Transport Bar Flashing [Choppy, Broken Up Sound]

[stab master arson]

I’m trying to work on collaboration with a buddy of mine. He’s using Logic on a MAC and has started the track. I had him bounce down all the audio tracks, zip them up, and shoot’em over to me so I could load them up into Reaper and start working on it. There’s 48 tracks total.

After I load all the tracks into Reaper, I’m having issues playing the song. When I press play, no sound comes out for about 5-10 seconds. When sound finally comes out, it’s choppy (starts and stops, popping) and the transport bar is flashing red. It doesn’t seem to do it when only 1 track it loaded, but after loading 5 or so it begins to have issues. Some times I can press play and the sound won’t start for 20 seconds. It’s impossible to do any work with it like this and even when it plays correctly; it’s only for a second or two.

I have tried messing around with the media buffer size, but that doesn’t seem to do much. I’ve had projects that I’ve made myself with 30-50 tracks and a shitload of vst’s on everything and never had the transport bar flash red or sound cut out, get choppy or have this much of a delay after pressing play.

At first I thought it might be the files he sent me since he’s on a MAC (there WAV files by the way), so I loaded all the files into Cubase 5 and they played just fine.

Please help, this is driving me freakin mad!!

[jamieskeen]

what sample rate are the tracks from your friend? reaper will resample on the fly if the rates are different.

[Link0126]

are they files playing from an external hard drive and how is the hard drive connected? firewire or usb?

[stab master arson]

answering the questions above:

At first the files he sent were all 24bit. I thought maybe that was the issues so I had him bounce down all the files again at 16bit. I loaded the 16bit files up, and had the same issue as before.

The files are being played off my internal hard drive. The drive is 160gigs and I believe its serial ata.

[Fabian]

answering the questions above:

At first the files he sent were all 24bit. I thought maybe that was the issues so I had him bounce down all the files again at 16bit. I loaded the 16bit files up, and had the same issue as before.

The files are being played off my internal hard drive. The drive is 160gigs and I believe its serial ata.

The question is about samplerate not bit-depth. Are the files perhaps recorded as 48 kHz and you play back as 44.1 kHz? or the other way around...

The problem you have is typically due to overloading the CPU. Have you tried increasing your ASIO buffer size, and I don't mean "media buffer size" (as you mentioned), I mean ASIO buffer size (see here http://forum.cockos.com/showpost.php?p=466364&postcount=7)

[stab master arson]

The question is about samplerate not bit-depth. Are the files perhaps recorded as 48 kHz and you play back as 44.1 kHz? or the other way around...

The problem you have is typically due to overloading the CPU. Have you tried increasing your ASIO buffer size, and I don't mean "media buffer size" (as you mentioned), I mean ASIO buffer size (see here http://forum.cockos.com/showpost.php?p=466364&postcount=7)

The sample rate of the files being loaded into Reaper at 44khz. It looks like Reaper is set to playback at 44100 (that's what is says in the audio device section). 44khz is the same as most all the samples I use in most all of my Reaper projects.

The driver I use is ASIO4ALL v2.8. The ASIO Buffer Size has always been set to "512 Samples", with the "Always Resample 44.1 kHz <-> 48KHz" check box checked. The Latency Compensation is set to "32 Samples" of IN & OUT.

I changed the ASIO buffer size to as high as it would go, but I still have the same issue.

One strange thing is that if I play a section of the project that I’ve already let the play bar move over before; it seems to respond quicker than a section I haven't played before (but it still is choppy after a wile and slow).

The weird thing is that it plays in Cubase just fine, and Cubase is way less stable and uses far more system resources.

I’m stumped here.

[jamieskeen]

are you using any plugins?

[gavriloP]

I've had these issues occasionally with gigasampler based virtual instruments (GVIs). I try not to use them anymore because of that. :(


BTW there is one horrible thing in at least Windows XP (don't know if it also happens with newer versions): When IDE drivers have errors (it can be anything from DVD player to USB stick or HD), OS counts them and when you get to five or so, it changes your DMA mode from UltraDMA to PIO which is slow as hell (kinda like 10Mb Ethernet LAN). Problem is that it doesn't inform user at all. You have to manually check your system properties and those IDE channels. And those errors can be small things like too cold PC slowing HD start or damaged DVD disc or moisture on USB stick etc. Behind the scenes the OS gathers these errors and adds them together. And there can be years between those errors, they don't go back to zero until that change to PIO mode is made.

