Posted
I've tried to create a large Global Rack which contains all main plugins and sounds that I regularly use. I ended up with a rack of 18 rack modules and approx. 10 GB of sounds.
Unfortunately, it turned out that Synfire obviously has problems dealing with that amount of plugins and/or sounds: The audio playback is delayed by approximately 3 seconds relative to the playhead. In other words the playhead is 3 seconds ahead.
3 seconds offset between playhead and audio playback - that means one and a half measure at 120 bpm. That is very annoying.
Any idea how to fix this? I already tried to press the Reset button at the Audio & Midi setup window, to use different sound drivers and to tweak the driver settings.
I don't think that it has to do with computer specs. I'm on Windows 8, i7 quadcore 3,5 GHz, 32 GB Ram.
Sun, 2015-04-19 - 22:25 Permalink
If Reset doesn't help (which recalibrates the timing between Engine and Synfire), this delay is probably because loads of music need to be pushed to the Engine before start. Are you actually using all of them, or are most of them sitting idle?
I've had arrangements with 25+ instruments and 16GB of samples without issues. The Engine isn't a DAW, though. All plugins run on one CPU only, unless a plugin does its own load balancing across multiple CPUs (many NI pluins do).
Mon, 2015-04-20 - 08:57 Permalink
Are you actually using all of them, or are most of them sitting idle?
No, I used only a test arrangement. One or two instruments and short test phrases. All other sounds are sitting idle. It also makes no difference which of the sounds I use. It's the same with samplers and synths. And of course I also tested it after a complete restart of the computer.
I noticed a small offset between audio output and playhead also earlier. But not to that amount.
Will do further tests and report back then. For example I will test what happens if I strip down the rack step by step.
Mon, 2015-04-20 - 13:41 Permalink
I now remember experiencing such delays under Windows, too. For whatever reason, they went away after a day or so. I suspect other software was putting load on the machine or its resources, effectively delaying the communication between Engine and Synfire. Did not find out which, though.
Mon, 2015-04-20 - 23:22 Permalink
If you are on windows start with the normal 'shut off everything i dont want/need, its a music making machine not a games machine'
Try starting the pc, wait a couple of minutes then start synfire, load your rack/test file and then play that. Windows is sometimes very lazy at letting go of stuff, so its possible the engine was being forced to wait on the audio driver being released..
Just a thought.......
Tue, 2015-04-21 - 12:24 Permalink
Thank you André and blacksun.
You are right, the reason for the problems was not the size of the rack. One specific rack module was the culprit. That one where I loaded some EWQL orchestra sounds. If I delete that rack module, all other sounds work without any issue.
Interesting behavior. I can't say how this relates. But it is clear that the EWQL Play plugin is an unstable software anyway. If I load that rack module with the EWQL orchestra sounds alone it currently also does not work, although I know that it worked earlier. None of these instruments produce any sound in an arrangement. But if I test them at the Audio&Midi setup window they seem to work fine.
I will update to the newest version of Play and see if it works then. Otherwise it's time to ditch it.
Tue, 2015-04-21 - 21:32 Permalink
I have no major issues with Play on OS X. Save for a timing problem at higher buffer sizes (piano becomes practically unusable). I contacted technical support a EastWest, but they are very slow with responses. Heck, I even offered help with fixing it. Will push them again.
Wed, 2015-04-22 - 21:52 Permalink
Hi,
I use ewql in Synfire. i have a rack for string, a rack for woodwinds, a rack for brass. I use each instrment with KS.
I have about 15 midi chanel by rack.
I use Play with 1024 voices and max of ram (samples 24bit)
In synfire, I have latence of 1024 samples.
On Mac, I have 24GB for ram.
I can play about 15 musical lines without problem.
But, I have a problem with SDT 3 : slow slow slow....
A good new from EastWest : a good developer work on PlayPro...
Christian
Sat, 2015-04-25 - 12:00 Permalink
Hi,
You have today an update of Play (4.225) for :
Load errors with EWSO Platinum
Issues with sample paths or samples not being found
Issue with projects or instruments loading out of tune
Sat, 2015-04-25 - 13:37 Permalink
Thank you. I will try it. The download (only for Win x64) is 819 MB!!?? These guys are a little crazy, arent't they? :?
Btw: I didn't get it working with Play 3.0.25 anymore. The sounds still do not work in an arragement, but they work if I press the keys at the mouse keyboard in the audio setup window. Quite strange. It's even stranger that the sounds also work flawlessly if I relocate the rack module from the Audio Engine to a drone in Cubase.
All these sound setup issues are really annoying. You can spend hours and days with it.
Sun, 2015-04-26 - 11:35 Permalink
Update: After hours of download time I finally installed Play 4.2.25. Now, as it is to be expected, some other problems arise: Now I cannot load the keyswitch sounds from the EWQL Orchestra Silver library anymore. Get the message that I try to load a sound that does not belong to the Orchestra Silver Library (which it actually does). All other sounds however can be loaded.
That really sucks. I will remove the EWQL stuff completely from my computer. It's dispensable anyway.