MIDI Crash on Tempo Change

[jmc]

Hello, I'm experiencing an issue where the processor overloads on MIDI playback especially as soon as it encounters a tempo change.

I haven't had any problems until last week. I have been hesitant to update software as I'm in the middle of a project, but I have lost several hours to this issue and I'm trying to avoid that turning into days. Currently using DP 9.5, OS 10.11.6.

I reinstalled DP, several software plugins, have restarted the MOTU Audio System hundreds of times.

Any help anyone can offer would be most welcome.

[stubbsonic]

The other things to try are to load new project, or to log-in as a different user.

If something is happening that is damaging preferences (that seems to happen with DP), then you have to go through the painful process of both finding the offending plug-in and constantly re-trashing various prefs. It's a real time killer when you also have to reset the settings that are stored in prefs. One of the things I HATE about having a crashy time with DP!!

You will have to figure out if there's a plug-in that is causing the crash. Could be a VI or an effect. Not sure if the tempo change is doing something, or if that's a red-herring and something else is going on around that same time. But it is possible.

You could create a copy of the chunk and in the copy, clear the tempo map and see if it runs without crashing.

[jmc]

Thanks stubbsonic! I went through the plugins and found that the MAS version of VE PRO was causing issues, even though it passed inspection. So I disabled all MAS versions of plugins where there were AU versions available and that has helped a bit. I also increased the buffer size.

However that didn't fully solve the problem. But even though I'm only playing 1 instrument from 1 connected instance of VE PRO, when I render audio now, a tempo change now causes an audio drop out in the rendered audio, and I can hear it when monitoring.

I created a new project and reloaded the chunk into it to see if that particular project has been corrupted. But it had the same reaction. I don't appear to have any issues with audio, only MIDI. It is also possible I may just need to get a new hard drive and do a fresh install.

[stubbsonic]

It's weird because you wouldn't think the plug-ins would be responding to tempo or having to re-clock or anything weird.

It's making me wonder if there isn't some setting between VE Pro and DP that has to do with either tempo sync, or digital audio clock that might be hitting the CPU in an unnecessarily dense way.

Might be worth a look.

[jmc]

Yes, that was what I was thinking as well. Even if I'm playing a single piano back, and recording it as audio in real time, it does this.

But if I'm mixing audio, it has no issue with tempo changes, so I'm guessing that is the culprit. Thanks again for your help!

[stubbsonic]

So weird. Good luck!!

If you sort it out, let us know what you learn!

Lots of people use VE Pro here. (not me)

[jmc]

I have found the culprit! Here I thought it was a DP / plugin issue, but it turns out it was on the VE-PRO side of things: the "new and improved" 8DIO Rhythmic Aura 2. Replacing it with the original instrument made the problem go away. Of course I lose the new fancy programming, but I don't have a data bottleneck anymore. Perhaps a new computer made in a more recent decade may solve this problem.

I do still have some frequent processor spikes that are yet unexplained, and I do have to often reset the MOTU Audio System, but at least this issue won't cause any more grief.

[stubbsonic]

Thanks for following up. Glad you were able to solve it.