audio dropouts in Cross Pack

[djeksotik]

@hemskoc

my needles are actually 5-6 years old (really, LOL, i know ), the stanton SK520 (DJ craze ) that came with the turntables. BUT, they still sound good and perform pretty well, and i get timecode quality around 99-100 %. So i have to admit these are the most durable needles i have seen, i have taken them out to garden-parties where we were spinning vinyl, and my drunk stoned friends scrathed with them and were generally heavy-handed.. sometimes i have even dropped them on the edge of the platter myself, but they still work.. i know i should get new ones but thats not my priority right now.

there are no dropoutS at the start of trackS, no plural, just the VERY FIRST track kinda lags for a second, but thats not going to be a problem. actually i have played with the cache size too, on vista it seemed to make a difference. but thanks for the suggestion anyhow.

when juggling i used to turn the weight all the way up on needles, to avoid skips. on mixvibes i didn´t, thought it wasn´t neccessary. when the skipping occurres, then i increased the weight, but not all the way up. anyway, i will do further testing on this matter and let you know if i still have problems.

I made a simple test : a very long and fast back spin.

At a very very very high speed, yes the timecode is weird, but as far as the speed drop it is handled correctly.
So based on this, I don't think that on a full turn you can be quicker than a vinyl at full speed in backward.

sorry, i didn´t quite understand this sentence..

i did a similar test myself, spinning the record fast with my hand continously, like when searching for a spot on real vinyl, and at some point (of speed) the waveform in mixvibes slows down instead of speeding along with the control vinyl, and then stays at that low speed, which seems to be even slower than normal playing speed at 0 pitch.

was that what happened in your test?

PS: sorry, but at the moment i have no internet connection at home where my decks are, i am writing from the office. so i have no means of IMMEDIATELY testing solutions etc. so my posts may be kinda delayed or smth..

[djeksotik]

Hey how worn are your needles? a little or lots?
For the dropouts at the start of tracks, try changing the "cache value" on the first page of preferences to a smaller amount of memory usage. I did this and it solved my probs...
there is a thread about this issue also:
viewtopic.php?f=207&t=16177

ok, i read that topic now.
but i want to ask you, how small exactly are we talking about?
whats your setting? and did you settle on it by extensive testing or what?

0 seems a bit radical, if i want to use locators there could be (micro)problems?
am i correct in assuming that a logical maximum setting would be enough to hold two wav tracks? lets say about 200 MB.
if i have it on 1 GB, then by that logic: will there be ten tracks in cache when reaching the 10th track in my set? this would seem useless.
now, when i load the 11th track, will it clear the previous 9 tracks or just 1, because its all the free space 1 new(the 11th) track will need?

if someone could briefly explain how the cache exactly operates, i would be very happy. if not, then no biggie. its just my geeky side emerging

[sylMV]

The audio cache works like this:

When loading a new track, if the new song fits in the cache available space ( = max - space used by the other player) the file is fully buffered, if not it's streamed directly from the file.

When you load a new track in a player, the previous track is unloaded to free the cache.

You'll never have in the audio cache a track that is not in a player anymore.

Typically, you need ~10MB for one minute of stereo sound.
Then you can have an idea of what will fit in you audio cache.
However, having a 1GB cache doesn't necessarily means you'll be able to load a 100min track into memory ! (Partly due to RAM fragmentation you can't avoid).
Keep in mind, that with a too big cache (i.e. 100%), Cross might use too much memory, making your system run out of memory for other tasks !
In any case, i'm not sure any OS will let an app use more than 2GB of memory.

Hope this helps !

Cheers,

[hemskoc]

ok, i read that topic now.
but i want to ask you, how small exactly are we talking about?
whats your setting? and did you settle on it by extensive testing or what?
am i correct in assuming that a logical maximum setting would be enough to hold two wav tracks? lets say about 200 MB.

