Playback intermittently started to skip

[Terry Wetzel]

I've almost completed a session in Pro Tools 9 with more tracks than I've ever recorded successfully. Kick,Snare & Hi Hat stereo instrument tracks, converted to audio tracks with ezdrummer 2, and 17 other mono tracks including aux. tracks and loaded with plugins! A double tracked lead vocal and a 3 track vocal harmony background! I knew it was too good to be true! I was starting my mix when intermittently the playback started to skip! It sounds exactly like a vinyl record when it skips over tracks! It never happens in the same place twice! This has never happened before and I'm at a loss as to the cause. What could be a logical reason for this happening ?

[albee1952]

Have you set your playback buffer to 1024? This can make a big difference on a computer that is a bit short on horsepower(and you don't need low latency while mixing) If that doesn't help, try making rows of plugins inactive in hopes that you can pin the blame on a particular plugin.

[Terry Wetzel]

albee. it appears you are correct again. However, I'm already at 1024 and can't go any higher. I am also not using low latency. Obviously I'll need to make some things inactive and struggle through this mix. I think it's time to bite the bullet and shop for a more powerful computer.

[albee1952]

Did you go thru and kill plugins? If you can pin this on a plugin that needs a lot of horsepower, you could either use the Audiosuite version and render the audio in place(meaning you can then dump the inserted plugin), or route to a new audio track(like you might for a VI plugin) and print the audio(then you can kill the plugin). If this second idea is possible, you could make a bunch of other tracks inactive(to free up horsepower) while you record the audio The 2 biggest cpu hogs(usually) are amp sims and VI plugins, so printing those can really help. On my old i7 quad core, 3 amp sims(IK Amplitube) was about all it would handle. My current 6 core runs 9 of them at the 64 buffer!

[Terry Wetzel]

Thanks albee. All of my drum tracks on this session were originally stereo instrument tracks but I converted them to audio tracks. I do have some individual track plugins like the low cpu usage 3band eq and some reverbs, also a couple of tracks, bass and kick, have compression plugins. anything more cpu intense I have already converted to audio suite and rendered same. I don't know if I'm understanding the term "print" ? I have two of the tracks doubled so maybe if I delete one each that may get me through ? When I'm ready for the final mix I'll just have hope there's no skipping.

[Terry Wetzel]

albee 1952 or anyone who can offer an explanation. Albee since you are aware of my problem I'll bring you up to date. I pulled all of the plug ins and the playback skipping problem persists! I'm guessing but could this be a problem originating from my recording drive? Perhaps it's about to fail! Please let me know what you think. Thanks.

[albee1952]

Originally Posted by Terry Wetzel

albee 1952 or anyone who can offer an explanation. Albee since you are aware of my problem I'll bring you up to date. I pulled all of the plug ins and the playback skipping problem persists! I'm guessing but could this be a problem originating from my recording drive? Perhaps it's about to fail! Please let me know what you think. Thanks.

Ouch! I really can't offer much without being there. What is the session sample rate? If its 88.2 or 96K, maybe its just too much for the computer to handle(I hit this wall a while back). Maybe create a new blank session and import a few tracks at a time, save>close>re-open and run it a bit. If things seem fine, bring in another 4-6 tracks and re-check. Another option that MIGHT be worth a try(if you get desperate enough). Create a blank session at a different sample rate(if the old session is at 44.1, make the new session at 48K or vice versa) and try importing again. The theory here is, the sample rate conversion might "smooth out" any mild audio file corruption. Granted this is grasping at straws, but you gotta try anything in hopes of a solution

Did I miss whether you changed the playback buffer to 1024? Do you have Windows set to use your interface for all sounds? If yes, try changing that so Windows uses the on-board sound card. Hope something here helps!

[Terry Wetzel]

albee. Thanks and this is the last time I'll bother you with this problem. You've been more than helpful. I record every session at 48/24. Is it possible to change these settings without creating a new session and importing the tracks as you describe? Reason, I don't know how to do that! Yes, my playback engine is set at 1024 and I'm not using delay compensation. I haven't since I started using the Focusrite 2i4.