Interfaces and Latency Questions

[kaldyn]

Hi,

I recently purchased Pro tools 11, and have a few questions about using it with various hardware interfaces. I'm running on a Windows 8, 64 bit machine that was built recently (Core i7 950, 12gb RAM, Intel SSD).

I am running it with a Roland Octa-capture interface, which is giving quite a headache. I had to downgrade to Pro Tools 10 as apparently this device is not yet compatible with 11 as mentioned on these forums. I am running it with the default 256 sample buffer, but very often there are clicks and pops. I'm just playing a recorded solo piano piece MIDI track through the Mini Grand virtual instrument that was included. CPU Usage stays around 8-12% even during clicks and pops.

Are the clicks and pops normal with such a modern setup? Increasing the buffer really adds to the delay and makes the virtual instruments difficult to play live.

Does it make sense to drop the Octa-capture and get a different interface? Is this setup limited fundamentally by the Octa-capture running over USB? Are there simply configuration settings that are not setup right?

What would be an ideal setup to perform the following:
1. Record a handful of analog audio channels.
2. Interface via MIDI to a Roland stage piano.
3. Play virtual instruments with no perceptible lag and no clicks/pops via the MIDI Stage piano.

I would appreciate any advice. Please let me know if any additional info is required and I will be happy to provide it.

[Darryl Ramm]

The interface is not the main suspect here, that suspect is your PC and your likely improper setup/optimization.

Please post a Sandra report as described in the "Help us Help You - READ THIS Before Posting!" link above on this page. Make sure all you disk drives are connected and powered on when you run the Sandra report. And read though all the info there on systems optimization etc.

What disk drives you have installed and their specs is very important. I hope you don't have just one disk drive, even an SSD, you really should have a dedicated audio/session drive for Pro Tools. (and more recent Intel Sandforce based SSD are not amongst my favorite SSDs).

That you are running a sample based VI and hiccupign is not unusual, that is a good stress on a misconfigured system, like in this case where the sampels are playing from the same SSD you are trying to record to. Samples should be on the boot/system drive or their own dedicated drive. Audio/session file should always be on their own dedicated drive, not the boot/system drive and and absolutely never on the same drive as samples (that's really often a bad thing and may be part of the issue here).

What are all your Playback Engine dialog panel settings?

Have you done all the standard Pro Tools Windows systems optimizations? Go and double check every last one has been applied. Don't rush doing that, and do every last thing, regardless of how silly it seems or how inconvinient it is. Once your system is super stable you _might_ be able to back off some of the more inconvenient things.

[JFreak]

Clicks and pops are most often symptom for clocking problems. Do you have some other digital boxes connected to your interface?

Also, there is a user setting in the playback preferences where you can choose to accept occasional pops that happen because of plugin processing. Set that to not accept pops and you will notice if that is the reason (because the playback would stop at first pop that is not allowed to happen).

[albee1952]

http://www.pro-tools-expert.com/pro-...dware-checker/
Not sure if this matters, but according to them:



Manufacturer Roland Product Name OCTA-CAPTURE Works With Pro Tools 9.0 & 10? With Issues (see notes) Mac Aggregate Device Working? Issues encountered Unable to locate dae Hardware when loading protools, fixed by uninstalling from windows device manager and then choosing an action "Scan for Hardware changes"... But the issue reoccurs... What driver are you using? One from Roland, or ASIO4ALL?

[kaldyn]

Okay, I have followed all of the steps now, but am still having issues so let me summarize what I see:

1. 1st off, I got a new Samsung 840 Pro SSD and installed a fresh copy of Windows onto it. Thus, I was able to put the project files on a separate drive as the software itself.
2. Next, I followed all of the steps regarding optimization for Windows that were on the support website. I made sure all the BIOS settings were correct, all drivers updated, all power settings set, etc.
3. I installed a fresh copy of Pro Tools 10, all of the playback engine dialog settings are at their default values. (I unchecked the "ignore errors", so now I have 128 samples, 4 processors, 85%, Not Ignore errors, Delay Compensation short, plugin streaming Level 2, unchecked optimize for streaming content)

Here is what I experienced:
1. Made a new project, setup a simple piano track, played around for a long time with no clicks/lags, nothing.
2. Added a choir track with Xpand, started to hear some clicks and pops when I was recording overtop the original piano. Added a Vacuum synth for a 3rd track and it really was unplayable at this point.
3. I removed all of the instrument and midi tracks except the original piano, now I see intermittent clicks and pops even on that.


