PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums PowerTracks Pro Audio PT slowing down while playing file ... to a crawl!

PT 2016 on W7

Just started happening a little while ago. No idea what changed . . .

EX: I have a midi file with say 10 tracks with midi instruments. If I have, for example, 3 tracks of different (or the same) instruments that play the same thing, at the same time, let's say 3 guitars strumming a C chord . . . an acoustic, clean electric and what ever, when the track plays, when it gets to that measure it slows WAY down, starts distorting, kinda sputters . . . and if I don't stop the track soon enough (like QUICK!) it gets hung up and plays the rest of the file to the end, SLOW and sputtering and distorted. And you cannot stop the track. All controls are locked up. It can take 15 to 30 minutes or longer to play the whole track through before quitting.

NOTE: I can open the exact file in RB and have ZERO issues. It plays in any other midi player with no issue.

The reason for having several tracks with the same "notes" and different instruments is to create a thicker sound, or sometimes to mix instruments to get a different sound. Like stacking synths to get more synth sounds/combos. But recently PT craps out when I do this.

I though it might be in the polyphony settings but I cannot for the life of me find the "CoyoteWT property page" to check the poly settings. No idea where that is. But then again, are poly settings the problem? And how would they have changed on their own?

TIA! Wayne

If you can play the same file in RB, do your Audio & MIDI settings in PT match RB?

Do they match in PT to RB? At one time they did. It's obvious they do now now.

2 issues . . . 1). I just tried to duplicate the problem, and I cannot get it to do so. It's working fine. And I have done absolutely nothing.
The problem just . . . stopped.

2). Parameters in my settings have been changing "on their own". Now before you start telling me I'm a complete novice and an idiot . . .

I'll be 73 in a few weeks. Wrote my first computer program in September of 1968. Computers have been a part of my career my entire life.

I've never changed the Time Display Format/SMPTE settings since 2006. Not in PT nor RB. Twice in the past few days they changed from Normal to SMPTE.
I found out because I went to edit some events and the edit window had too many time fields. Close it, checked, re-set it to Normal. 2 times!

Another parameter that keeps changing . . . The audio file type. I have a midi track. I render it to .wav. Should be, has always been 16B 44.1. That rate
changes to one that won't allow PT editor to edit the track. I get as prompt saying PT has no editing tools for that rate. I close it. Check it in audio
settings. Sure enough it's no longer even one of the 16 bit options in the list! So I re-select 16B 44.1. When I do I get a prompt asking if I want to
convert the wave track to 16B 44.1. I say yes. It does the conversion. Then the audio editor works fine.

I suspect a setting somewhere is causing the polyphony issue as well but I cannot find where to edit polyphony. Help Manual says look in the "CoyoteWT property page".
I have no idea where that is.

While we're talking about stuff changing . . . Anyone know why my events keep adding on their own. EX: I open events list for say, track 1, piano. I edit in half a dozen events. Mostly CCs. Do the same for the other tracks. Next time I open the event list for track one there are the same half a dozen events, repeated anywhere from 5 to 20 times. Same for the other tracks. I end up with literally 100s of extra events.

Additionally, there will now be events scattered randomly throughout the track. There will be maybe 2 or 3 events, same ones, scattered all through the events list. Always in the same order with the same values.

I clean them all out. Save the file. Close it. Open it again, and there are again 100s of redundant events in every track . . . EXCEPT the drum track. I've never seen even one added event pop into any drum tracks, channel 10. But all other tracks are LOADED with redundant events.

I've talked with tech support numerous times and they tell me it's because I'm copying this or that and yadda yadda yadda. But if I start with a file with half a dozen tracks that have ZERO events in their event list . . . How is it that after I edit in 5 or 6 events, those 5 or 6 become a 100!?!

OK, I'm done venting! LOL Anyone have a clue what's going on? If so, gimme a holler! Wayne

Wayne I understand that you are frustrated, but when some one offers to discuss the issue with like RHarv did you bite the hand, it makes folks far less interested in helping. The users here help out of kindness they are not obligated to help. He ask a simple question that you didn’t answer. What would be the motivation to ask another question? Just a little food for thought.

My guess is since no one else seems to be having these type issues then it has to be in your setup somewhere.

Hello Harpmeister!

We know this is an older issue, but we're just checking in to see if you ended up having your issue resolved. If not, you're welcome to contact us at support@pgmusic.com anytime for assistance.

Hello everyone!
Although this is the company's forum and not a user forum, it is always the users who answer problems. In this case the support of the company chimes in months later.

More and more I get the impression that PT is "abandonware" - the "new" features in v2022 are minimalistic to me and found elsewhere since many years. Still missing is object orientated work in the tracks window and graphic overhaul of the mixer window.

I use PT since 1995 (v3.5 and v8.0) which I like still very much. The purchase of v2018 was a mistake.

Actually you lost me as a customer.

Greetings, Michael