Laying down a base track. drop outs

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Nerdflanders
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Joined: Sun Jan 01, 2017 6:06 am

Laying down a base track. drop outs

Post by Nerdflanders » Fri Jul 17, 2020 11:45 am

Hi there.
So I added a wav file of a song but there seems to be drop outs. when it hits some peak highs. ho to fix?
Is it better to drop a file or record through the focusrite?

Shift Gorden
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Re: Laying down a base track. drop outs

Post by Shift Gorden » Fri Jul 17, 2020 3:52 pm

So, when you add a .wav file to Live and play back you get audio drop-outs? What do you mean "record through the Focusrite?"

Not quite sure what's going on, but audio dropouts can be a result of your buffer in the audio preferences being set too low.

Nerdflanders
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Joined: Sun Jan 01, 2017 6:06 am

Re: Laying down a base track. drop outs

Post by Nerdflanders » Sat Jul 18, 2020 12:39 am

I have 2 options
1 Drop and drag the wav file from my computer
2 plug the iphone into the focusrite 2i2 and record it that way.
what buffer do you recommend?

The wav file is doing all sorts of things. The speed slows down half way through.

Which do think is the best way to lay down the track, drop and drag or record through the focusrite?
When I record the song through the focusrite the whole track has reverb in it.

TLW
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Re: Laying down a base track. drop outs

Post by TLW » Sat Jul 18, 2020 8:39 pm

You say this happens when the file hits "peak highs".

Which makes me wonder if what you are hearing are dropouts (short gaps and stuttering) or digital distortion (a loud harsh noise, can be a bit like a distorted hi-hat if it's short) caused by overloading the digital/analogue convertor in the playback device. Dropouts generally aren't related to the audio volume or gain.

The ideal buffer size, by the way, is one that's as short as you can get away with without glitching or the audio engine dropping out entirely. It varies from computer to computer and interface from interface and may need to be increased as a project gets stuff added to it so starts requiring more resources from the computer. I generally find I can run at 128ms while recording and between 256 and 523ms once into mixing where I might replace e.g. a simple basic undemanding reverb with a more demanding convolution one etc.

As for a wav file having timing changes my best guess for that is the warp settings aren't working very well for it. Try switching warp off on its clip and see if that helps. There's also a useful preferences setting to disable warp being applied automatically to long recordings.
Live 10 Suite, 2020 27" iMac, 3.6 GHz i9, MacOS Catalina, RME UFX, assorted synths, guitars and stuff.

Nerdflanders
Posts: 29
Joined: Sun Jan 01, 2017 6:06 am

Re: Laying down a base track. drop outs

Post by Nerdflanders » Sat Jul 18, 2020 10:31 pm

Thanks for your reply.
this Ableton is really complicated.
I turned off that warp thing. clip and long samples.
seems to be better.
Ive left the sample rate at 44100
sr and pitch conversion is normal.
I didn't do anything with the latency in was 0 samples and out was 4096.

It's not critical but there seems to be a hiss, like an old vinyl record?
Any hints what that can be?

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