I hope somebody can help!! The oddest thing happened with my computer. Suddenly the audio playback is all jerky. It happens on all audio programs (winamp, windows media player and BIAB). I am listening through headphones. I didnt change anything but was wonderng if it was disk space related so I cleared some space. Rebooted serveral times. Have run the windows utilities to fix problems but nothing.

Edited to add: My changes seem to have improved the playback in other programs but RealBand is still jerky. It seems to get worse as the song goes along

Hi Josie,

A couple of thoughts spring to mind ...

1. Try disabling your antivirus software and see if that helps?

It might be that a new antivirus engine was installed without your knowing and it's working its way through updating file information.

2. Try defragmenting your hard drive. Earlier this year, I had playback issues and a defrag fixed the problem.

Out of curiosity, how much free hard drive space do you have available?

Regards,
Noel

Hi Noel
Thanks I will try that. It is possible that a new version of anti virus was installed yesterday because I went into the office. I now have about 29 gigs left. ( after cleaning out) not too sure what it got down to before the disk clean out. Will let you know if any of this helps.
Kind regards

I've read that is isn't so much the amount of free space on the drive (your 29 GB), but a percentage that counts. You should have at least 10% free, preferably 15%. If you have a typical modern drive of 500 GB, or even 1 or 2 TB, your drive is still too full, leading to what is called "thrashing" by the OS (continuous paging between memory and the hard drive).

Is it possible you have a new driver installed, such as for a video card, or you have just started using wireless networking? Try downloading the free utility, DPC Latency Checker. If you see red spikes,some driver is causing trouble (good instructions on the program's website).

I'd look at the audio drivers. Be sure some sort of update hasn't occurred and set things differently.

Assumption is that you have rebooted and the problem persists.

If you are not using an external interface for music, do a reset to factory defaults on BB/RB and see if that solves the issue.

What are your system specs?

Also check your audio buffers as they may have been changed.

Another possibility is that you have a bug in your computer, some kind of adware that is trying to communicate with the Internet. If you don't have them already get free versions of Ccleaner, http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner
and anti-malwarebytes http://www.malwarebytes.org/

Run these and your anti-virus in safe mode.

Good luck.

Josie:

You said:

"... because I went into the office."

I take it from that:

- you're using a laptop

- when you're in the office you're connected to the internet, and when at home, you're not.

If that's the case, I would disable your internet connection altogether when at home. Your computer may be trying to "update" something (as was mentioned) or it is just "listening" for something (e.g. Facebook).

Let us know what finally cures it.
I know a couple of people that are having the same problem.
I'll report back if I hear a solution from them.

Good luck too!
LLOYD S

Hi guys. Thanks I will try all those things. Lloyd, yes it is a laptop that I take to work. There it connects to the corporate network and who know what updates are happening! At home I am connected to my home wifi. Herb. It is a dell laptop (a vostro I think). I have a sneaky suspicion it is something to do with ozone because I used an ozone effect for the first time on my vocal track. If I disable the effect the file seems to play alright!
Will report back if I learn anything. Alternatively (and probably best) is to buy another dang computer!

Ozone is best used when mastering. If you like what Ozone can do, but want it for regular playback or mixing, consider getting Alloy, another program from Izotope. It's designed for mixing not mastering, and the load on computer resources is considerably less.

Ozone can be a system resource hog and yes, the playback can suffer when the computer is struggling to keep up. Both Ozone and Melodyne are "high maintenance" plug ins that require a lot of computer power to run them in real time.

I actually had similar problems when I was using my Dell Laptop. My CPU usage would go above 50% and often higher... the result was playback issues.

The Solution: Depending on the DAW you are using.... I will refer to Sonar for this answer because that's what I use.

I will use the "Process Audio" command which takes the plug-in and it's settings and then applies the effect of the plug-in to the track and then removes the plug and the required processing in real time and leaves simply a wave that the computer can easily handle. Bounce to track is also a workable option, however, it creates a new track with the wave but it also leaves the old track and the plug-in in the project.

I started to use the Process Audio command with my laptop and since it works so well, I continue to use it even now with my custom built studio DAW which has plenty of power to handle everything I throw at it.


BTW: I use Ozone in the master with a custom tweeked preset. I also use Ozone in the vocal bus as well as in the bass/drum kit bus. All the instances are custom presets. Most of them are left to run live during the mix down since my DAW can easily handle them. When I insert Melodyne, I always process it out and leave the wave. I don't need Melodyne to run live in all my vocal tracks..... as I sometimes have 5 or more vox tracks. My DAW could probably handle it but I don't need to push the envelope that far.

So try that. Bounce or process the plugs out to audio. See if that makes a difference in playback.

Thanks Guys. Will be working on this shortly and will let you know what I find out.

Josie, another FREE thing to try:

Go to your "RUN" command then type:

"CHKDSK /F" (without the quotes) and it will check for corrupted system files and fix (/F) them on the fly.

Coincidentally, I just did my desktop yesterday after getting: "Warning: Unresponsive Script" messages.

It seems to have resolved the problem. Firefox said: Try running FF with all plugins disabled (There is a "Tools" option for that), no help.

A caveat, a CHKDSK will take awhile to complete so be patient. It will create a log file which may be helpful in isolating the all-important CAUSE.

HTH

I certainly can relate to your frustration.

Hi All

Just some feedback.

I deleted the sound drivers (via the device manager). Deleted them completely from my computer. Then I rebooted so that it automatically reinstalled the drivers. Seems to have worked!!

Thanks all for your help.

Glad it's OK but that description makes it seem like coincidence. Rebooting would not reinstall drivers that had been deleted.

Hi Matt. It was a solution that I found under "Troubleshoot sound problems" on the Dell website. The computer obviously recognises that it is missing the sound drivers on bootup and reinstalls. Seems like an easy way to reinstall drivers that have gone funny. Risky, I suppose, but I had nothing to loose because the sound on my computer was completely toast anyway.

That solution is a good one.

I work on computers for security related purposes and yes... on the the "fixes" is often to delete the drivers and then reboot.

The computer WILL reinstall the proper drivers and most of the time it solves the issue. A simple reboot doesn't fix a corrupted driver BUT, remove it and reinstall it fresh and waaa laaa.... it works again.

Good to hear you got it fixed.

And....BTW, I do recall doing that on my computer as well, but not for music related things...... good to be reminded of this.

Good. What we did not know is that you are using the internal supplied soundcard. My comment had assumed you used something else.