3

[bpjacobsen]

This basically just happened to me last night and happens more often than I would like. It’s super annoying and way frustrating to be playing and sound just dies. Starting to think I made a huge mistake with the mini pc vs just building a decent tower. But unfortunately it will be a while before I can spring for a pc so I’m stuck with what I got for now.

 

[bpjacobsen]

Brad wrote:

Hi there,

Is the latency with all kits/presets or one in particular?

Silly question, but…. have you rebooted your host/pc and then checked?

Are you using an audio interface? If so, which one?

Can you check > Memory Details (top right) and make sure that “Cached” is not selected.

Is SD3 running as an app or as a plug-in through a DAW, if so, which one?

Assuming Windows, are you running virus protection, or any other resource intensive software at the same time? Particularly anything using the same audio interface/card.

How much RAM does your host/PC have?

32 sample buffer should be instant

Reply To:!! sudden severe latency in SD3 when hitting my drums version: 3.3.7
Operating system: macOS Sonoma (14)

• The post has been modified 1 year, 3 months ago by Brad"> 2 times, last modified 1 year, 3 months ago by Brad.

So I figured out that the culprit was my hi hat controller connection to one of the eDrumin 4 boxes. the issue stopped when unplugging it then started again when plugging it back in. So I moved it to the next eDrumin 4 box in my collection and now it works fine. Very odd. Wonder why this suddenly started happening or what is wrong with the pedal controller connection on the one box.

[bpjacobsen]

OK, I just finally figured it out. I had to go into Reaper prefs under midi devices and right click on the line for eDrumin then select ‘include input in all midi inputs’. Now I can record myself playing. and I guess the same setting will apply for the Audio Interface once I plug in my keyboard etc. finally, getting somewhere!

[bpjacobsen]

Shen G wrote:

drumjack52 wrote:

I never said my computer was the fastest in the world – those are your words.

I wasn’t being literal.  I just think that your suggestion that the OP needs to upgrade his PC is wrong.  I don’t know if my comparing it to yours offended you?  And your assertion that your Mac is in any way faster hardware wise is bizarre.  Then I fell for your smart arse “try again” comment, sorry about the snarkyness that followed.

I get you’re trying to help.  Same here.  I don’t think a new machine is his answer.

Having said that, from your other thread BP, a new bigger faster SSD for that M.2 slot wouldn’t hurt.  I’m just thinking there is a bottleneck elsewhere.  What kind of speeds does task manager show up to when loading?  That 38MB/s is so low.  HWiNFO may be easier to get a reading and or you can check USB connection versions.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/hwinfo/

I also spent days looking up windows optimisations and spent hours setting up my previous windows machine, but with the latest I basically just went a clean install (the cleaner LTSC version though), install latest drivers, set power profile to performance and it’s been fine.  Perhaps run something like ShutUp10 for a basic clean up.

https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10

I feel like a lot of those guides are outdated winXP era kinda stuff.

Thanks for all the suggestions. No doubt a 2 tb PCIE SSD would certainly be ideal for this mini pc. Once I start to play around with Reaper a bit I should get a better feel for how it performs and what upgrades might best suit my use.

[bpjacobsen]

Shen G wrote:

I saw you made a new what to buy thread bpjacobsen, but I really don’t think your PC is the problem, specs wise.  It’s plenty fast. I dare say faster than a 2012 mac pro 😛  barring some of that magic Apple fairy dust.

As an eDrumin fan, I’d also trust what Rob says 😛  Don’t mean to call you out drumjack, you’re helpful and asked some good questions.  And tbh, I’m the kind of guy that likes plenty of spare room and 450mA out of 500 makes me uneasy 😀  But I don’t think that has anything to do with bpj’s issues anyway.

 

It seems you’re knowledgable enough to not be running a bloated prebuilt like drumjack asked, and I half expected to find you were using a $20 bargain SSD you found on ebay  or something to begin with.

One thing that stands out is the 38MB/s reading is task manager.  That seems too low and makes me think some part of that USB chain may be running at 2.0 speeds.  And you say it seems like something new and I feel like I have heard of issues with devices “down versioning” their connection, but don’t have experience with it myself.  See if you can get faster speeds perhaps.  File copy or CrystalDiskMark etc.

