Reaper is possessed by demons, please help!

[Multibomber]

Hey guys! Apparently, a battle for the fate of our souls is going on inside of my DAW and I can't figure out how to end it. I have a way over-spec'd PC. It moves along fine, but about 15-65 seconds, my RT LONGEST BLOCK goes from 1.34ms to 400-1300ms and the craziest goddamn demon sound you've ever heard in your life comes out of my speakers and blow my ears off for about a half a second. Notice how on this screenshot, my RT Longest block is 567ms. That was one of the big spikes. But as I said, it normaly is anywhere from 1.20ms - 1.40ms. As you can imagine, this is goddamn annoying. I have no idea where to start to fix this, so I'm just gonna show you a screenshot of all my specs and what my computer is doing at the time, and hopefully somebody has some idea as to what in the goddamn hell is going on. I've also circled the Real Time spikes so you can see.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!!!

[moliere]

While I can't help you with the stuff you've posted, you might want to check http://www.resplendence.com/latencymon and see if there's anything system related that's killing things.

And fuck Pace, 12% CPU to run some licencing checks?? piss off.

[CDS]

Originally Posted by moliere

While I can't help you with the stuff you've posted, you might want to check http://www.resplendence.com/latencymon and see if there's anything system related that's killing things.

And fuck Pace, 12% CPU to run some licencing checks?? piss off.

At least someone here can see through the nonsense of pace.

[Multibomber]

Originally Posted by moliere

While I can't help you with the stuff you've posted, you might want to check http://www.resplendence.com/latencymon and see if there's anything system related that's killing things.

And fuck Pace, 12% CPU to run some licencing checks?? piss off.

Of course Pace/iLok/Gobbler is effing retarded!! But I shouldnt be hitting any kind of dropouts until I'm at 80% ish of my CPU load, and I'm at 35%!! Whats going on??

[uksnowy]

PACE WTF...!! I need to check mine if that's the case.

[WolfJames]

Let's see what all is in your startup.

[Multibomber]

Originally Posted by WolfJames

Let's see what all is in your startup.

Here's everything in my startup. Notice how there's a bunch of things listed, but most of them are disabled.

[Geoff-h3o]

How is it if you load the project with fx offline?

[hopi]

did I miss it? what is your sound card\audio interface? and then which driver are you using?

also what are the FX being used?

[Stella645]

Is there any of the fuck pace brigade who aren't running Slate Digital plugs?

I think your anger may be misdirected.

[Stella645]

Originally Posted by Multibomber

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!!!

A few alarm bells ringing:

Asus AI. Known to cause problems with audio. Uninstall.

Nvidia card - If you installed anything other than the basic driver uninstall fully and run installer again as custom, untick everything but the driver.

Realtek HD audio...assuming you use an audio interface uninstall or disable this.
If you have no audio interface your expectations for performance are too high.

Look at your per core cpu useage rather than overall cpu use. Uneven loading will bring the computer to a halt way sooner.

Aside from this make sure you use high performance power scheme in Win, if you have a USB interface disable usb selective suspend and power management for all hubs in device manager.

If problem persists you need to give more info about interface and buffer settings and run dpc latency monitor to diagnose as previously advised.

[WolfJames]

Assuming it's not a driver or VST issue (for the moment), do you have any active microphones on the computer, or webcam? Do you have an interface other than the Realtek? If so disable everything Realtek and see if it makes a difference.

[Bri1]

ey-by any chance do you have a particular plugin running for that 15-65 sec time period?
some plugs can do this sort of thing m8..

[Multibomber]

Originally Posted by Geoff-h3o

How is it if you load the project with fx offline?

I don't know what this is or how to do it... Also, how would I go about editing the session if all the FX are offline?

[Multibomber]

Originally Posted by hopi

did I miss it? what is your sound card\audio interface? and then which driver are you using?

also what are the FX being used?

Behringer XR18 x AiR. But I'm not using the wifi on it, I have it hardwaired via ethernet with a network switch. The drivers are ASIO drivers made for the Behringer.

[Multibomber]

Originally Posted by Stella645

A few alarm bells ringing:

Asus AI. Known to cause problems with audio. Uninstall.

Nvidia card - If you installed anything other than the basic driver uninstall fully and run installer again as custom, untick everything but the driver.

Realtek HD audio...assuming you use an audio interface uninstall or disable this.
If you have no audio interface your expectations for performance are too high.

Look at your per core cpu useage rather than overall cpu use. Uneven loading will bring the computer to a halt way sooner.