Only way to fix this is to delete the whole IDE channel (once it has gone to PIO mode) from system properties and then rebooting and letting XP to fix/reinstall it. It can be scary.

But I'm sure it is not that if everything works ok in Cubase. I just thought that this thing is good to know.

[stab master arson]

are you using any plugins?


Nope, not a single plugin being used in the project with issues. That's the super weird thing. i've had projects with tones of plugin's in use and no issues. All im trying to do in this project is play the audio.

This thing is killin me :(

[RBowlin]

I expereinced this exact behavior a couple of days ago on a rig that's handled many tracks and plugs at one time. It occurred on a project containing 1 track that had 3 items on the track. I applied a UAD effect to item 2. When the playback curser reached item 2 the sound would die for a few seconds and the transport would flash. This has NEVER happened before. I'm running the latest version of Reaper and the track was at 44.1 24 bit. I had to render that item to get it to play correctly and the rendering of this 10 second item took about 2 minutes!
I had the preferences set correctly concerning UAD plugs - though I still think this was a UAD problem.
I'm hoping those more knowledgable than me can provide a solution.

-Rich

[stab master arson]

see... I don't have any plugin's, UAD, or vst's in the track in question.. just audio. I'm solely attempting to play straight audio tracks (50 of them), which is the easiest function Reaper can possible perform. That's why I'm pulling hair out on this one.

[jamieskeen]

I really am stumped, reaper has always been easy on the cpu compared to other daws. I really don't know what else it could be. Not unless some of the internal buffer settings got messed up...not asio.

[stab master arson]

I really am stumped, reaper has always been easy on the cpu compared to other daws. I really don't know what else it could be. Not unless some of the internal buffer settings got messed up...not asio.

Not sure I know what you mean, how would I check to see if the internal buffer settings got meesed up? And how would I fix it if it did?

thanks
-SMA

[sstillwell]

Go into Windows Device Manager and make sure that none of your disk controller ports say that they're in PIO mode (all should say Ultra DMA...preferably Ultra DMA 5). *EDIT* Oh, sorry, someone's already mentioned that...still worth checking.

Also, do the wave files in the REAPER project timeline have a little icon in the upper left corner with a lower-case i and an exclamation point? If so, then regardless of what you think you have set, it's resampling, which will chew up CPU.

Last thing...I don't think anybody's asked...what's the specs on your computer? CPU? Speed? Amount of RAM?

Scott

[Justin]

Are the files compressed? Decompressing 48 tracks may chew a lot of CPU...

[stab master arson]

Go into Windows Device Manager and make sure that none of your disk controller ports say that they're in PIO mode (all should say Ultra DMA...preferably Ultra DMA 5). *EDIT* Oh, sorry, someone's already mentioned that...still worth checking.

Also, do the wave files in the REAPER project timeline have a little icon in the upper left corner with a lower-case i and an exclamation point? If so, then regardless of what you think you have set, it's resampling, which will chew up CPU.

Last thing...I don't think anybody's asked...what's the specs on your computer? CPU? Speed? Amount of RAM?

Scott

1) The disk controller ports are all okay and not set to PIO.

2) The wave files in the Reaper project do NOT have a lower-case "i" or exclamation point.

3) My computer is a Dell XPS DXPO51:
- Windows XP with Service Pack 3.
- With Intel Dual Core 2.80GHz
- 2GB of RAM
- 160GB internal hard drive
- 750GB Maxtor OneTouch External USB Drive
- Hercules Game Theater XP Sound Card (not the greatest, but runs Cubase, Reason, and up until now Reaper just fine)

[stab master arson]

don't give up on me guys.. I don't wanna have to resort to using stupid Cubase again.

[DuraMorte]

There's definitely something chewing up your CPU.
It seems to me like the files are at 48kHz, and Reaper is trying to resample them to 44.1 on the fly. That fits with you soloing one and it plays fine, but then as you add them it gets worse and worse (more resampling = more processor work).
Have you set Reaper to play back at 48kHz?

[mrmoustache]

Also, do the wave files in the REAPER project timeline have a little icon in the upper left corner with a lower-case i and an exclamation point? If so, then regardless of what you think you have set, it's resampling, which will chew up CPU.

