Date:1/22/2005 7:31:07 PM

Peter,

Yeah, via a step by step method over the last couple hours I un-did what I did with the advanced settings the other day. I honed in on MME, 6 buffers and Time Critical as well as .15 buffer seconds. So I reverted to what you recommended and I am back to original performance, which still has skipping but not nearly as bad (usually midway through the cut, or when 6 or more tracks are playing simultaneously, and including a wav track).

Why did I change from the defaults? Why not? How did you learn about this stuff? :-)

The ASIO drivers objected to the 24 or 16 (currently set to 16 bit depth) bit depths and always gave me a warning "The request is not enabled for this device" or "The audio device doesn't support the current bit depth." The Windows Classic Wave Driver, with outputs through the SB Audigy 2 (c880) was the only configuration that would acutally play anything back. All three Audigy drivers gave me the same error and just refused to play anthing in AP5.0.....

Processor Load Average = 26%
Average Disk Queue Length = .050

Both very low.

Right now I get some brief clipping at high active track sequences further into the song.....but reduced over what I saw three days ago....

I am still on Windows Classic Wave Driver, otherwise I have set everything to what you have recommended.

But I did execute a Save during playback and that is the first time I have been able to do that without skipping....so made progress.

Thanks
Dodger

Subject:RE: Still skipping in Acid Pro 5.0 playback

Reply by: JohnnyRoy

Date:1/23/2005 8:22:46 AM

> The ASIO drivers objected to the 24 or 16 (currently set to 16 bit depth) bit depths and always gave me a warning "The request is not enabled for this device" or "The audio device doesn't support the current bit depth."

Part of your problem is that you want to do 24-bit recording but you purchased a sound card that is only capable of 16-bit. That’s why the ASIO drivers are complaining "The audio device doesn't support the current bit depth.". The ASIO drivers talk directly to the hardware and the Audigy hardware is only capable of 16-bit/48Khz sample resolution.

If you use the Windows Classic Wave Drivers at 24-bit, the Audigy card is taking that and re-sampling it down to 16-bit so it can process it internally (loosing 8-bits of information). Then after processing, it will re-sample again back up to 24-bit to make you happy, but the damage is done. The original 8-bits are lost forever so you are NOT getting 24-bit accuracy. You are getting 16-bit accuracy re-sampled to 24-bit in software.

The latency is introduced when the two software re-samples occur (24 to 16 and then 16 to 24). Since all you are doing by recording 24-bit with an Audigy card is wasting hard disk space (there is no increase in audio quality) it is highly recommended that you listen to Peter and use the ASIO drivers at 16-bit/48Khz. If you really want to record with 24-bit resolution, then buy a 24-bit card.

~jr

Subject:RE: Still skipping in Acid Pro 5.0 playback

Reply by: Dodger27

Date:1/23/2005 3:32:34 PM

Thanks John,

I am listening to Peter and I DO have my card set to 16 bit depth.

The problem, as indicated in the last message that I sent is this:

The ASIO drivers refuse to support the 16 bit depth setting and give me the warnings at 48kHz/16 bit depth as well.

I haven't gotten to the latency issue yet....I just want a decent playback first because that will eliminate system settings from contributing to latency. Then I can nail that problem as a stand alone issue.

Subject:RE: Still skipping in Acid Pro 5.0 playback

Reply by: JohnnyRoy

Date:1/23/2005 4:23:12 PM

> The ASIO drivers refuse to support the 16 bit depth setting and give me the warnings at 48kHz/16 bit depth as well.

Are both drivers giving you this error? (i.e., Creative ASIO and the Audigy 2 [C880] 16/48 driver) That’s really strange. Are you sure you didn’t use 16/44.1 setting because 16/48 is what I ran my Audigy 2 ASIO drivers at all the time. If this doesn’t work, perhaps try reinstalling the drivers or look for newer drivers on the Creative site.

Remember you have to have both the driver and the project settings matching. You will get an error when you change one of them but that’s OK. It will go away when you change the other. I forget which one I use to change first but try changing the drivers to Classic Wave, then set the project to 16/48, then change the drivers to Creative ASIO. That should get the ASIO drivers working.

