Random noise during audio playback

[Robert Krukowski]

Hello,

I am using SCS v11.1.2 for a production at the theatre I volunteer at. It's running on a new PC with an Intel i5 quad core processor and 8GB of memory. (More than enough for this production.)

95% of the time things runs smoothly with no problems. But a few times now, when playing a cue, the system almost seems to "seize up" during play back, generating an awful buzz noise, then either continue where it had stopped or jump ahead and continue playing the track. The problem isn't repeatable as you can rerun the cue and it runs fine. Nor has it ever occurred playing the same cue.

The show is now live so any suggestions sooner than later would be appreciated.

Thanks.

[Mike Daniell]

The problem is ASIO-specific. If you can change your device map to DirectSound then you will not have any issues like this.

If you need to stay with ASIO (eg because your DiGiCo device doesn't have a suitable DirectSound/WDM driver) then I strongly recommend you download and install SCS 11.2.4, even though you are currently in production. You can download 11.2.4 from the Download Archive in the Members' Area. The main reason for this recommendation is that you are currently using 11.1.2, but 11.1.3 "Included a new version of the BASS audio library which supports asynchronous file reading/buffering: data is read from the file in advance by a separate thread. This has been implemented in SCS for ASIO outputs to provide significantly better buffering and clean ASIO playback." There have been many other enhancements as well since 11.1.2.

[Robert Krukowski]

Hi Mike,

Thanks for the suggestions. The Digico MADI device does not seem to support the DirectSound drivers. I did update the software to 11.2.4 and everything ran smooth this week..... until tonight when the problem occurred again. The default buffer is set to 1500 milliseconds. DO you think that increasing this would help the situation?

Any other suggestions?

Thanks again,
Bob

[Mike Daniell]

I'm surprised. ASIO should play cleanly with the latest version of SCS. I presume you've checked the USB connection is firmly in place? Other connections are also firm?

I did find this info in a UB MADI ReadMe file:

Two small system changes are recommended to improve stability of Windows when
recording or playing back high channel count audio streams such as those
provided by UB MADI:

1) Disable unnecessary visual effects.
In order to change this, right-click on My Computer and click on Properties.
Then under the Advanced tab click on the Performance Settings button. Select
Adjust for Best Performance and click Apply.
2) Prioritise processing for background tasks.
By default Windows prioritises graphical applications, but audio processing
and buffering counts as a background task.
In order to change this priority, again right-click on My Computer and click
on Properties. Then under the Advanced tab click on the Performance Settings
button. Under this window's Advanced tab change Programs to Background
Services.

Item 2 above (background services) is fairly important - I always implement this on a new machine. You might want to implement item 1 as well, but this will make you Win7 machine look rather like an XP machine.