Scott

He'll see it if he enabled the option to display an icon on a clip if it is being resampled in the preferences. Maybe the icon is deactivated.

Check that the files are indeed at 44.1 by selecting one and pressing control+F2.

[stab master arson]

There's definitely something chewing up your CPU.
It seems to me like the files are at 48kHz, and Reaper is trying to resample them to 44.1 on the fly. That fits with you soloing one and it plays fine, but then as you add them it gets worse and worse (more resampling = more processor work).
Have you set Reaper to play back at 48kHz?

If I solo one of the tracks, I still have the same issue. If I start a new project and only load a few of the files then it plays okay.

He'll see it if he enabled the option to display an icon on a clip if it is being resampled in the preferences. Maybe the icon is deactivated.

Check that the files are indeed at 44.1 by selecting one and pressing control+F2.

I selected one of the file and pressed control=F1. It states:

Length: 5:31.395
Sample rate: 44100
Channels: 2
Bits/sample: 16 (int)
Total samples: 14,614,528
Blockalign: 4
Datablock start: 44
BWF chunk:
Originator: Logic Pro
Date: 2010-08-20
Time: 23-28-44
Start offset: 1:00:00.000

[stab master arson]

I know it's a big thing to ask... but, if I uploaded the files for the project the sendspace, would anyone be able to download the zip pack, load all the files into Reaper, and see if they have the same issue?

I'm kind of out of ideas so this is a last resort. I don't really know what it would tell us if it played okay for someone else. Just a thought.

I don't want to post the files in the forum, but if you would be willing to give it a try send me a PM.

[karbomusic]

If you made a copy of the project and removed tracks one by one, does it get better? What happens with 12 tracks?

One strange thing is that if I play a section of the project that I’ve already let the play bar move over before; it seems to respond quicker than a section I haven't played before

That's Reaper pre-buffering the media, rather media that was preloaded the first time you played that section. If the drive access is slow enough, with enough latency and many tracks, I'd bet the pre-buffering "runs out of gas" meaning it gets emptied and the disk can't keep up. How's the drive? What if you move the project to another drive? What results does analyze in XP's defrag tool show? How full is the drive? I'd try to definitively rule each possiblity out instead of ruling them in until all that is left is the culprit. If simply increasing track count makes the problem worse and the sample rate of the file matches the project, I'd be suspect of the disk performance. Remember, you're reading 50 files simultaneously from disk, it's gotta be able to keep up.

There's definitely something chewing up your CPU.

What does the CPU say in task manager?

Karbo

[mrmoustache]

Yep maybe a HDD problem then.

Try downloading speedfan and check the state of your drives under the "s.m.a.r.t" tab.

[jamieskeen]

HD problem was my first thought but he said cubase will play the same project without problems. stab master arson, do you have a extra drive you can copy the project to just to see if that could be it?

[Fabian]

if I uploaded the files for the project the sendspace, would anyone be able to download the zip pack, load all the files into Reaper, and see if they have the same issue?


I could help with that, but I think the first thing would be to just post the RPP here without media, for someone like Schwa to take a look at.

IIUC, when you create a new project and load the wav's in it works fine, righ? So there's something with that particular project...

[gavriloP]

for once or twice I've had situation where project file itself has become corrupted. Luckily in those situations it was easy to "redo" them. I don't know if it was HD, plugin, OS or Reaper that was ultimately to blame because these things are so very rare and random that you can't test them.

Anyway, as far as I understand Reaper's project file can be even edited with some text editor (correct me if I'm wrong) so maybe you can salvage everything by editing it. Although it's probably best if you send that file to someone like Schwa...

[stab master arson]

Okay, it looks like were getting somewhere. At first I thought there was no way it could be a hard drive issue since it played in Cubase just fine. I do have a second hard drive that I use for storage, but I tend to not have project files saved on it because it's a USB external drive and the internal one runs much faster.

After reading karbomusic's post I decided to copy the Reaper project and all the files over to the external drive... and blam! It's works (it has a little lag, but that's to be expected from running off a USB drive). Now I have to do some research on why my internal drive is having issues with this project. I just noticed that my internal drive only has 12GB of space left on it out of 160GB. I know that's is a little low, but I assumed that 12GB of space would be enough to run the project, after all it worked in Cubase just fine and Cubase is a freaking CPU and hard drive space hog.

