• From: Finland
  • Registered: 2011-03-07
  • Posts: 7

Topic: FF800+2xADAT+Sonar/Win7 64bit -> Dropout on long multitrack recording

Hi,

I have a mobile recording unit that has FireFace 800 + 2x ADAT 8-channel mic preamps in it. The audio setup is connected to my Intel i7 Sony Vaio laptop, running Windows 7 64-bit. I'm using SONAR (version 8.5 at the time, because it seems more stable than X1).

Recently I was doing a live recording and encountered a problem which I haven't experienced before - I recently updated to the latest Fireface drivers. After a bit over 1 hours of recording on 24 tracks @ 44.1KHz/24-bit, the HDD load indicator goes into maximum (before that it's at around 8-10% max so no problems at all), and the audio consequently drops out with a digital peak clip left on the end of each track. Sonar complains something about the lack of hard drive space, but this cannot be the case as I had nearly 75GB of empty space on the laptop.

The other flaw I seem to be getting are these weird, short (and seemingly random) audio dropouts which are not audible when you're monitoring the recording, nor cause a dropout error in SONAR, but later sound out as glitches occuring every now and then - at these glitch points, the recorded audio sort of "jumps" simultaneously on all recorded audio tracks for 100-300ms or something around that.

I'm wondering if this a SONAR-related incident or does it have something to do with the Fireface? Does anyone have any tips on how to avoid these things? I've already set the ASIO buffer to maximum and tried tweaking other settings as well.

Does RME have any of their own "suggested settings" for multi-track recording with SONAR when using Fireface sound cards?

All help highly appreciated.
Thanks.

  • Registered: 2008-12-03
  • Posts: 182

Re: FF800+2xADAT+Sonar/Win7 64bit -> Dropout on long multitrack recording

75 GB of how many GB?

-----------------------

Various ADK computers :-)
  • From: Finland
  • Registered: 2011-03-07
  • Posts: 7

Re: FF800+2xADAT+Sonar/Win7 64bit -> Dropout on long multitrack recording

alexoosthoek wrote:

75 GB of how many GB?

Free disk space is around ~75GB, out of total somewhere around 260GB of HDD space (everything is on one partition).

  • Registered: 2011-09-27
  • Posts: 9

Re: FF800+2xADAT+Sonar/Win7 64bit -> Dropout on long multitrack recording

If you deactivate totalmix does this "ticks"/"clicks"/"jumps"  stop? With TMx activated is there ticks in all channels?
It seems like the problem I have in my laptop with UFX and the FW connection ( both UFX and FF800 use the same driver)

Greetings

  • From: Connecticut, USA
  • Registered: 2011-08-01
  • Posts: 376

Re: FF800+2xADAT+Sonar/Win7 64bit -> Dropout on long multitrack recording

Hi,
What you describe sounds like a device interrupt most likely caused by power management of some device or devices on the laptop.
Very common at this point with newer laptops.
If you have already optimized your laptop for audio.
Here is the best site for this.
http://www.tweakhound.com/windows7/tweaking/index.html

In Sonar all you need to do is set the Driver ASIO and to the ASIO Fireface Device and make sure that Share driver with other devices is unchecked. You should not need to mess with I/O buffer and cache setting unless you are on a very old slow machine.
I would keep your ASIO buffer settings at either 256 or 512 for long recordings. This does decrease the chance of interruptions.

If you have done all of this then the most likely candidates to cause this would be hardware devices.
Try disabling in device manager one of these devices at a time and then do a record test for an hour or 2 to see if the driop outs go away.
Make sure Sonar is not running when disable each device.
I would make a record test template for this.

Video driver
WiFi
Bluetooth
card reader
battery censor
fingerprint driver
old USB 3 firmware/drivers

Look at this post for how to read DPC latency on your system. Most likely you will see this drop happen with this software.
http://www.rme-audio.de/forum/viewtopic.php?id=1704

Thanks Chris

Chris Ludwig
North East USA Sales | Synthax/RME
www.facebook.com/RMEAmericas
Twitter @RMEAmericas

ChrisLudwig's Website

  • Registered: 2008-12-03
  • Posts: 182

Re: FF800+2xADAT+Sonar/Win7 64bit -> Dropout on long multitrack recording

What Chris said, and/or if you have a eSATA port, get yourself an external for the audio.

-----------------------

Various ADK computers :-)

7 Reply by hapsutakki (edited by hapsutakki 2011-09-29 18:16:30)

  • From: Finland
  • Registered: 2011-03-07
  • Posts: 7

Re: FF800+2xADAT+Sonar/Win7 64bit -> Dropout on long multitrack recording

alexoosthoek wrote:

What Chris said, and/or if you have a eSATA port, get yourself an external for the audio.

The laptop does indeed feature an eSATA-port for an external eSATA drive, and I've actually have had an external, double-HDD (RAID) eSATA drive for some of the recordings I've done, but in lengthy recordings, at least the random glitches still happened every now and then whether I have used it as the HDD to record to or not.

So this shouldn't be a problem associated with just the HDD? I don't see the HDD as a likely culprit since the HDD loads are always low (until a major dropout occurs, usually after 1hr of 22-25 track recording @ 44.1Khz/24-bit).

I've always used the RME with ASIO drivers in Sonar, with maximum latency (1024 samples), just to be sure.

  • From: Connecticut, USA
  • Registered: 2011-08-01
  • Posts: 376

Re: FF800+2xADAT+Sonar/Win7 64bit -> Dropout on long multitrack recording

Hi,
Almost forgot about the video I made for setting up Sonar with an RME interface.
How to Setup Cakewalk Sonar X1 to use RME's ASIO driver and MIDI ports.

Thanks Chris

Chris Ludwig
North East USA Sales | Synthax/RME
www.facebook.com/RMEAmericas
Twitter @RMEAmericas

ChrisLudwig's Website

  • Registered: 2008-12-03
  • Posts: 182

Re: FF800+2xADAT+Sonar/Win7 64bit -> Dropout on long multitrack recording

So what happens after 1 hour of recording, did you try THIS

-----------------------

Various ADK computers :-)
  • From: Connecticut, USA
  • Registered: 2011-08-01
  • Posts: 376

Re: FF800+2xADAT+Sonar/Win7 64bit -> Dropout on long multitrack recording

Hi,
The Esata controller can cuase interupts as much as any other device. The HDD is least likely to the problem unless it is defective which can be easly confirmed with a low level check disk and the drive manufacturers utility software.

Thanks Chris

Chris Ludwig
North East USA Sales | Synthax/RME
www.facebook.com/RMEAmericas
Twitter @RMEAmericas

ChrisLudwig's Website