Below is the SiSoft Sandra report:

SiSoftware Sandra

ID
Host Name : jake-pc
Workgroup : WORKGROUP

Computer
Model : OEM System Product Name
Serial Number : System Ser**********
Chassis : Desktop
Mainboard : ASUS Rampage III Formula
Serial Number : 1074929********
BIOS : AMI (OEM) 0903 09/20/2011
Total Memory : 12GB DIMM DDR3

Processors
Processor : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU 950 @ 3.07GHz (4C 8T 3.07GHz/3.33GHz, 3.35GHz IMC, 4x 256kB L2, 8MB L3)
Socket/Slot : FC LGA1366

Chipset
Memory Controller : ASUS X58 I/O Hub 2x 3.22GHz (6.43GHz)
Memory Controller : Intel Core Desktop (Bloomfield) UnCore 2x 3.22GHz (6.43GHz), 3x 4GB DIMM DDR3 1.61GHz 192-bit

Memory Module(s)
Memory Module : G.Skill F3-12800CL9-4GBRL 4GB DIMM DDR3 PC3-12800U DDR3-1600 (11-11-11-29 5-40-13-6)
Memory Module : G.Skill F3-12800CL9-4GBRL 4GB DIMM DDR3 PC3-12800U DDR3-1600 (11-11-11-29 5-40-13-6)
Memory Module : G.Skill F3-12800CL9-4GBRL 4GB DIMM DDR3 PC3-12800U DDR3-1600 (11-11-11-29 5-40-13-6)

Video System
Monitor/Panel : Dell Computer DELL U2410
(1920x1200, 24.0")
Monitor/Panel : Dell Computer DELL U2410
(1920x1200, 24.0")
Video Adapter : NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti (8CU 384SP SM5.0 1.7GHz, 512kB L2, 1GB 4.1GHz 256-bit, PCIe 2.00 x16)
Video Adapter : NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti (8CU 384SP SM5.0 1.7GHz, 512kB L2, 1GB 4.1GHz 256-bit, PCIe 2.00 x16)

Graphics Processor
OpenCL GP Processor : NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti (384SP 8C 1.7GHz, 512kB L2, 1GB 4.1GHz 256-bit)
Compute Shader Processor : NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti (384SP 8C 1.7GHz, 512kB L2, 1GB 4.1GHz 256-bit)
CUDA GP Processor : NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti (384SP 8C 1.7GHz, 512kB L2, 1GB 4.1GHz 256-bit)

Storage Devices
Samsung SSD 840 PRO Series (512.1GB, SATA600, SSD) : 477GB (C:)
INTEL SSDSA2M160G2GC (160GB, SATA300, 2.5", SSD) : 149GB (F:)
WDC WD30EFRX-68AX9N0 (3TB, SATA600, 3.5") : 3TB (D:)
WDC WD1001FALS-00J7B0 (1TB, SATA300, 3.5", 7200rpm, 32MB Cache) : 932GB (E:)
ATAPI iHAS324 B (3.6GB, SATA150, DVD+-RW, CD-RW, 2MB Cache) : 3GB (G:)

Logical Storage Devices
Hard Disk (C:) : 477GB (NTFS) @ Samsung SSD 840 PRO Series (512.1GB, SATA600, SSD)
System Reserved : 350MB (NTFS)
Storage (D:) : 3TB (NTFS) @ WDC WD30EFRX-68AX9N0 (3TB, SATA600, 3.5")
VM / Backup (E:) : 932GB (NTFS) @ WDC WD1001FALS-00J7B0 (1TB, SATA300, 3.5", 7200rpm, 32MB Cache)
Hard Disk (F:) : 149GB (NTFS) @ INTEL SSDSA2M160G2GC (160GB, SATA300, 2.5", SSD)
HRM_CCSA_X64FRE_EN-US_DV5 (G:) : 3GB (UDF) @ ATAPI iHAS324 B (3.6GB, SATA150, DVD+-RW, CD-RW, 2MB Cache)

