Loud full scale digital noise from ANY reverb plugin

[Marco Migliari]

Thought I would share this here, since I could not find any trace of it anywhere. I recently ditched my old Mac Pro 3,1 with HD3 Accel to go HD Software on one of the new Mac Pro. This is my current setup: Mac Pro 6,1 6-core with 16GB RAM, Mac OS 10.10.2 Yosemite, ProTools HD 11.3.0. I have 2 Thunderbolt audio interfaces connected to the system, a Lynx Aurora 16 recently upgraded with the new TB option card (and firmware-flashed) and a UAD Apollo Twin Duo. The Aurora 16 is my main interface for ProTools, the UAD is only supplying DSP and I use it as a general audio interface for anything else. I installed UAD v.8.0.1 with the new Console V.2.

I also have 2 x UAD Satellite QUAD FireWire which are connected using an Apple TB to FW adapter and daisy-chained.

Finally, I use 2 Artist series ethernet controllers (MC Mix and MC Control, stamped Euphonix but running the latest 3.2.1 firmware and software so identical to the AVID counterparts).

It has taken a long time to upgrade and address all the plugins and drivers to work in Yosemite, and I obviously understand that my system is a little complicated, but to be honest I have been running 2 UAD Satellites with my HD3 Accel and ProTools 10 with the same controllers and I never experienced what I'm about to describe.

Basically, during normal mixing duties - note max. Mac CPU usage around 30-40% and UAD DSP around 70-80% FW around 50% of total bandwidth, 100% disk RAM cache and 50% of RAM occupied - I randomly get burst of full-scale digital noise. These bursts are triggered by a quick stop-start event, the kind we all do when working quickly around a section of a mix to tweak our automation levels. 99.9% of the time this action causes no problems at all. This can be broken down in these facts:

Only quick stop-start triggers these events, they never occur during playback

They vary in duration, from a fraction of a second to several seconds
ProTools always recovers, as they eventually die-down to silence

They only seem to affect certain tracks in the mixer, typically the ones with a reverb plugin. Since they are difficult to spot (mostly because I'm too busy cutting the monitors to protect my ears!) so far I only managed to see it happening with a UAD EMT 140 plate, an AVID ReVibe and Altiverb 7.

The sound varies, sometimes it's a low-frequency throb or a sharp glitch, but often it's a long, drawn-out white noise 0dBfs affair.

Further playbacks in any combination (fast, slow, repeated, looped etc.) never yield a repeat of what happened

They typically occur 4-8 times in a typical 12-hour day.

I could not link them to a specific session, mix, song or any activity the computer might be doing in the background (but I do have autosave set to 1 min. - this used to occasionally crash my old HD rig when running very CPU intensive mixes, as the CPU spiked to generate the autosave file)

Factors I am concerned about:

2 audio devices on Thunderbolt and UAD DSP (10 chips in total) spread between TB and FW - timing issues when ProTools prepares for playback?

ProTools HD Software internal timing isn't as accurate as HD / HDX and might skip a beat every now and then due to CPU spikes or memory leakages - this could introduce random noise in the ProTools mixer

Potential buggy plugins (but why then get the same problem from 3 very different plugins, and not consistently?)

Like I said, I just post this information for anybody else who, like myself, chose or had to embrace Yosemite and Thunderbolt at such an early stage of the game.

Any pointers kindly appreciated - I have obviously posted this to UAD as well.

[dankin]

I had that happen on 10 pretty often. For me it would happen with Valhalla Vintage Verb but only if Slate VTM was in the session. Now I'm on 11.3.1 and I'm having it happen with echo boy. I usually have 2-3 echo boys on auxs and when it happens all of them start putting out full scale pops and noise.

[Craig F]

can you take the UAD Satellite QUADs out of the equation for testing?
and what is you TB bus load? all on the same bus or split across both buses?