~jr

Subject:RE: Still skipping in Acid Pro 5.0 playback

Reply by: Dodger27

Date:1/23/2005 4:29:22 PM

Peter, OK I found it I think....one of my tracks on my test case song was recorded "indicating" that it was a 24bit track.....(even though as you point out it really was 16 bit depth) and THAT track was causing the ASIO drivers to indicate an error. I resaved my test cut in 16 bit only and that eliminated the error on one of the three ASIO drivers:

I am now successful on the ASIO SB Audigy 2 (C880) driver

A. Now, if I bought a MOTU 24 bit/192 kHz or equivalent.....Will I eliminate any AP 5.0 playback issues I am currenlty facing or will it be exactly the same issues? With all this I am still back to some brief skipping (more like popping) during the playback when I get more than 5 or six tracks playing at once...(all now 16 bit tracks)

B. AND, as a side issue out of curiosity, if I understand the writeups, all the 24 bit/192 kHz units transfer digital only at 192 kHz, and any analog to digital sampling conversion is done at 24 bit/96 kHz, even if the card says 192 kHz in its performance specs. Correct?

Dodger

Subject:RE: Still skipping in Acid Pro 5.0 playback

Reply by: pwppch

Date:1/23/2005 6:39:14 PM

I don't see how a track that was 24 bit would cause any problems.

The project setting in ACID is what controls things. ACID internall converts everything to floating point (and resamples if required to accomidate the project sample rate.) The bit depth conversion is done only at the very last stage when transfered to the hardware/driver.

I can't say what any other hardware will or will not do on any given system. Rather, I won't commit to saying that "this will solve all of your problems". Why? Systems are all different. There are many users with systems similar to yours that have absolutely no problems.

One other suggestion:
Physcially remove the Audigy and place it into different PCI slot in your machine.

Peter

Subject:RE: Still skipping in Acid Pro 5.0 playback

Reply by: Dodger27

Date:1/23/2005 7:53:32 PM

All I can tell you is that simply adjusting the settings option down from 24 to 16 bit did not do the trick. I used a test song which had a Mixer setting of 24 bit and re-saved it as well with the Mixer set to 16 bit depth and ........the ASIO driver was able to perform a playback of the cut only then.

I did a count, the test cut that I am using is 26 tracks, comprising 2 loops, 4 one shots, and 20 beatmapped self-recorded tracks. I have no doubt there are lots of people out there who never had any problems setting this up on a system like mine. Maybe they will write in and share how they got there?

In the meantime, for me, personal persistence and inquisitiveness pay off better than out-of-the box perfection. So I will keep moving through the learning curve and attempting to improve the playback performance of my test cut. If you can think of anything else that I have not mentioned, let me know.

Otherwise, thanks for you help.

Subject:RE: Still skipping in Acid Pro 5.0 playback

Reply by: pwppch

Date:1/23/2005 8:57:57 PM

>>20 beatmapped self-recorded tracks.

20 tracks disk based tracks? This is most likely your problem.

How long are these tracks? Are they all playing at the same time or are they spread out over the entire project?

ACID is not optmized as a multitracker. Just not its intended use.

Could you send me (phaller-at-sonypictures-dot-com) just the acd file (not all the wave data)?

Some systems may be able to support this many tracks, but it is not the focus of ACID.

Peter

Subject:RE: Still skipping in Acid Pro 5.0 playback

Reply by: SonyMLogan

Date:1/24/2005 11:26:32 AM

Dodger27,

I can get 40 tracks of stereo 96k one-shots before drop-outs on my Dual Xeon.

---

This just might be the HD transfer mode issue - I had to tweak this to get decent performance on my dual Xeon out of the box - and it may be the same issue for Dodger27.


Check out:

Control Panel -> System -> Hardware-> Device Manager -> IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers -> Primary IDE Channel -> Advanced settings.

My Device 0 and Device 1 are set for "DMA if available" and the current transfer mode is listed as "Ultra DMA Mode 5".

---

I tried reverting to PIO, at which point I only get 6 tracks of stereo 96k one-shots.

Subject:RE: Still skipping in Acid Pro 5.0 playback

Reply by: brettsherman

Date:1/26/2005 7:07:15 PM

I've had the same problems with Acid 5.0. I have a Soundscape Mixtreme card and the ASIO drivers don't work with Acid (they work fine with Nuendo though). If I use the MME drivers it skips frequently if there are more then 6 tracks or so. Stuff that plays perfectly in Acid 4.0 doesn't even come close to playing in Acid 5.0. So I'm back to using 4.0.

I'm tired of Sony upgrades that do not work as good as the previous version. Same thing happened to me with Vegas 5. I think Sony's ASIO implementation is not very solid. IMHO the software is becoming less reliable, not more.