Voice disappears or appears randomly. Help!

[dbjp]

Hi.

I recently came across this problem that I'm desperate to solve before tomorrow's session. I hope you can help me.

Basically, say there's a stereo organ track. At certain points one channel would disappear, then it might come back during the song, but then again it may not. Other sounds might (mono or stereo) appear during or after the song has ended completely out of sync. I've never had this problem before but since it started happening a couple of days ago, it can be recreated to an extent in a lot of other sessions.
The particular one that was having all sorts of problem yesterday had around 40 odd tracks, 96k 24bit session. This was an edit session so the only plugins being used was one instance of Revibe and one of Autotune Evo.

I've deleted the usual stuff. The engineer during the session, and me after it, changed all sorts of settings in the playback engine but to no avail.

My system is G5 2Ghz, Leopard, 7.4.2cs2 (was cs1 until today where I thought updating might help, but didn't), HD2 Accel, 5.5GB RAM.
I ran the Digitest and it didn't report any problems.

I really don't think it's a plugin incompatibility since there's nothing I've added for weeks apart from Massey's new DTM plugin. I'll take that out and see, but I doubt it.

Anyone else experienced this?

[crizdee]

Originally Posted by dbjp

Hi.

I recently came across this problem that I'm desperate to solve before tomorrow's session. I hope you can help me.

Basically, say there's a stereo organ track. At certain points one channel would disappear, then it might come back during the song, but then again it may not. Other sounds might (mono or stereo) appear during or after the song has ended completely out of sync. I've never had this problem before but since it started happening a couple of days ago, it can be recreated to an extent in a lot of other sessions.
The particular one that was having all sorts of problem yesterday had around 40 odd tracks, 96k 24bit session. This was an edit session so the only plugins being used was one instance of Revibe and one of Autotune Evo.

I've deleted the usual stuff. The engineer during the session, and me after it, changed all sorts of settings in the playback engine but to no avail.

My system is G5 2Ghz, Leopard, 7.4.2cs2 (was cs1 until today where I thought updating might help, but didn't), HD2 Accel, 5.5GB RAM.
I ran the Digitest and it didn't report any problems.

I really don't think it's a plugin incompatibility since there's nothing I've added for weeks apart from Massey's new DTM plugin. I'll take that out and see, but I doubt it.

Anyone else experienced this?

Hi,

Trash all prefs and data base files. then uninstall PT using the uninstaller in the apps/digidesign/pro tools folder. re-boot. re-install PT 7.4.2.

This will only re-new the PT files and digi-rack plugs! all other third party plugs will remain unchanged etc.

install cs2 and now try the system.

if above does not fix! remove all plugins from the plugs folder except stereo.mixer.dpm and test the system with just the stereo.mixer.dpm plug. see if this indicates a plugin as the cause? if so then replace the plugs a few at a time etc.

Chris

[dbjp]

Thanks Chris.
It hasn't worked however. I'm starting to think it's a hardware issue, which is freaking me out.
I've installed Tiger on another disk (w/ PT7.4.1cs7) and plugins that I know for a fact that work.

Digidesign, have you ever had any reports like this?

[sleadley]

I would try one thing. Put the session on another disk. Or even create another session with some tones to see if the audio drops out. My suspicion is that the drive is going bad and this can result in the symptoms you describe. The one that makes me think this is the out of sync audio. I am sure you have a backup, try running that instead of another drive and see if it fixes the problem
hope this helps
Simon L.

[dbjp]

Nah, I've tried it on different disks. I also re-installed Tiger on a different drive yesterday and the same damn thing happened. I've taken all but mixer, revibe, EQ III and autotune EVO out, but same thing.

Again, Digi, has this kind of thing ever been reported? Is this a problem with the hardware? Any suggestions? Damn, clients coming in 15 minutes. I'm screwed.

[dbjp]

Bump.
So nobody, including Digidesign have ever heard of this problem?

[Andre Knecht]

A corrupted session, perhaps.

Start anew with a fresh empty session — its sampling rate and bit-depth set the same as the old one. After that, recreate your original session via “Import Session Data…”. (Perform the latter process with a few tracks at a time.)

IHTH.

[dbjp]

Thanks Andre.

I've done that with one session. It happened again. They actually stopped the session early and went home because it was unworkable. I guess no one else has ever experienced this?

[dbjp]

digitest reports no problems.

[Andre Knecht]

What you describe could possibly be yet another manifestation of a problem that tends to occur when the DSP chips allocated to “mixer building duties” get taxed beyond a certain level. In your “Playback Engine…” setup window, try to allocate the desired voice count to a higher number of DSPs. Also, when selecting a voice count, allow for some “headroom” (i.e. pick a number that isn’t too close to the total number of audio tracks in your session).

IHTH.