When I built my new PC esp for SD3, a Ryzen 5700x, X570 motherboard, PCIe 4.0 drive etc, I was underwhelmed by the speedup from the old PC.  It seems to me that the SD3 software is very single threaded despite the Performance setting for number of CPU cores , judging by the 12.5%ish CPU usage when loading kits and I guess decompressing (from lossless) in to RAM.  Perhaps the cores setting helps with a lot of FX?

My Drive Model: Samsung 980 PRO with Heatsink 1TB seems to max out at about 1GB/s when loading kits/bleed.  It benchmarks up to 6GB/s sequential, but down to 90MB/s at worst random reads.  I also wonder if the nature of many samples being loaded makes it a workload closer to random.  Seems like something that could be optimised for though?

 

Also don’t get cought up on the PCIe 4/5/6 max bandwidth things.  Even 5 requires active cooling to maintain performance at those speeds.  And fans on a storage device is something I just can’t abide!

 

I’ve often wondered about SD3 performance characteristics.  I’d be happy to try doing different tests for curiosity sake.

Reply To: Slow load time when loading projects version: 3.3.7
Operating system: Windows 10

the beelink mini pc does have one usb 2 port on it. the rest are 3 but I’m using the usb3 for the audio interface AND the host eDrumin box. I probably will just get a powered USB anyway for the sake of piece of mind. Can only help.

• The post has been modified 2 times, last modified 1 year, 4 months ago by bpjacobsen.

[bpjacobsen]

Shen G wrote:

I posted in your other thread about the lack of need for an upgrade, but here I’d also like to suggest trying Reaper if you want.  It’s not technically free, but basically is with a 5 sec nag screen.  And it’s so cheap I ended up paying for it anyway.  But you can at least dip your toes in without commitment.

Can you recommend a good tutorial for someone like myself that is just starting to explore the whole DAW scene? Also, what generally is the DAW used for? From what I can tell, it allows you to add tracks of samples or instruments you have connected to the interface etc and allows you to mix them. basically record music I guess. Seems like with just SD3, you are way limited in that you have to basically route all mics to one channel to get them to record everything together which is not ideal. Any  tips, resources on reaper, info you can provide to give me a better sense of what all it is used for would be awesome. thanks

[bpjacobsen]

Mark King wrote:

Just get the PCIe ssd for now and enjoy playing.

When you say DAW it really depends on how you will use it, to how powerful your pc needs to be. Running at low latencies (which you need to do for any vsti) takes a lot of power, especially if projects are getting large. If you want a DAW to record drums only and have no interest in recording full songs and other vst instruments, then you don’t need anything too powerful. But remember once you start you may want to do more.

I work with a DAW (Cubase 13 pro) to record, produce and can still run out of steam on a three year old i9 running at 5Ghz with 32gig memory. The cost of my pc was £1800 and is not in the highest bracket (would be similar in dollars) your budget gets a low end machine even if you build it yourself.

• This post was modified 1 year, 4 months ago by Mark King.

Oh wow, OK well that stinks. Guess I will be sticking with just sd3 then. Sounds like I can’t afford to throw DAW into the ‘mix’. Pun intended. I dn realize how much power it required to do recording and such. Sheesh! Looks like that would really be a sizeable investment. 😬

[bpjacobsen]

I’m definitely not new to computers, but I’m no expert either. I work in software support, just not the hardware stuff. But I admit, I’m not up to date on the latest and greatest.

I managed to copy my SDX pack libraries to the SATA SSD that is connected inside the pc. for those packs, it takes between 12 and 18 seconds to load those presets/projects. Then you go to a project from the SD3 library that is stored on the PCIe 3 SSD and it takes about 5-6 seconds or so. So I can see the obvious benefit of having them all on a PCI SSD. So eventually, I will probably just upgrade my pc when I save up some money. I can live with the  speed for now but I do look forward to PCI 4 or 5. LOL

[bpjacobsen]