Aside from this make sure you use high performance power scheme in Win, if you have a USB interface disable usb selective suspend and power management for all hubs in device manager.

If problem persists you need to give more info about interface and buffer settings and run dpc latency monitor to diagnose as previously advised.

So first, disable the Asus AI Suite monitor thingy? I'm using it to overclock my CPU, it has an easy overclock button. Any ideas on how I can overclock without it?

Ok, Realtek Audio has been uninstalled.

My understanding was that Real-time processing could only be done with 1 cpu core, which is why I am overclocking so that 1 core has more processing power.

Windows high performance setting was already enabled, disable usb selective suspend was already chosen. I'm not sure where the power management for all hubs in the device manager is located.

My interface is on Minimum latency, 512 samples, which in Reaper, gives me a round trip latency of 11ms.

[Multibomber]

Originally Posted by Bri1

ey-by any chance do you have a particular plugin running for that 15-65 sec time period?
some plugs can do this sort of thing m8..

Well... if you look at my session screenshot, I have 345 FX spread out over 95 tracks. I have not noticed that any one particular track causes more or less dropouts. But I CAN cause more dropouts by scrolling really fast while the audio is playing. I can also cause a dropout sometimes when I mute and unmute tracks quickly. But it doesnt always cause it either, it just seems more likely.

[Multibomber]

Originally Posted by WolfJames

Assuming it's not a driver or VST issue (for the moment), do you have any active microphones on the computer, or webcam? Do you have an interface other than the Realtek? If so disable everything Realtek and see if it makes a difference.

There are no microphones or webcams on the computer, I have a USB webcam which is not plugged in except for when I use it. However, I do have 15 mics plugged into my interface at all times. Here's what that interface mixer looks like, I'm not sure if I should change anything here.

[Dr Bob]

Again, a quick test … disable/remove ALL fx on the Reaper Master channel and see if this helps. This channel DOES process all FX in real-time along with the audio out and on ONE processor.

If this helps/solves the problem - then look to create a new "master buss" channel to which all your tracks are routed and put the mastering FX on there. Then, route this to the Reaper Master for final output to the audio interface. [Depending on the your routing/folder complexity, you might just be able to run a folder around all the tracks, put the master FX on the parent, and be done]


If not, check FX cpu consumption at the fail point, in case there's a rogue plugin.

Disable ALL fx on ALL tracks and then start bringing them back in a tracks worth at a time and see if there's a critical burden point when things go awry. [Easy to use actions to enable/disable fx on selected tracks]. I know the song will sound terrible as you go along, but you need to dissect the session carefully to get a hint as to where things are not quite right]

Are all your audio clips 48khz as per your project sample rate? If not, there may be on-the-fly sample rate conversion going on which takes cpu (of course). Again, make sure ALL audio clips/tracks are at the project sample rate.

If you have a mixture of midi and audio, freeze the midi tracks WITHOUT their FX, [and simply copy the fx across to the saved audio for the usual fx fixes/effects].

When I MIX, I generally like to have all my MIDI tracks frozen (converted to audio), and add the track fx to the audio stems. Then I have no worries about cpu hungry VSTi's getting in the way of the mix process.

Hope some of this helps in some small way.

dB

[nofish]

Have you checked with LatencyMon already as suggested above ?

[Dr Bob]

Hmmmm … I see your Reaper screenshot at the top shows project samplerate as 44.1k

Your Xair is set to 48k in your screenshot for that.

Is it better when both match up? Do you have a samplerate conversion issue here?


dB

[Multibomber]

Originally Posted by Dr Bob

Hmmmm … I see your Reaper screenshot at the top shows project samplerate as 44.1k

Your Xair is set to 48k in your screenshot for that.

Is it better when both match up? Do you have a samplerate conversion issue here?


dB

Hmmmm.... this happened because just last week I switched my whole setup to 48k so I could record live drum videos. For whatever reason, videos hate 44.1k and videos will start to get out of sync with recorded audio as videos get longer and longer. However, this problem was happening before I made this conversion.

[Multibomber]

Originally Posted by nofish

Have you checked with LatencyMon already as suggested above ?

I havent bought LatencyMon yet because its *cough wheeze* $120 and I will have no idea how to interpret the data. BUT if you nice gentlemen are willing to interpret the results and tell me where to go from there, I will happily purchase it right away!

[Multibomber]

****UPDATE**** I've done 2 things so far that have cut my dropouts by about 80%.

1. I had Sonarworks Reference 4 Systemwide running on my computer, and it flat out refused to switch to 48k from 44.1, so I uninstalled that and am just using the plugin in my Monitoring FX, which is running in 48k with no problems.

