PT 7.4 LE - Waveforms drawing incorrectly

[d17]

Hi there,

Having a bit of a weird problem with PT LE 7.4 in a friend's studio. Basically, sometimes the graphical representations of waves that we've recorded aren't actually what is played back. So, sometimes the screen shows a wave, but only silence is played, and sometimes vice-versa.

Has anybody ever encountered this?

Summary of our setup is as follows:

Apple G4, Dual 1.25 GHz
2 Gb RAM
Digi 002 Rack w/ PT LE 7.4
Recording to Lacie FW400 Drive

Cheers
D

[lwilliam]

I've also run into this on occasion with 7.4, but never on earlier versions.

My experience with it has mainly been recording vocal tracks (although it happened on a guitar track once, too). I'll find a few beats (not the whole region) where the waveform doesn't match the actual audio. I'm pretty good at comparing audio to the waveform from way too much voiceover work. It drove me nuts at first, then I just used the "Recalculate Waveform Overview" on the questionable region and it fixes it.

I haven't seen it with the "silence vs sound" extreme though. I've seen it where the waveform is not at the correct place in the timeline. It's been shifted one way or the other. Recalculating the waveform has fixed it every time so far.

It does seem to be a minor bug in 7.4 though. I had to look up the "Recalulate waveform" feature since I've never had to use it about 8 years of PT use. Since it's not repeatable (doesn't happen in a predictable manner), I don't know how difficult it will be to fix it.

[dmm]

I've had the same issue with 7.4 also.

[TimOz]

Same problem here on a bass guitar track I was recording yesterday. Looks like a new bug.

Tim

[lwilliam]

...and it happened in my session again today. Recalculating the waveform fixes it, but this is a bit unnerving in front of clients - who can also see that the waveform doesn't match what they're hearing.

I didn't even have EA enabled on the track.

I hope this can be fixed in a cs update soon.

[ournature]

same here, this is definitely a bug in 7.4.
i predict digi people are working for a fix on the next issue..

[DigiTechSupt]

We're looking into this...!

[DigiTechSupt]

Can anyone get this to happen on a consistent basis? Are there any clues as to what state Pro Tools needs to be in to cause the problem?

Any info you can provide that would help us recreate this would be greatly appreciated.

[doubtful guest]

Hi, thanks for looking into this. I had this problem occasionally in LE 6.x. It happens very often in 7.4.
What usually happens is when punching in a mono track the waveform is wrong for the first 3 seconds and then the wrong shape is repeated for the next 3 seconds. I also get the last 3 seconds of a waveform repeating into the silence at the end, where nothing is there. The incorrect wave form sections are always in exactly 3 second cycles, the same as the time it takes to make the waveform visible in quickpunch mode. Yesterday I had this happen for 30 takes in a row.
This happens for me working with an external converter and clock, using Quickpunch and Low Latency Monitoring. It seems that if I toggle quickpunch and LLM off and on the problem goes away.(for a while) Quiting protools also seems to fix the problem.
It would be great to have a fix for this, I assumed it would have been dealt with a while ago.
thanks!

This problem exists on a powerbook G4 1.5ghz, 1.5ram, OSX10.4.9, 002R, protools 7.4.

[mejon]

Can anyone get this to happen on a consistent basis? Are there any clues as to what state Pro Tools needs to be in to cause the problem?

Any info you can provide that would help us recreate this would be greatly appreciated.

I've been experiencing this problem on a daily basis and have been talking with Kory Doucette in tech support. I sent him a few of my pro tools sessions to check out. In my case it's intermittent (as far as I can tell). Sometimes it's happened after recording a track (after pushing the space bar, the waveform suddenly changes). Other times, it's while editing. The only workaround I've found is to consolidate regions, but this is a drag when you need to preserve layers of audio. I hope digidesign can find a quick fix because this is seriously affecting my workflow, especially when clients are in the studio.

thank you.

Jon

here's some info that Kory emailed me:

Article # 28720 (enter this number on the search engine at www.digidesign.com

Possible inaccurate waveforms and Beat Detective triggers when zoomed out on Pro Tools 7.4
This is a known issue in Pro Tools HD & LE 7.4 (Mac OS X).

In some cases, waveform overviews may appear inaccurate when zoomed out. For accurate waveform editing and viewing, zoom in on the waveform you wish to edit/view.

This may also apply to Beat Detective Triggers.

This has only been reported on PowerPC Mac OS X Systems.