I keep learning more and more about what I have so this is a good thing. Unfortunately, I’m realizing I should have done this research on SSD etc before buying my pc. I’m missing out on double the bandwidth since my mini pc uses a PCIe 3 x4 which means 4gb per second since each ‘lane’ transfers at 1gb/sec. the PCIe 4 is double. But really, even just updating my PCIe 3 to a 2tb thus allowing all my samples/libraries to be connected there will no doubt cut load times way down. For now, I am in the process of copying the rest of my libraries to the internal SATA connected SSD so at least that will be a little faster until I can upgrade in the future. Seems like the 2.5 inch Sata are fine for keeping backups of stuff as they are cheap, but the PCIe is the way to go for best performance. Oh, and yes, my pc has an M.2 PCIe 3 SSD slot. My plan is to update that to a 2tb so I can put all samples and libraries there. should help a lot with speed. Or even if copying the libraries to the internal SATA SSD is good enough improvement in load time, I may just hold off and get a better PC when I can.

thanks

• The post has been modified 2 times, last modified 1 year, 4 months ago by bpjacobsen.

[bpjacobsen]

drumjack52 wrote:

The reason I say to use a powered USB hub is because you’re not sharing the 500ma from the computer amongst several devices; each device will have it’s own 500ma to draw from. I know you cite numbers from this Rob person but I’d not trust them. I have never had good luck with passive USB hubs. SATA to USB port – not good. What specific adapter are you using? What flavor of USB do you have? USB 2, USB3 or what? That’s important. Fast loading also depends on the size of the preset being loaded. For instance from a cold start with SD3 loading the DW kit from Death (of Death and Darkness) in 24 bit and loading all to ram takes a little over 20 seconds. SSD with samples as stated in my sig file.

 

Do you mean PCIE and not PCLE? What is PCLe3.0?

Reply To: Slow load time when loading projects version: 3.3.7
Operating system: macOS High Sierra (10.13)

The Death/Darkness, fields of rock, and legacy of rock libraries are connected to usb 3.2. There is only one usb 2 port on this pc which I just moved the unifying mouse/keyboard receiver to, but going to prob just get a powered hub so I can put it back into the front usb 3.2 port. the mouse connected to the back usb 2 is not working well, rather spotty connection. Anyway, I did copy the SD3 library to the PCI 3 and it def loads faster than the sata one though really only a difference of a few seconds maybe. But the Cattle preset in the Death library took nearly 60 seconds via the usb 3.2 connection.

[bpjacobsen]

drumjack52 wrote:

As a general rule I would NEVER use an unpowered hub. But you missed one very important thing – have you done any optimizations on your computer like getting rid of all the bloatware that Windows has? What other things do you have running? Do you have any wireless stuff running? How are the SSD’s with the samples connected to the computer? What exact SSD’s are you using?

Reply To: Slow load time when loading projects version: 3.3.7
Operating system: macOS High Sierra (10.13)

You keep saying to use a powered hub but have not explained why. Does it help with load times? I don’t think it has anything to do with that as far as I am aware. See previous quote from Rob, the ED dude. He clearly explains the breakdown of mA these units consume and indicates a powered hub is not necessary. But I would love to hear more of your stance as to your reasoning for using a powered hub.

That aside, I went in and uninstalled a bunch of crap I don’t need. Also disabled WiFi since I’m using a wired connection via a GB mesh router.

I think possibly my issue with load time is in how I’m connecting the SSD with the libraries on it. I suspect I would get better performance if the libraries were on the SATA mounted SSD instead of being plugged in with a SATA/USB adapter to a USB port? Not sure why I didn’t think of this before. (DUH) So the SSD all of my add on (SDX packs) libraries are installed on and connected externally to a USB port is the following:

The smaller SSD which is the stock one inside the box just has windows on it basically. the added Sata  mounted internal 1tb SSD has the stock SD3 library on it and all my external samples + my projects on this SSD:   https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09WMP5B5N/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&th=1

I also confirmed the projects that pull mostly samples from the SD3 library load significantly faster than the others so it makes sense that my main culprit is the method of connection for the SSD with the add on libraries. So I think one of my solutions is to just get a good 2TB SSD and use that for all libraries and samples. But now my question is this: Is it worth upgrading the internal 500gb PCLe3.0 SSD to a 2TB since that is technically faster than using the SATA SSD? Wonder how much faster it would be? Would rather not wait more than a few seconds for the samples to load. The SD3 projects via the SATA take about 6-10 seconds to load. The other ones on the USB external take sometimes between 20 and 40 seconds or so. I may see if the SD3 library will fit on the current PCLe drive so I can compare but I am not sure if it will be enough space. I need to check. And I realize even pcl 3 is approaching dated and the latest is pcl5. but I don’t need to spend a zillion dollars on the latest and greatest SSD either. Maybe a pcl4 but my pc only handles a 3 so I need to work with what I got for now until I can afford to upgrade down the road.