Peripherals
LPC Hub Controller 1 : ASUS LPC Interface Controller
LPC Legacy Controller 1 : T0 A5-13
Audio Device : ASUS HD Audio Controller
Audio Device : EVGA GF110 High Definition Audio Controller
Audio Codec : nVidia 0016
Audio Codec : nVidia 0016
Disk Controller : ASUS 4 port SATA IDE Controller
Disk Controller : ASUS 2 port SATA IDE Controller
Disk Controller : ASUS 88SE91A3 SATA-600 Controller
Disk Controller : ASUS JMB36X PCIE-to-SATAII/IDE RAID Controller
USB Controller 1 : ASUS USB UHCI Controller #4
USB Controller 2 : ASUS USB UHCI Controller #5
USB Controller 3 : ASUS USB UHCI Controller #6
USB Controller 4 : ASUS USB EHCI Controller #2
USB Controller 5 : ASUS USB UHCI Controller #1
USB Controller 6 : ASUS USB UHCI Controller #2
USB Controller 7 : ASUS USB UHCI Controller #3
USB Controller 8 : ASUS USB EHCI Controller #1
FireWire/1394 Controller 1 : ASUS VT6315 Series Firewire Controller
SMBus/i2c Controller 1 : Intel ICH SMBus

Printers and Faxes
Printer : Microsoft XPS Document Writer v4 (600x600, Colour)
Fax : Microsoft Shared Fax Driver (200x200)

Network Services
Network Adapter : Intel(R) 82567V-2 Gigabit Network Connection (Ethernet, 1Gbps)

Operating System
Windows System : Microsoft Windows 8 Professional 6.02.9200
Platform Compliance : x64

Windows Experience Index
Current System : 7.4

[Bill Denton]

@Kaldyn...

I couldn't quite understand something you said...

Do you have the Pro Tools program installed on the same drive where you have your sessions?

If so, that's a no-no, you will need to remove Pro Tools and install it on your C: drive...

[kaldyn]

Hi Bill,

Nope, the ProTools program and sessions are now on separate drives. The Protools program is on the C drive where Windows is installed. All of the sessions are on a separate internal drive.

[Darryl Ramm]

Can you make things really clear by saying on exactly what logical drive partition the following are installed

1. Pro Tools 10 software (EDIT: OK its on C:)

2. The audio/session files (double check that the actual folder is where you put it, and the medic content is really in that folder).

3. Sample files for all your VIs (different VIs might have samples in different places, track them all down).

Windows OS TRIM should be enabled for the Samsung 840 Pro. Likely Disabled for the Intel X-25N unless it is running the firmware update that supports TRIM. You should read up on all the problems with firmware updates bricking those drives before you trying an update. Those Intel drives were an interesting product in their time, pre-Intel somewhat troubled foray into Sandforce, they had impressive performance at the time.

I would format both the Intel and Samsung drive with at least 20% free space (the default is closer to 7% usually). Just a precaution to ensure good sustained write performance.

The WD30EFRX-68AX9N0 WDC Red is only a 5400 rpm drive, and likely has nasty power management things going on. What is on that D: drive? It should be used only for backups, no sessions, no samples and not boot/system.

Darryl

[Darryl Ramm]

You can lay with Playback engine settings. Try 99% instead of 85%. Try CPU=3,5,6,7). I would use greater then 85% but the number of CPUs is more a random play in the hope that something works better.

With VIs you may just never get to a stable 128 byte buffer. So try 256, etc. What is the smallest IO buffer size that is stable?

With ignore errors set off you still get click/pops not Pro Tools crashing? (if Pro Tools does crash what is the crash/DAE error).

Are all your plugins/VIs up to date? Did you installed the Pro Tools 10 Air Virtual Instruments? or are these some old creaky plugins?

You are sure you have applied the optimizations to each disk drive (disabling indexing etc.). And you have any antivirus software (including Microsoft Security Essentials) fully disabled. Disabled WiFi and Bluetooth (looks like you don't have any so that's good). These are common things people miss that especially cause problems with VIs.

Look in the Windows Task manager, are there any other non-Pro Tools applications/significant processes running on the computer? What are they top dozen or so processes consuming CPU and memory.

[Darryl Ramm]

A long shot, but I would also be sure to only connect your interface to one of the USB2 not USB3 ports on your PC. At least while debugging things.

Make sure you have the latest NVidia graphics drivers.

And minor geek snide comment,... its a pity to see all that 1600 MHz memory installed in a system that can take faster memory

You have all those DIMMS plugged into the correct channels slots right (e.g. the DIMMS plugged into the red slots only).?