2. I disabled, and then uninstalled, and then set on fire everything that said Realtek on my computer.

I'm not entirely sure which of these helped out, but like I said, I'm about 80% of the way there... now for that damn other 20%!!

[Dr Bob]

Originally Posted by Multibomber

I havent bought LatencyMon yet because its *cough wheeze* $120 and I will have no idea how to interpret the data. BUT if you nice gentlemen are willing to interpret the results and tell me where to go from there, I will happily purchase it right away!

You can use the free version - no need to shell out for the Pro version.

dB

[Dr Bob]

Originally Posted by Multibomber

Hmmmm.... this happened because just last week I switched my whole setup to 48k so I could record live drum videos. For whatever reason, videos hate 44.1k and videos will start to get out of sync with recorded audio as videos get longer and longer. However, this problem was happening before I made this conversion.

... but your Reaper Project is 44.1, that should be 48k too then - seems you haven't switched everything to 48k - [yes, understand the 48k requirement for vid] - your first post screenshot shows 44.1K at the top right, unless that was before all your changes?


I would still do the latency checks - people here will help.


Have you tried disabling FX on the Reaper Master track? - I have the same processor as you with 32Gb RAM (but not overclocked) and a GigaByte mobo. I can (sometimes) see a tenfold reduction in RT cpu use simply by moving master fx stuff to an ordinary reaper track, treat that as the Master, and then route the output from that to a bare, clean reaper Master track which then goes to audio out. Basically the master FX will be shared out over the remaining 11 cpus, leaving the cpu0 to handle the audio thread. Has to be worth a shot.

dB

[Multibomber]

Originally Posted by Dr Bob

... but your Reaper Project is 44.1, that should be 48k too then - seems you haven't switched everything to 48k - [yes, understand the 48k requirement for vid] - your first post screenshot shows 44.1K at the top right, unless that was before all your changes?


I would still do the latency checks - people here will help.


Have you tried disabling FX on the Reaper Master track? - I have the same processor as you with 32Gb RAM (but not overclocked) and a GigaByte mobo. I can (sometimes) see a tenfold reduction in RT cpu use simply by moving master fx stuff to an ordinary reaper track, treat that as the Master, and then route the output from that to a bare, clean reaper Master track which then goes to audio out. Basically the master FX will be shared out over the remaining 11 cpus, leaving the cpu0 to handle the audio thread. Has to be worth a shot.

dB

I did as you suggested, seems to be helping!

[Multibomber]

One time when I ran LatencyMon, I had a huge dropout, here's the report. It appears we have found the problem... but look what happens when I try to end the process.












********So I went into gpedit and disabled Windows Defender... PROBLEM SOLVED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!**********

Now bring on the viruses

[strinxx]

Maybe I can help.
I had the exact same issue on my machine.
To make it short:
It was a HARDWARE issue.
I have a hotswap backup drive, attached to the internal sata controller on the Mainboard (no additional driver needed)
This thing gave me those huge latency peaks which you describe here.
Just by shutting it off (thank God this thing has an on/off switch), the spooky behavior was gone!
And everything was running smoothly again.
This took me several days fiddling around with latencymon to find out.
Now I only switch it on for backup jobs, and have it off for normal work on my DAW.
I hope this helps.

[soundchaser59]

Originally Posted by Multibomber

Of course Pace/iLok/Gobbler is effing retarded!! But I shouldnt be hitting any kind of dropouts until I'm at 80% ish of my CPU load, and I'm at 35%!! Whats going on??

You cant just go by the total % of cpu usage. If PACE is running on the same core / threads and has an elevated priority, it could easily interrupt your other workers to go run it's periodic license check.

That is obviously the first thing I noticed. I don't know a ton of stuff about Win 10, but 12% cpu usage on a 6 core machine just to do license checks? That is a huge glaring sore thumb. Does PACE think your license is going to expire in the middle of recording your song?

Saw your post later about the malware. Good catch. I know about the dangers of viruses and malware, but I think people are cowering to the fear tactics of marketers for the most part. If all you do is common sense stuff on the web, like update your music software and post things on the forums, I think your chances of getting a virus or some malware is virtually 0. Yeah, yeah, it "can happen" it's "theoretically possible" blah blah blah......but if you aren't using the machine for pron and games and hacking tips, etc, then I believe the risk is grossly exaggerated by the marketers selling the software.

