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Post by svart on Jan 29, 2019 12:23:49 GMT -6
ragan - thinking..... ....... for what it's worth. Back in the day - old school - the voltage coming out of the walls varied quite a bit from day to day, and the "speed" of your multitrack (JH24 for me) could vary depending on the day and even time of day. Just slightly, but there nonetheless. And it is / was enough to cause "sync" problems when linked to other machines over time. The solution was of course to lock the deck to a synchronizer (Timeline lynx in my case) and lock the synchronizer to Video black burst. That gave a solid speed reference 100% of the time. Problem solved. I'm wondering if the power supply on your converter is perhaps out of spec, or has a component getting ready to fail, or is just flat out unstable when fed differing voltage amounts. Which happens virtually every day unless you are very lucky or have addressed this in your studio. It seems that "when right" your inter-sample latency issue is close to spot on. That's quite fortunate as there is no cure for that in the digital world. What is perplexing (especially for you... ) is that it varies on different days. You've got to look at the reasons that can / could happen. IMO, the obvious ones are : - Computer OS and clocking issues - AC voltage feeding your studio - Instability of Interface - which can vary the round trip latency by just BARELY enough to cause problems. All of these are extremely tricky to track down. The computer and AC voltage are moving targets and virtually never the same day to day. Maybe next time it happens you can swap out your interface? A PITA, but a place to start.... The PT software - unless glitched by external sources should be spot on every time. It's not a "variable" that can change. It should work or not work. The external electronics are another matter altogether IME. Good luck! Interesting ideas. It's another "I'm not far enough in school yet" to know, for me. svart Got any thoughts? In the age of SMPS, there is no relationship to either frequency or amplitude of the incoming AC. The SMPS is generally isolated, and the switching rate is controlled through closed-loop processes in the hundreds of KHz or MHz. Most of the time the controller IC's are set with a loop filter of RC components, which sometimes incorporate electrolytic caps, but if these were going bad, they generally don't work good one day and bad the next. They tend to lose their values in a relatively linear fashion which would equate to a steadily declining/increasing switching frequency, which of course, is not used for timing for anything else.. So no, today's devices are not sensitive to incoming AC frequency or amplitude. The JH24 used DC motors powered by PLL driven servos at 96KHz. That's very unlikely the AC amplitude or frequency affected these directly. Now, it did use voltage variable pitch controls, so it's more likely that the unit needed recapping, replacement of the voltage regulation or better filtering for this circuit and probably resulted in an unsteady DC control of pitch rather than the AC causing the problem itself. it's also possible that the tape during the JH24 development era was thinner than the later tape, and thus the unit was designed to have a certain amount of torque during normal operation. Increased torque necessary for thicker tape would increase current draw, and exacerbate voltage droop caused by poor filtering or poor DC voltage regulation. Anyway, have you looked to see if your computer is enabling CPU throttling? Sometimes they can reduce the CPU clock rates and maybe your system is locking in the ping at a higher clock speed(read: lower latency) and when you start to use it, it's at a slightly lower CPU clock and thus a slightly higher latency?
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Post by drbill on Jan 29, 2019 12:33:26 GMT -6
Another thought.... Over the years Digi / Avid have had varying degrees of "cooperation" with 3rd party manufacturers. Depending on when your interface was built, your hardware / drivers may have been built / implemented at at time when they were in Avid's good graces....or NOT. If you fall in the "not" category, your'e essentially screwed, and may experience anomalies throughout the life of that interface in your system. Future firmware / driver situation may (or may not) solve the issues. Aside from the sonics (which I love), that's another reason I bought the Avid converters. They don't have to jerry rig a system to work, and are not at war with themselves. We’ve I’m guessing had different experiences with interfaces. I’ve been running various non-Digi/Avid units for years with no “war”. You might be right about the underlying narrative but there’s been no hassle for me at all. Sound goes in, sound comes out and I do what I want to it in PT. You're at war, you just don't know it!! LOL This thread is just one battle in the war. My first go round was with Digital Performer when MOTU started making their own interfaces. Prior to MOTU selling interfaces, life was golden. Then, once MOTU started selling interfaces, all of a sudden, DP, which was flawless with Digi hardware previously didn't work well anymore. Enough so that I ended up dumping DP which was my preferred Film writing software. It's pretty well documented that AVID is not always completely forthcoming with 3rd party companies who write drivers and design hardware to be used with their (AVID's) software.
