Help - corrupted file? Horrible white noise/static

[aaronlyon]

I didn't notice it mentioned, but this is the same noise you get when you accidentally rename and replace files with names of former files that haven't been flushed from memory. A system pointer error, I assume, trying to play a file with expected name that now has different properties. In that case you get the visual 'log of death' solid block waveform representation. Maybe some relation between the two issues.

Good point! This isn't a clock or audio converter issue, this is a filesystem error! It makes sense: what is white noise at maximum amplitude? It looks almost exactly like binary data chosen at random from unexpected areas of the hard drive!

[mrgkeys]

For me, there is always a small part of audio at the beginning that is fine and then the "Visual Log of Death" waveform starts... if you zoom down far enough, the waveform does look random. If it is a file system issue, why do 20 tracks record fine but 2 won't?

[kassonica]

"Visual Log of Death" Good name for a metal album

Bad bug in SW though

[EMRR]

sounds like it's taking a dump and forgetting where it put things, mid-record.

[mattfort]

Hello-
Did a remote recording of a piano recital this evening. DP5.13, MOTU 828MKII firewire.
I headphone monitored the entire recital. Went off with out a hitch, or so I thought.
When I got home, I pulled it up to check it out.
The 1/2 before intermission is perfect.
The 2nd half started out great, but a minute or so into the 2nd half - some EXTREMELY loud white noise happens from there until the end of the file (45 minutes.) You cannot hear any music, just very, very loud noise.
The wave form visually looks perfect, as it did while I was recording it.
I played the audio files in the Finder and the noise is there too.
Is there any way to fix this?
What could have happened?
Thanks

This ISN'T that bizarre....

How full is your HDD? Me guesses it's pretty full.....

[mrgkeys]

It's happening to me on an empty 300 gig Maxtor SATA, a half full 300 gig Maxtor SATA and a new 180 gig Seagate SATA... is that not bizarre? I''m going to spend the day running Rember on my 4 gigs of ram and watch for problems...


mg

[kwiz]

I just had this issue about a week ago and discussed it with a rep from Motu.
To bad it can't be reproduced at will because as of now know one has a solution to this problem.
I've seen this happen several times for about 3 years.

[mrgkeys]

Bump on this thread... after a good 10 years of running DP (when it was just P) mostly trouble free, I'm about to give up on this issue.. I have to work and I still have it.. And it's getting worse. I changed out RAM today amongst other things, a new clock (Lucid), had a guy go thru my power, new drives, , new user accounts, new OS, and even a different 424 card... FWIW Logic 8 works great on these files.. I just can't stand to use it (It makes my head hurt)..I spent a good deal of time on the phone with a super nice and patient tech support guy from MOTU today.. the first thing I asked was if this was a known problem, he said no...I have an open tech link now though, so hopefully I'll hear back soon. I tried loading my projects into a 5.13 file, by hand, and with the load command.. it started showing up there as well. I guess i could buy a new 8 core and see what happens.. I really hate to do that right now.. I picked up the PTLE 8 upgrade last week, and I'm working over in that until I get some relief, or buy a used HD rig.. I'm not as productive on it, but I'll get paid

someone mentioned a while back it might be a file system problem.. how would we go about troubleshooting that?

ANY ideas would be greatly appreciated.

[mrgkeys]

just a thought.. this problem seems to cross over ever kind of mac, os, ram, interface with DP itself being the only thing in common.. I only have it at 96k.. does anyone else have it at 44.1 or 48k? (or 88.2)?

[Electric Lotus]

I managed to get rid of this problem by kindly asking MOTU to ship me a "vintage" 5.11 I track with it, then use 6.01 to mix, even though that very version is still prone to get stuck: gets the computer to bet "existential in deep thoughts" while you suggest your client to get more coffee....

why oh why...

Keep both versions alive...

[hollywood]

Hi All,

Not sure if this is related, but I am having major problems here as well. My setup is 2x2.8Ghz Quad Mac Pro, Apogee Ensemble, DP5.13 and a firewire hard drive for audio.

Before I start, I should explain that this is kind of a new scaled down setup due to my temporary living situation. So, that being said, no monitors...I mostly use headphones and the external line out of the Mac Pro.

When I start up DP, all is fine. After a little while, some terrible noise begins to take over in my headphones (Ensemble output). Once this begins to happen, there's no stopping it. Everything becomes so distorted, it would make Trent Reznor blush.

So I have to quit DP, power down the Ensemble, then start over. This distortion also caries over to ITunes also... I think it's either a core audio problem (and the interaction with firewire) or the ensemble, because when I play audio through the line out of the mac, no issues.

It's happening more frequently now... not happy. a bunch of new equipment that performs like sh*t.

Ensemble software and firmware are up to date, I'm running OSX 10.5.6, DP5.13...

anyone?

[michkhol]

You could try a test project on the local drive to isolate the FireWire issue. Having a hard drive on the FireWire bus is not the best practice for intensive access, the maximum throughput of the FireWire is about 80Mb/s and data bursts from contemporary SATA hard drives can easily reach 100Mb/s. eSATA is a better option for an external drive.

[hollywood]

Just as an update, it seems as though the issue may be the firewire drive not jiving with the ensemble. If I power down the drive and record to an internal drive, I don't have any issues (yet). Kind of sucks to not be able to use my drives, especially since I've been using them for 5 years now, but hopefully this solves the issue.

300GB velociraptor is on the way.

[Shooshie]

What would you guys think:

In a one-shot recording deal that must work, can't fail, no 2nd chances, what if you ran two tracks off of each microphone input? Record two separate tracks of identical information. In the off-chance that one of them failed, it seems almost a sure thing that the other one would NOT fail. Unless, of course, the problem was upstream of the audio interface. DP resists allowing you to record enable two tracks bearing the same input. The workaround is to input to an aux track, then use two sends to input to the twin audio tracks. They record exactly the same data. After recording, you can put a Trim plugin on one of the twins, invert the audio wave, and get total silence. I recorded this way, and it worked perfectly fine.

Can anyone think of a reason NOT to do this? If a pair of tracks went bonkers and gave absolute noise, what would that imply? Those would be two separate soundbites, each with their own identity. The fact that they contained identical data should have no bearing on whether they lose their information and play white noise. It would appear to me that this would be a valuable method for recording redundant data. If both tracks failed, it would offer programmers some sort of clue as to what is going on, but I don't think you'd see a situation in which both tracks failed. It would mean that recording live with 6 microphones would require 12 channels of recording, but that's nothing for today's Macs.

Just a thought.

[monkey man]

Red-onion-seed. Always a good move, IMHO.

Surely there is no good reason not to do this, Shoosh.