Please confirm if my above assessment is accurate or if anything else can be done to improve all this. Would like recommendations for a decent SSD or what to look for in those for best speed.  Thanks all for the input/feedback/suggestions/wisdom etc. LOL

• The post has been modified 3 times, last modified 1 year, 4 months ago by bpjacobsen.

[bpjacobsen]

drumjack52 wrote:

The MIDI connections should have nothing to do with session load times. Where are your samples located? You only give specs for one SSD – is that your system drive – is that where your samples are? If so that’s a very small drive to host your system and samples. Either get a bigger/faster SSD or a separate drive for samples.

Have you done any optimizations to your computer? Just because you have a gaming computer doesn’t mean it’s ok for music. Generally off the shelf Windows machines have a LOT of excess processes running that should be shut down. What version of Windows are you running? Also I’d get a powered USB hub.

What daw software are you running? How many tracks in the session. What preset in SD3 are you loading? Are you loading all to ram? Depending on what other processes you have running you could be running out of ram. I just looked up your computer and I seriously doubt you’ll get top notch performance out of it with music.

Reply To: Slow load time when loading projects version: 3.3.7
Operating system: macOS High Sierra (10.13)

• This post was modified 1 year, 4 months ago by drumjack52.

sorry, I should have mentioned, I am running a 1TB ssd for the OS. The stock library is on that internal but the other libraries are on an external 1tb SSD. I’m running it on 16 bit with the UA volt 4 Audio Interface.

As for powered USB, Rob who sells eDrumin said the following: “ED4 uses about 50mA, and each ED8 uses about 100mA, and a typically hub will use 100mA. Assuming you have on ED8 connected to your computer, a hub connected to that ED8’s host port, and then 2 ED8s and a ED4 connected to the hub, then you are using about 100+100+100×2+50 = 450mA, which is below the USB 2.0 maximum of 500mA. From the hub’s perspective, it’s using 100 + 100×2 + 50 = 350. Assuming you aren’t using any super long USB cables, then you shouldn’t need a powered USB hub.”

So why do you feel a powered hub is needed? I don’t think it has anything to do with load times though.

attaching screenshots showing task mgr which shows low cpu, disk, and ram usage. also system info, drives, and library paths. You will see that my libraries are on 1tb SSDs. only using the c drive for the OS. plenty of space left on that one. So this would appear to be neither a ram or drive space issue.

BTW, I’m not currently running a DAW. Just playing the drums directly via SD3.

[bpjacobsen]

HMM, so it appears that this happens when doing ‘remove instrument’ on my 2nd kick where one exists. last two times that is when it happened. Hopefully once I finish what I am doing, this issue goes away for the most part. But any insight would be welcome.

[bpjacobsen]

Stand alone

specs attached

added dump file earlier to initial post.

happens on basically every project or every other in more than one library, though it seems like lately since updating projects in the death/darkness folder, it’s happening more frequently I will have to see what happens when I go to the next folder which will be fields of Rock. I have my projects saved in folders named after the libraries.

all I am doing when it happens is I open a project and this last crash, I was removing my extra kick instrument. I will need to pay close attention to see if that is when it happens each time but pretty sure sometimes it just crashes when opening the project.

 

[bpjacobsen]

OK, so I figured out the issue but still not sure how this happened. Somehow this instrument got routed to an amb bus or channel that was turned way down. I re-routed to the same mic that was assigned to the pad directly next to it. Somehow it seems like the mic for that instrument just up and disappeared. I see mic 20 and 22 etc but no 21?? Anyone know how I could have lost a mic? Makes no sense to me.

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