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Post by ragan on Jan 29, 2019 13:05:15 GMT -6
We’ve I’m guessing had different experiences with interfaces. I’ve been running various non-Digi/Avid units for years with no “war”. You might be right about the underlying narrative but there’s been no hassle for me at all. Sound goes in, sound comes out and I do what I want to it in PT. You're at war, you just don't know it!! LOL This thread is just one battle in the war. My first go round was with Digital Performer when MOTU started making their own interfaces. Prior to MOTU selling interfaces, life was golden. Then, once MOTU started selling interfaces, all of a sudden, DP, which was flawless with Digi hardware previously didn't work well anymore. Enough so that I ended up dumping DP which was my preferred Film writing software. It's pretty well documented that AVID is not always completely forthcoming with 3rd party companies who write drivers and design hardware to be used with their (AVID's) software. Oh I have no doubt Avid wants to push out the folks who make better boxes than them. But if it's a war, Avid is losing as far as I'm concerned. MH, UA and Apogee interfaces have all been a delight to use with Pro Tools, sorry Avid. And according to your theory, parallel processing via DAW inserts is just problematic by nature, regardless of whether you're using HDX with an Avid interface or PT Native with any other unit.
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Post by drbill on Jan 29, 2019 13:15:42 GMT -6
You're at war, you just don't know it!! LOL This thread is just one battle in the war. My first go round was with Digital Performer when MOTU started making their own interfaces. Prior to MOTU selling interfaces, life was golden. Then, once MOTU started selling interfaces, all of a sudden, DP, which was flawless with Digi hardware previously didn't work well anymore. Enough so that I ended up dumping DP which was my preferred Film writing software. It's pretty well documented that AVID is not always completely forthcoming with 3rd party companies who write drivers and design hardware to be used with their (AVID's) software. Oh I have no doubt Avid wants to push out the folks who make better boxes than them. But if it's a war, Avid is losing as far as I'm concerned. MH, UA and Apogee interfaces have all been a delight to use with Pro Tools, sorry Avid. And according to your theory, parallel processing via DAW inserts is just problematic by nature, regardless of whether you're using HDX with an Avid interface or PT Native with any other unit. Better is in the eye and ear of the beholder. But.... Yes. Parallel processing is a problem with any interface Avid or otherwise. I'm happy that your experiences outside the corral been delightful. Unfortunately, many have not been as lucky as you. Or you have just not been around as long as I have. But even you are currently experiencing "problems" that are deeper than merely trying to do something (parallel processing) that shouldn't really work right. (Even if close) It's almost certainly driver / interface related, and that boils down to how forthright AVID have been with their 3rd party developers. There was a time when Apogee stuff worked great. Then it didn't work at all for a season. Then they started working again. All relating to how much info AVID gave developers (who are all capable). I work at this for a living. I need my converters to work every day. The same as they did yesterday and the day before. That - and sonics - are why I chose the HD converters for my current system. AVID may shoot other developers in the foot - depending on the season and who is in control, but they are going to at least TRY to not shoot themselves in the foot.
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Post by ragan on Jan 29, 2019 13:25:40 GMT -6
Oh I have no doubt Avid wants to push out the folks who make better boxes than them. But if it's a war, Avid is losing as far as I'm concerned. MH, UA and Apogee interfaces have all been a delight to use with Pro Tools, sorry Avid. And according to your theory, parallel processing via DAW inserts is just problematic by nature, regardless of whether you're using HDX with an Avid interface or PT Native with any other unit. Better is in the eye and ear of the beholder. But.... Yes. Parallel processing is a problem with any interface Avid or otherwise. I'm happy that your experiences outside the corral been delightful. Unfortunately, many have not been as lucky as you. Or you have just not been around as long as I have. But even you are currently experiencing "problems" that are deeper than merely trying to do something (parallel processing) that shouldn't really work right. (Even if close) It's almost certainly driver / interface related, and that boils down to how forthright AVID have been with their 3rd party developers. There was a time when Apogee stuff worked great. Then it didn't work at all for a season. Then they started working again. All relating to how much info AVID gave developers (who are all capable). I work at this for a living. I need my converters to work every day. The same as they did yesterday and the day before. That - and sonics - are why I chose the HD converters for my current system. AVID may shoot other developers in the foot - depending on the season and who is in control, but they are going to at least TRY to not shoot themselves in the foot. I know the Avid stuff is very good, just being tongue in cheek. Thus far I like the Symphony and UA stuff better in blind tests but it's all high quality. And the converter differences are a long way down the list of things that would hold me back from attaining the sonics I want. Way, way down. But the phase discrepancy I experienced the other day is a fully open question and we're no nearer to knowing what caused it. Could be the Symphony, could be PT, could be some other anomaly in OS land. Educated guesses are useful (and I'm thankful for the shared insight) but they're still guesses.