Google for sites that explain how to streamline Win 10 for DAW use. There is likely a ton of stuff running on the machine that is absolutely not necessary.

Those "services" that you can't stop, those need to be disabled and/or removed some other way. You may have something in control panel that will allow you to remove it, but you'll have to go into services and stop it and disable it first. It could be a group policy thing starting up automatically. Maybe google how to disable it. The task manager is usually the least powerful method for stopping unwanted services, it is only intended for stopping end user programs that are causing problems. Windows by default assumes that the user does not know best about the system apps running, so it protects itself with admin permissions and back doors. But it can be done. Hidden in Windows there is always a way to kill a process, you just have to find a site that tells you how to do it. The most powerful stuff in Windows is undocumented as far as the general public is concerned.

Worst case is you wipe and reinstall from scratch, creating your own Admin user that is all powerful, then you tell Windows what it can and cannot install. This is esp helpful if you bought the machine with Windows already installed and you have never done anything to "clean it up." OOB Windows is the absolute worst offender for underestimating user capability and overestimating its own importance. It's the price we pay for using an OS that is intended to make everything as easy as possible for the non-technical consumers who are a huge portion of its market.

[hopi]

https://windowsreport.com/msmpeng-exe-high-cpu-usage/

maybe this will help... read all the way through

[Stella645]

Originally Posted by soundchaser59

12% cpu usage on a 6 core machine just to do license checks? That is a huge glaring sore thumb. Does PACE think your license is going to expire in the middle of recording your song?

I'm gonna go ahead and just call this out as a bug with Slate Digital plugs. Tried to get some confirmation earlier in thread but got no response....the PACE hatred is high so seems people prefer to blame them regardless of whose fault it really is

In my own testing no Slate = 0.3% and with Slate = 3.5% - Have seen one guy complaining of up to 30%.

[karbomusic]

Originally Posted by Multibomber

********So I went into gpedit and disabled Windows Defender... PROBLEM SOLVED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!**********

Now bring on the viruses

You know you could have just set the exclusions properly.

[Multibomber]

Originally Posted by strinxx

Maybe I can help.
I had the exact same issue on my machine.
To make it short:
It was a HARDWARE issue.
I have a hotswap backup drive, attached to the internal sata controller on the Mainboard (no additional driver needed)
This thing gave me those huge latency peaks which you describe here.
Just by shutting it off (thank God this thing has an on/off switch), the spooky behavior was gone!
And everything was running smoothly again.
This took me several days fiddling around with latencymon to find out.
Now I only switch it on for backup jobs, and have it off for normal work on my DAW.
I hope this helps.

Mine was definitely Windows Defender, I disabled that shit and now I get maybe 1 spike every hour. I think I can deal with that.

[Multibomber]

Originally Posted by hopi

https://windowsreport.com/msmpeng-exe-high-cpu-usage/

maybe this will help... read all the way through

Thats exactly what I did!!

[Multibomber]

Originally Posted by Stella645

I'm gonna go ahead and just call this out as a bug with Slate Digital plugs. Tried to get some confirmation earlier in thread but got no response....the PACE hatred is high so seems people prefer to blame them regardless of whose fault it really is

In my own testing no Slate = 0.3% and with Slate = 3.5% - Have seen one guy complaining of up to 30%.

It's FG-X is always the main culprit. It's their only plug that isn't in VST3, it's also their most powerful and complicated program, and it goes on the Master Bus AND iLok has a hard time verifying that its licensed to use.

[Multibomber]

Originally Posted by karbomusic

You know you could have just set the exclusions properly.

I'm listening.....

[hopi]

ok so WD is gone... good
you can get AVAST free been using it for years and it works nicely
it gives you a little icon by the clock where you can disable it for various amounts of time but I rarely need to do that..

[Multibomber]

SO look guys, new things just keep popping up. Now its "system" that's giving me a bunch of dropouts! And what do you think about the Nvidia and DirectX kernels? WHat the goddamn hell is a kernal anyways???

I even tried using Bitsum, it hasnt done shit dick diddley poo nothing.

[Stella645]

So looks like it's the Nvidia driver which isn't that surprising. Did you do what I advised earlier re Nvidia?

I also got a fix for the high PACE useage from Slate. If you have the VMS modules loaded but not licensed ilok is continually trying to find the license for them.

Remove just those modules (Classic Tubes and Classic Instruments)

https://slatedigital.zendesk.com/hc/...ng-VMR-Modules

Re-test after doing the Nvidia tweak and post the drivers tab of latencymon results.