Audio glitch when scratching

[Darryl]

Can any volunteers try the following experiment for me please to see if it gives the same the same result for you?

1. Run OtsAV
2. Play a track in Deck A
3. Cross fade to Deck A
4. Play a track in Deck B
5. Scratch (with the decks on screen or a controller - it doesn't matter when I try it) back to the start of the track in Deck B.
6. Continue to scratch in Deck B backwards.

On my system the output crackles and the wave form in OtsAV stutters.  I'm suspecting that my laptop is just underpowered for 1.90.  If it does it on a more powerful system it might indicate a problem in OtsAV.

Thanks.

[Dale James]

Tested audio & audio/video and all is OK.

Tested with 64-b OS, i7 (Q720 @ 1.60Ghz x 2) & 4Gb Ram

Tested without controller as HC4500 is not with me ATM.

[djandy]

all working fine even with video

[Ots_Steve]

Can any volunteers try the following experiment for me please to see if it gives the same the same result for you?

1. Run OtsAV
2. Play a track in Deck A
3. Cross fade to Deck A
4. Play a track in Deck B
5. Scratch (with the decks on screen or a controller - it doesn't matter when I try it) back to the start of the track in Deck B.
6. Continue to scratch in Deck B backwards.

On my system the output crackles and the wave form in OtsAV stutters.  I'm suspecting that my laptop is just underpowered for 1.90.  If it does it on a more powerful system it might indicate a problem in OtsAV.

Thanks.

Hi Darryl,

You seem to be reporting a few strange things in the last week that only you have experienced/reported (toolbar thing, blue screen with Breakaway, and now this), suggesting maybe something specific to your system. I had the thought you may have a flaky memory chip and that is the fundamental reason for the strange occurrences. Have you recently given Goldmem or Memtest a run on your system? It could be worth a check.

Let us know if it is memory or if you find out why these things are occurring.

Ots_Steve

[Darryl]

Good suggestion Steve.  I'll give it a whirl.  This laptop is old (and I suspect that it is dying).

[Darryl]

I'll fire up the other laptop next - it hasn't had 1.90 on it yet.  If that behaves OK I'll use this one as the backup.

[Darryl]

It appears to be my dodgy hardware then - it works perfectly on the other computer (so far).   Thanks for the input.

[Dale James]

phew! 

[Darryl]

As Steve points out, I've had several weird things on the other laptop over the last few days of soak testing Ots AV 1.90.  None of these symptoms exist on the other laptop:
MIDI Controller - jog wheel was only doing pitch bend - no tempo bend (OK on 2nd laptop)
Toolbar buttons - stopped working after the first run (OK on 2nd laptop)

But the audio problem when scratching back to the beginning of a song has now shown up on the 2nd laptop.  I loose video sync at the same time.

There is another hardware addition (common to both machines) that could be a suspect - I purchased a star tech Express Card USB3.0 interface to run a new external hard disk.  I'll uninstall it and see if the problem still occurs on the 2nd laptop.

[Darryl]

Well unplugging it makes no difference - too much data on the USB bus maybe?  I'll try the old Numark Total Control again - perhaps the MC3000 is swamping the USB bus (it has a setting to change the data send rate).

[Darryl]

It appears to be the MC3000 (bear in mind I am not using it for audio - I'm using an Yamaha USB audio card still).  When I turn the MC3000 off the problem goes away.  I'll change the midi message rate.

[Darryl]

Setting the MIDI command transmission interval time to 20ms on the MC3000 improves this.  It must be upsetting the USB bus somehow.  I still think I need a PC with more grunt Core 2 Duo is quite old technology now (I've had these laptops for a good 5 years).

[Darryl]

I've just moved the USB cable for MC3000 so that it no longer shares the USB bus with the sound card.  It's improved things a little.

Just to re-iterate (in case its been missed in my ramblings):  Only the scratch problem crackle remains - the tool bar, tempo bend buttons were just on the 1st laptop.