Does 12GB of space seem far to low to be working on projects? If not I'll need to do some research on other drive issues that might be causing it. I still have no issues with all my other Reaper projects running off the internal drive.

[Bubbagump]

The answer is maybe and we need more info... Hit Ctl+Alt+P to bring up the Performance Meter and give us a complete screen shot while the project is playing. Guessing is fun and all, but real stats would be even better. :)

[jamieskeen]

honestly the internal drive could be going bad. i would do a backup immediately
just to be safe. i had a drive that didn't die right away but it died a slow death.

[mrmoustache]

Please dwl speedfan (only a few kb)or another hard drive testing utility and check the state of the drive.

[karbomusic]

Does 12GB of space seem far to low to be working on projects? If not I'll need to do some research on other drive issues that might be causing it. I still have no issues with all my other Reaper projects running off the internal drive.

1. 12GB is plenty of space but on a 160GB drive that means it's about 93% full. :(

2. Is this the system/OS drive?

3. Is the fragmentation bad?

If all of the above are true then that could be 80% of the problem. You mentioned XP which doesn't have automatic defrag out of the box. If you aren't defragging othewise, that disk is likely somewhat crippled performance wise if 93% full, running the OS and being fragmented.

Even if Reaper deals well with fragmentation, the disk head is still jumping all over the place all of the time. If it's the OS drive then everything that happens disk access wise is a struggle. Trying to stream 50 tracks from that might be what your seeing.

Check the System log. Start > Run > eventvwr.msc

If the disk is having other issues such as dying a slow death there should almost always be warnings and or errors in the system log. Many times the "source" in the log will be labled FT Disk. If there are none in the system or application logs it could simply be all fragged up and way too full. Hopefully that's all it is.

You could grab disk view (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896650.aspx) (no install needed) and scan the disk. It doesn't defrag but it shows the fragmentation very well. It also allows you to select individual files (as sectors) and see if/how they are spread out across the disk or if they are contiguous. Here is my 1TB drive with plenty of space and pretty much zero fragmentation and the files are all contiguous:

Yellow = A file
Blue = Contiguous file cluster (not fragmented)
What you don't want to see is lots of Red:

http://karywall.com/public/posts/reaper/diskview.png


Karbo

[Gazgoldstar]

Aaarrgh!!! Help!!!

I had a terrible issue happen to me a few days ago. I had prepared a mastering project on my studio machine (an 8core 2008 Mac Pro) and saved it to an external firewire 800 drive. The project is a single track with 12 media items (songs) sequentially (96khz 24bit audio files). Each media item has an instance of Izotope Ozone inserted as an FX item. I am using 3.661 I should add.

I then took this project to another studio (with amazing 8 grand plus ATC monitors!) and attempted to hook up my Macbook Pro (unibody 4gig ram dual 2.4ghz cpu) with my motu traveler and the external firewire 800 drive (running on a firewire express card). I connected to the studio's Focusrite interface via adat optical. We synced the studio machine to clock from my Motu and then attempted to play the project. After a minute or so of playback, we could could hear a few audio glitches with the transport panel flashing red leading to the whole track stopping dead. I could then carry on playing the track with this issue happening again and again after about 1 minute or so. Ok, probably a sync issue we thought, but unhitching the adat and just attempting to play the project on my macbook pro resulted in the same behaviour.

Now, I should mention that on this particular project I have used my Macbook Pro extensively recording multitrack sessions at 96khz 24bit. I record 16 channels simultaneously onto this very same Lacie firewire 800 drive. And have not experienced this issue so I was puzzled. So, with Reaper being the amazingly accessible piece of software that it is, we downloaded it and installed it onto the studio machine which is a 8 core mac pro much like mine. To our surprise, we witnessed exactly the same behaviour. So, to recap this was running on a different machine with a different audio interface and with a different hard drive. I was frustrated by this as I had been trying to convince the studio owner to convert from using Logic onto Reaper. He thought Reaper was rubbish after this. I was a bit embarrassed too as my client is a big name.

So, I am wondering, is using FX items more demanding on system resources for some reason? I am aware that izotope Ozone is quite a CPU hungry plugin but in my case only one media item was playing at one time so surely there is a problem here? Could it be that 96khz media items have an issue with FX items?

Any help would be gladly appreciated as using Reaper as a mastering environment is amazing!