[DCProductions]

Marco,
I have the same issue!
I am unable to find out any info on this either. I'm still on OSX 10.9.5 with PT 11.3.1.
I also have a Apollo Twin, and UAD quad firewire with a TB to FW Adaptor.
I notice it happens mainly with EMT 140s, and only when I'm pretty deep into the mix. I've resorted to loading multiple brick walls after them just because I'm so freaked out to kill my ears.
Avid needs to address this, because it won't be before long when I blow out a clients ears and that will be the end....

[Carl Kolchak]

The couple of times this happened to me (back in PT6) it was with Waves Renaissance Reverb, and Digidesign's D-Verb.

In one case, the cause was insufficient memory to run the session (you seem to have a fair quota of memory with 16GB. You say the scale of the session is only using up 50% of your available resources, and you have enabled the Disc Cache in the playback engine set-up window), but that does not seem to be the cause here.

It could possibly be a memory problem, or something to do with balancing the RAM available to the cache : try lowering the available RAM, or turning the Disk Cache off completely.



In the other case, it was de-normalisation, and was fixed by inserting a dither plug-in, in the insert slot upstream of the Reverb plug-in.



If that doesn't work, do you know which of the UAD systems is hosting the EMT 140? And can you move it to another? (or does it amalgamate all available DSP resources, regardless of bus etc?)

If that doesn't work, I'd think about stripping the system down to just the Lynx, test it, and then start adding back the UAD units one at a time.

I doubt the Ethernet control surface is a factor, but you could always try removing it, and see if it still has this problem, stopping from the space bar.


I do sort of vaguely recollect a similar problem, that some people were having upon stopping the transport, back around PT6.7 , or maybe PT7.1, but I can't remember the cause / solution. Probably not helped by the fact that Avid migrated the forum, and a lot of that old stuff can be really hard to track down.

Good luck.

[JFreak]

I don't think memory is the cause in this case, because you said you've experienced this since PT6 or so. The first Pro Tools that had access to more than 4GB memory was PT11.

[Carl Kolchak]

Originally Posted by JFreak

I don't think memory is the cause in this case, because you said you've experienced this since PT6 or so. The first Pro Tools that had access to more than 4GB memory was PT11.

No, I only experience this issue in PT6, and only under two specific sets of circumstances.

I'm suggesting memory, in terms of possibly a bad memory stick, or a type of memory that isn't (for whatever reason) particularly agreeable with PT, and particularly the way it may be dealing with the Disc Cache feature - not in terms of how much memory is addressable by the OS, or PT.

[Darryl Ramm]

Most obvious question: What IO buffer size are you trying to work at? If you it to 1024 samples does it get stable?

What are all the UAD plugins you are tryign to use? Make sure you are not tryign to overuse high latency UAD plugins.

Make sure "ignore errors" is *not* checked -- you want to see what errors are thrown... what exact AAE errors do you see if any?

What is the exact model/spec of your Mac? (year code, CPU model and speed, etc.) What disks are on your computer? make/model/spec and how are they connected?

Are you running any VIs? in these sessions? Is so which ones and on what disk are the samples?

You have Pro Tools 11 HD or 11 standard? If HD what size if the timeline/disk cache set to? I'm tryign to understand your disk cache 100% comment). Edit: yes looks like you have HD from your signature, so what size is your Cache set at, "Normal" means disabled... what size is it?

Otherwise barrring anything obvious wrong in the above, I'd also do as suggested by others and try removing the UAD components and see if the base system is stable or not.... which yes might be more work than is deserved.

The denormalization bug mentioned above may be worth paying attention to. Are you using Sansamp or DVerb or other native plugins known to have that bug? Try disabling those plugins or sticking a dither plug in front of them.

[Intransit]

Man. This is an AWFUL thing that I've experienced over the years occasionally. Still zero answers. PT 6,7,8,9,10,11

[Intransit]

http://duc.avid.com/showthread.php?t=269242

Look how far back this type of issue goes...