[ahughes3]

Firstly, a huge thank you for taking the time to reply. I know I'm every audio engineer and techies worst nightmare. I just can't afford to do it properly in a studio (plus I like learning ). I've replied to most of what you've highlighted, not necessarily with all the right answers I suspect. But sincerely thank you.

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

What is your audio interface/Playback Engine set to?

Windows Audio Device and my buffer is at 1024, highest it will go. I do have ASIO4ALL installed but when I try to use it, there seems to be no playback.

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

And then what sample rate are you running at? Just work at 44.1 or 48kHz for now.

48kHz, 24bit

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

But, and this has been covered in literally hundreds of threads on DUC,... if you are running ASIO4ALL or WASAPI just give up. If you want to run any Pro Tools products you should have an ASIO compatible interface with an ASIO driver supplied by the interface vendor. I don't care what others might get running, or that Avid says other stuff might work. You need to set stuff up so you have an expectation that it *will* work reliably under load, and with Pro Tools on Windows PCs that's means you need an ASIO interface.

I was using a behringer UMC202HD audio interface. Not sure what driver it runs as it doesn't seem to say on their website. I also have a Behringer QX1222USB mixer which I was hoping to use as it has a built in compressor. Again not sure what driver it uses, but I'll look into it.

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

And did you optimize the computer? (see instructions under "Help us Help You" up the top of each DUC web page).

I did take a look at the optimisation guide, but the mention of BIOS and Registry put the fear of god into me. I'm fearful that I'll just wreck the PC. I'm not IT Techy at all.

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

Drivers for what? The only one likely to matter is the ASIO interface which you are apparently not using. Very rarely GPU drivers might matter.

As I've put above, I have ASIO4ALL but you're saying that's no good right?

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

I love all the great detail in your email, but unfortunately nearly all that you tried is likely a waste of time. You should start with the standard troubleshooting steps under "help us help you" up the top of each DUC web page. Always start troubleshooting by trashing prefs. Which you have not done? And then after trying with an ASIO interface and larger H/W Buffer size if needed. If you still have problems you should be looking at plugins (*always* suspect plugins with CPU errrors), starting with removing all .aaxplugin files from the plugin folder and seeing if Pro Tools runs reliably after that. All standard stuff to try before even posting here. And if you have Cakewalk installed and have installed third party plugins for it I'll bet good money they have also dropped AAX plugins into Pro Tools.

I did say I was non techy but I hear you. I'll take a look again at the optimization guide, but it felt way too tech for me. Are you saying remove the plugins from the track, or from the PC altogether?

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

As you troubleshoot make sure "ignore errors" is not checked, you want even minor errors to cause a failure.

Got that set already.

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

Nothing here is likely due to the drive, but in general get rid of the HDD, no reason to be using a HDD in this day and age, or SATA... I suspect your motherboard has M.2 PCIe 3 slots, so you should be using M.2 drives in those and running Windows, sessions, samples all from that one M.2 drive (or multiple M.2 drives if you need the space). That will make everything seem faster on that PC.

My system drive is SSD I think (I'm sure I specified that when I bought it). The HDD drive is old but it's been faithful to me and I really didn't think it would make that much of a difference. Which clearly is not the case. I'll take a look at the M.2 drive thing.