Audio drop out during DJ set!!!!!!

HYPR · Post by **HYPR** » Sun Oct 26, 2008 5:46 pm

Playing live the past 2 shows (dj'ing w clips; wav and mp3 files) I moderately pushed the channel volume into the red with the 3 band eq (EQ is on each channel; using 8 channels total; nothing on master) and the whole sound output dropped out until I laid off the mid range on the most recent occurrence. It doesn't look like a CPU issue fort it only jumps between 5-10% CPU usage on the meter. Not sure what's the root cause of this drop out!!!!! Help! This is the 2nd set this has happened. I'm using a SONY VAIO, 2GHz Processor, 2 gig of ram, XP, etc. IMHO this should not be a processing issue, but what the heck do I know. I'm routing the audio out of the USB to a M-Audio FAST Track Pro. Out of the M-Audio I was using the TRS outputs into a Prioneer DJ Mixer. Nothing fancy. If you care to know this was on a very stable sound system this past weekend and sounded like sheeeeeeit when it happened.

cavern · Post by **cavern** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 7:24 am

im running a viao on xp and that's never happened.

it's probably your m-audio usb thing. those are pretty shitty.

hambone1 · Post by **hambone1** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 1:10 pm

I wouldn't trust playing live through an M-Audio interface. Not if your reputation depends on it.

Goran@Irrupt · Post by **Goran@Irrupt** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 2:45 pm

did you see "D" sign flashing in your upper right corner of Live?
do you use Complex warp mode?
w

Patch · Post by **Patch** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 2:51 pm

When you've got multiple channels running tunes, and you alter the master tempo, you'll get cpu overload.

AND THAT FUCKING SUCKS.

sweetjesus · Post by **sweetjesus** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 2:54 pm

i had this problem recently.. it is so fucking random too..

in the studio i can reproduce small dropouts by just navigating scenes (not launching anything) and in the club, i was getting totally random dropouts doing nothing but basic playback of tunes and maybe tweaking volume level..

HYPR · Post by **HYPR** » Tue Oct 28, 2008 4:35 am

cavern wrote:im running a viao on xp and that's never happened.

it's probably your m-audio usb thing. those are pretty shitty.

What's Sound Card would you rek then!?!?!?

HYPR · Post by **HYPR** » Tue Oct 28, 2008 4:36 am

hambone1 wrote:I wouldn't trust playing live through an M-Audio interface. Not if your reputation depends on it.

What Sound Card would you recommend buddy!?!?! I'm being told RME or PreSonus but I'm not convinced this is the root cause. Thanks for the input. I'll push on here.

HYPR · Post by **HYPR** » Tue Oct 28, 2008 6:08 am

WebSite! wrote:did you see "D" sign flashing in your upper right corner of Live?
do you use Complex warp mode?
w

I didnt notice it during the live set but I'll give it a test run. I use "RE-Pitch" as the default Warp setting.

HYPR · Post by **HYPR** » Tue Oct 28, 2008 6:11 am

Patch wrote:When you've got multiple channels running tunes, and you alter the master tempo, you'll get cpu overload.

AND THAT FUCKING SUCKS.

n/a. I dont touch the master tempo during a set. It's set prior to the show and dont map any midi contol to it nor do I do any manual tweaking on the fly neither. I'll keep that in mind though for the future. Thanks.

HYPR · Post by **HYPR** » Tue Oct 28, 2008 6:13 am

sweetjesus wrote:i had this problem recently.. it is so fucking random too..

in the studio i can reproduce small dropouts by just navigating scenes (not launching anything) and in the club, i was getting totally random dropouts doing nothing but basic playback of tunes and maybe tweaking volume level..

Well I'll tell you that I'm really tweaking the eq (on the midi controller) and that's when the drop outs happen. I need to do some experimenting and try to recreate this problem. I'll keep you posted.

HYPR · Post by **HYPR** » Tue Oct 28, 2008 6:15 am

Rave wrote:Play with your buffer settings too.

The default is set to 256. I never really fiddled with this but I'll look into it. Thanks!!!

BASSbüro · Post by **BASSbüro** » Tue Oct 28, 2008 7:11 am

@hypr: a good audio-interface is the NI Audio Control 1. highly reommended. fantastic sound-quality and excellent d/a-converters.

in your case, i wouldn't work with the eq 3 on each track. eq 3 is crap. take the eq 8 or something similar. eq 3 colors the sound, i don't know why, but this eq isn't clean at all.

when you work with 8 tracks for example, you have to care about the volume on the master-channel. the problem is the summing. 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 9 = clippings on the master. so reduce the volume of each track or work with a sub-mix-bus with a level of -9db.

MrTiddles · Post by **MrTiddles** » Tue Oct 28, 2008 10:37 am

@HYPR + Patch

I don't think this is down to the CPU, Memory or even the sound card (tho I would ditch the M-Audio piece of crap)

The trouble is hard drive speed. Laptop HDD's tend to run at 5400 RPM, normal PC/MAC HDD 7200 RPM. The faster the disk speed the faster the seek time, and when you start cocking about MP3's and WAV's that spanks the HDD, that can lead to glitches in audio on 5400 HDD.

hambone1 · Post by **hambone1** » Tue Oct 28, 2008 10:48 am

HYPR wrote:
hambone1 wrote:I wouldn't trust playing live through an M-Audio interface. Not if your reputation depends on it.
What Sound Card would you recommend buddy!?!?! I'm being told RME or PreSonus but I'm not convinced this is the root cause. Thanks for the input. I'll push on here.

I was using a Yamaha 01V, and never had a problem with dropouts that weren't CPU-related or caused by my own incompetence!

The M-Audio Ozonic I had before the 01V was an unreliable piece of cheap plastic crap.