Yeah, ive had to do tons of testing with Cross - I play gigs regularly, so i needed to make it reliable for live performance. I had lots of troubles because of my low spec PC with audio glitches, dropouts, and ive settled on 200meg for my cache (approx 2X10 min tracks; one for each 'deck'). Any less i found when i load straight to a cue point in the middle of a track, its not ready for me- never mind what the graphics are displaying; the sound is what matters. Ive even noticed my processor maxes out @ 100% for a good 8 secs (see task manager) when i load a new track in, and my graphics go a bit glitchy-but the audio remains perfect. im happy; even if my screen went blank at a gig, as long as the music is uninterrupted....

and at some point (of speed) the waveform in mixvibes slows down instead of speeding along with the control vinyl, and then stays at that low speed, which seems to be even slower than normal playing speed at 0 pitch.

There was a bug in the last version(1.3.1) that had this 'pitch slowing down' problem, when selecting vinyl mode on and off multiple times, but thought that had been corrected
One of the forum Admins might be able to give you more info on this).
Cheers

[djeksotik]

thanks man !

so, for the sake of simplicity and example, i assume none of my tracks exceed 3 minutes. then having a cache bigger than ~ 60 MB is totally pointless in the sense that more is never used?

but what happens when the cache is about half of the tracks, in this example case 30 MB. does Cross then load only a part of the song into cache? and then when i use a locator point that is outside of the cache, does it then stream it or try to load it into cache first, THEN play from that point? or start streaming and at the same time load it into cache?

when the cache is 0, then Cross streams the file STRAIGHT from the hard drive? isnt reading from HDD about 17 times slower than from RAM? in this case i dont understand how 0 cache could benefit me... (or the system).


@hemskoc

i have version 1.3.2, and i dont switch vinyl mode on and off multiple times. i have it on vinyl all the time.


anyway thanks for your time, all of you. at first it made me worry a bit that there seemed to be no thorough manuals for the product i purchased, but this forum is very good and supportive.

PS. is anyone from finland?

[hemskoc]

@hemskoc
i have version 1.3.2, and i dont switch vinyl mode on and off multiple times. i have it on vinyl all the time.

Yeah with the pitch slowdown thing tho, even though you didnt turn the vinyl mode on and off, i think it is somehow related to the problem you seem to have encountered.
Cheers

[daniel clark]

most of us try not to get in the way of getting good /knowledable help, our silence is from not knowing a proper solution from our experencies with the software/hardware issues welcome to mixvibes and your up comming experences will get you to step foward to help the next set of inexpericenced, welcome again

[djeksotik]

hey its me again.

just wanted to let you know that i finally had time to install Cross on my desktop computer, which has 1 GB RAM and a pentium core duo 1,8 GHz. The laptop on which i had problems had 2 GB RAM and pentium core 2 duo 2 GHz. I had problems, even though all other programs were closed, i had a separate partition etc.

now, on my desktop computer there were many open programs: autocad(with 5 different drawings open at the same time), mozilla browser with several tabs open, winamp, msn, antivirus...
BUT Cross WORKED like a charm! no lagging even while loading unanalyzed songs while scratching another etc, no lagging with the first song either.

the only reason for this drastic difference i can come up with is that the laptop is very small - 12" screen (and of course it gets very warm) . of course i knew that with the same specs, a laptop is supposedly weaker than a desktop, but i wouldnt have guessed the difference would be THAT noticeable.

if im right, i think this info should be exposed somewhere. something like "recommended specs: /...../ we recommend you use the largest laptop possible"
IF i am right, this info could possibly save some people some trouble, if they keep away not only from Vista, but also miniature laptops.
if im wrong then nevermind.

PS: do you think a cooling pad (under the laptop) could solve this problem? or has anyone had similar experiences?

[Support@MixVibes]

Or you can have a memory bank that is corrupted on the laptop...

[sylMV]

If it helps, I've already experienced performances issues (not using Cross but any software !) on a laptop running Vista:
It became too rapidly very hot , causing the SpeedStep feature to slow down the CPU... I ran 80% of the time @ 36% of the maximum speed .... It might be something to check...

The possible reasons: dirty fan, bad CPU thermal paste, etc.

Cheers,