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responsible_society0101
responsible_society0101
Participant
August 27, 2018
Answered

Waves Plugins; Stuttering Playback Issues in Post Production Sessions

  • August 27, 2018
  • 2 replies
  • 1580 views

To whom it may concern,

Intel Core i7 Processor with 16GB of ram; windows 10, 64-bit

I just recently started using the waves plugins in the audition software. My system requirements are adequate for both the host and the plugins as well as all components being up to date. When I begin to apply the effects in the effects rack it only takes two/three effects to slow down and virtually stifle playback (jittery, clipping, sloowwww, etc.). If I delete the effects, everything simply regenerates itself and playback is fine again. If I render the mixdown, playback is fine so it seems like a processing/soundcard issue when trying to process my effects racks?? Doesn't make sense that I usually show 10 GB of RAM available for audition and the file size is a nominal 350 kb, even with waves effects applied. When using the built in Audition effect, I don't run into any playback issues. So I'm hoping that there is some setting tinkering I can finagle through Audition.

My audio hardware preferences have three different device classes MME, ASIO, WASAPI. I typically use MME but have had occasional success tinkering with the ASIO settings, but before long any additional effect continue to bog down playback. Not really sure of the differences/benefits of any of these settings as I'm a novice with digital recording + mixing.

Latency is set to it's lowest setting (30 ms). And the ASIO device class has 512 I/O buffer size and 48000 sample rate. I've adjusted these to various settings and not found any long term success.

Hopeful that you can offer insight on adjusting settings for compatibility and increased performance.

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer SteveG_AudioMasters_

wolak19  wrote

If I render the mixdown, playback is fine so it seems like a processing/soundcard issue when trying to process my effects racks?? Doesn't make sense that I usually show 10 GB of RAM available for audition and the file size is a nominal 350 kb, even with waves effects applied. When using the built in Audition effect, I don't run into any playback issues. So I'm hoping that there is some setting tinkering I can finagle through Audition.

  Well, you've answered your own question here; this is exactly the reason that rendering is there. Many plugins are far less economical when it comes to processing efficiency than Audition's effects are (although you are likely to run into similar issues with Full Reverb), and it doesn't take many instances of them to slow everything down a lot.

This has nothing to do with your sound device, although having latency set that low is going to increase the chances of stuttering playback, as this makes the disk buffer the smallest it can be. Playback of tracks is direct from your HD into Audition, and if you have a lot of external effects, then Audition has to act as a 'clearing house' for them, which is why the processing slows down quite a bit. Audition's effects are certainly reasonably efficient, but many people have observed that with too many of them applied, the same thing can happen. There is no problem with rendering tracks - if you want to change anything, you just un-render them, change it and re-apply it. All it's doing is pre-processing what you've applied so that it doesn't use any processing power concurrently with playback, giving everything else a fighting chance.

2 replies

SteveG_AudioMasters_
Community Expert
SteveG_AudioMasters_Community ExpertCorrect answer
Community Expert
August 27, 2018

wolak19  wrote

If I render the mixdown, playback is fine so it seems like a processing/soundcard issue when trying to process my effects racks?? Doesn't make sense that I usually show 10 GB of RAM available for audition and the file size is a nominal 350 kb, even with waves effects applied. When using the built in Audition effect, I don't run into any playback issues. So I'm hoping that there is some setting tinkering I can finagle through Audition.

  Well, you've answered your own question here; this is exactly the reason that rendering is there. Many plugins are far less economical when it comes to processing efficiency than Audition's effects are (although you are likely to run into similar issues with Full Reverb), and it doesn't take many instances of them to slow everything down a lot.

This has nothing to do with your sound device, although having latency set that low is going to increase the chances of stuttering playback, as this makes the disk buffer the smallest it can be. Playback of tracks is direct from your HD into Audition, and if you have a lot of external effects, then Audition has to act as a 'clearing house' for them, which is why the processing slows down quite a bit. Audition's effects are certainly reasonably efficient, but many people have observed that with too many of them applied, the same thing can happen. There is no problem with rendering tracks - if you want to change anything, you just un-render them, change it and re-apply it. All it's doing is pre-processing what you've applied so that it doesn't use any processing power concurrently with playback, giving everything else a fighting chance.

    ryclark
    ryclark
    Participating Frequently
    August 27, 2018

    Just as information there is a difference in Audition between 'render' as in doing a Mixdown of the session and Pre-render that can be done as a temporary render of a Track's contents with the effects applied. So try Pre-rendering the difficult tracks using the little lightening icon at the top right of the Effects Rack in each Track's header.

      responsible_society0101
      responsible_society0101Author
      Participant
      August 27, 2018

      I've also deleted Audition cache files and have directed back ups to autosave on my 1 TB hard drive thinking that there would be a better functionality.

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