Audio pops and then cuts out - have to restart

[ianfleming1992]

So I'm gonna start off with what I use. I'm on Windows 8.1 with 32 gig of ram on pro tools 11.3.1. I use a 2nd gen focusrite scarlett 2i2 audio interface although the problem still occurs even when this isn't plugged in. What happens is that I'll hit play and occasionally I hear a loud pop like a speaker blowing out and then suddenly I cannot play anything back as all the audio stops making a sound. The playback is still moving along and the tracks volume meters are still active but there's just no sound. What on earth can I do about this??? Also my CPU is only going up to about 25% usage.

[musicman691]

Are you using a separate drive for PT to record to and consequently pull audio from? The reason I ask is a few years back I had a similar issue and the external hard drive I was using for PT stopped working. What happened was what's called the 'bridge board (aka drive interface board) died. So the computer was no longer seeing it's source for audio.

If the above is the case try recording a small session onto the system drive and see if that does the same thing. If it does then further troubleshooting is required.

[ianfleming1992]

Actually I've tried it on both my external hard drive and on my computers drive and the problem persists regardless. I'm beginning to think it might be a plugin issue of some sort.

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by ianfleming1992

Actually I've tried it on both my external hard drive and on my computers drive and the problem persists regardless. I'm beginning to think it might be a plugin issue of some sort.

Okay.
Speaking of plugins - are you running any demo plugins? Different demo plugs will have different restrictions. For instance BlueCat's demos will cut out sound every so often. Other developers will just go silent and you have to restart whatever program you're recording in.

[ianfleming1992]

I am using Blue cats frequency analyser but I removed it and the issue still occurs. One thing I have noticed is that when the pop happens, one particular bus massively peaks and then does not work after this. It hasn't got any plugins other than a pro tools eq. When i say it doesn't work at all, i mean the volume metre no long moves whereas all the other ones do besides the master track.

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by ianfleming1992

I am using Blue cats frequency analyser but I removed it and the issue still occurs. One thing I have noticed is that when the pop happens, one particular bus massively peaks and then does not work after this. It hasn't got any plugins other than a pro tools eq. When i say it doesn't work at all, i mean the volume metre no long moves whereas all the other ones do besides the master track.

Is that the only third party plugin you have? And when you say you removed it did you put it in the unused plugins folder or what? I'd suggest moving all third party plugins to the unused plugins folder and gradually move them back until PT starts acting up.

[ianfleming1992]

It's not the only one I have. I use rather a lot. When I say I removed it, I mean I've clicked no insert. I don't really know how to move them to an unused plugin folder to be honest.

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by ianfleming1992

It's not the only one I have. I use rather a lot. When I say I removed it, I mean I've clicked no insert. I don't really know how to move them to an unused plugin folder to be honest.

No insert won't hep. Moving the plugins to the unused folder is easy. The plugin folders are here: MacHD/Library/Application Support/Avid/Audio In there you will see two folders: 'Plug-ins' for the ones that are used and 'unused plug-ins' for the unused plugins.

[ianfleming1992]

I'm using windows and I'm not entirely sure how to do the same thing.

[64GTOBOY]

The path in Win 7 is (C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Avid\Audio. I don't know for sure in newer OS but probably similar. If you only find the file labeled Plug-ins just create a file called Unused Plug-ins in the same directory and move stuff there.