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Post by drbill on Jan 29, 2019 13:45:33 GMT -6
Yes. All guesses until you find the exact culprit - which is always extremely difficult when they are intermittent. I'm just letting you know (since it seems like maybe you didn't know) that these types of issues along with glitchy audio, clicks, pops, and plug in issues were linked to 3rd party interfaces and poor PT implementation (you can blame AVID if you like, and you'd probably be right) in the past.
They are in the business of selling Hardware and Software, and open the door JUST far enough to keep users from griping. Then when no one is looking, they make a change in a new version of software - or there is a new OS - and the problems start to arise again.
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Post by ragan on Jan 29, 2019 13:59:55 GMT -6
Yes. All guesses until you find the exact culprit - which is always extremely difficult when they are intermittent. I'm just letting you know (since it seems like maybe you didn't know) that these types of issues along with glitchy audio, clicks, pops, and plug in issues were linked to 3rd party interfaces and poor PT implementation (you can blame AVID if you like, and you'd probably be right) in the past. They are in the business of selling Hardware and Software, and open the door JUST far enough to keep users from griping. Then when no one is looking, they make a change in a new version of software - or there is a new OS - and the problems start to arise again. I am definitely aware of that as a general trend. And I've had my share of straight up PT issues, like settings disappearing or just straight up PT errors where, for instance, the track was visually present but contained no actual audio (took a long time on the phone with Avid to sort that one out). PT11 was a real dog. They came out with it and then very soon after came out with PT12 which should have been fixes to PT11. Anyway, I'm not stranger to the ways of Avid. I just hadn't ever (until this one) had an issue with PT and an interface.
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Post by svart on Jan 30, 2019 8:29:23 GMT -6
Did you try turning off CPU throttling?
I had a few issues with drivers until I turned that off both at the BIOS and the OS levels.
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Post by ragan on Jan 30, 2019 10:05:21 GMT -6
Did you try turning off CPU throttling? I had a few issues with drivers until I turned that off both at the BIOS and the OS levels. I haven’t tried that yet, it’s a 3-test week so it’s all school for me right now. I should get to come up for air in 48 hours and I’ll try it.
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Post by notneeson on Jan 30, 2019 12:23:45 GMT -6
Better is in the eye and ear of the beholder. But.... Yes. Parallel processing is a problem with any interface Avid or otherwise. I'm happy that your experiences outside the corral been delightful. Unfortunately, many have not been as lucky as you. Or you have just not been around as long as I have. But even you are currently experiencing "problems" that are deeper than merely trying to do something (parallel processing) that shouldn't really work right. (Even if close) It's almost certainly driver / interface related, and that boils down to how forthright AVID have been with their 3rd party developers. There was a time when Apogee stuff worked great. Then it didn't work at all for a season. Then they started working again. All relating to how much info AVID gave developers (who are all capable). I work at this for a living. I need my converters to work every day. The same as they did yesterday and the day before. That - and sonics - are why I chose the HD converters for my current system. AVID may shoot other developers in the foot - depending on the season and who is in control, but they are going to at least TRY to not shoot themselves in the foot. I know the Avid stuff is very good, just being tongue in cheek. Thus far I like the Symphony and UA stuff better in blind tests but it's all high quality. And the converter differences are a long way down the list of things that would hold me back from attaining the sonics I want. Way, way down. But the phase discrepancy I experienced the other day is a fully open question and we're no nearer to knowing what caused it. Could be the Symphony, could be PT, could be some other anomaly in OS land. Educated guesses are useful (and I'm thankful for the shared insight) but they're still guesses. Shhhh... Avid resale prices are great due to constant slagging. Don’t tell anybody!!
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