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LaSalamander
LaSalamander
Inspiring
April 17, 2019
Question

Why so sluggish?

  • April 17, 2019
  • 16 replies
  • 12581 views

After sorting out several past problems, Audition works great for me. Nice and quick. Unless, however, I have too many clips in a multitrack session. I can open a new session, bring in a single (albeit long) WAV file, adding no effects, and once I start cutting that file up into clips, it eventually gets really sluggish when it comes to dragging clips around. Once it's a couple hundred clips long, It can take around a half second for Audition to catch up when I click and drag a clip somewhere.

Does anyone else have this experience? Is there anything I can do to speed things up? I work in a similar fashion in other programs like Sony Vegas and Reaper, and they don't experience this very significant slowdown.

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      LaSalamander
      LaSalamanderAuthor
      Inspiring
      April 17, 2019

      SteveG(AudioMasters)​ I tried running AA with hardware acceleration on and off (restarting before each time.) Alas, it made no difference that I could tell, either way.

      Travelor​ As creating a multitude of smaller WAV files instead of using just one is problematic in other ways (since I'm working collaboratively with others) that's a very undesirable solution. I'll put off trying that one till last. Meanwhile, I restarted my computer, opened the Resource Monitor, and took a snapshot. Then I opened AA, ran it a bit (and it's as sluggish as ever), and took another snapshot of the Resource Monitor. I'm not sure what I'm looking at, though. Does anything strike you as problematic?

      Before:

      After:

      SteveG_AudioMasters_
      Community Expert
      SteveG_AudioMasters_Community Expert
      Community Expert
      April 17, 2019

      LaSalamander  wrote

      SteveG(AudioMasters)  I tried running AA with hardware acceleration on and off (restarting before each time.) Alas, it made no difference that I could tell, either way.

      Well, at least we're narrowing it down a bit. Have you checked to see if there's an update for your video drivers?

      LaSalamander
      LaSalamanderAuthor
      Inspiring
      April 17, 2019

      Good idea....but it's indeed up-to-date.

      LaSalamander
      LaSalamanderAuthor
      Inspiring
      April 17, 2019

      Thanks for that info, Travelor​! I'll try to sort through that a bit later. Just keep in mind Audition is the only DAW I have where this seems to be a problem. In Reaper and Vegas I can have a seemingly infinite number of clips and this kind of performance isn't slowed down at all. It's only Audition.

      Meanwhile, here's what I'm talking about (shot on my phone since I couldn't figure out how else to record the screen while showing the cursor): Why so sluggish? - YouTube

      Travelor
      Travelor
      Participating Frequently
      April 17, 2019

      LaSalamander​,

      Hard to say specifically what is or is not the issue - The mouse is moving it's the clip that the mouse is trying to drag that is not moving with the mouse. It might be the way that movement is rendered it might be the way Audition handles drag operations. I am more inclined to say it is Audition related. But I would definitely take a look at the Resource Monitor and check out what Audition is consuming. Does it occur with any other WAV or audio files? Maybe it is related to the size of the file? If size is an issue, that too, is related more to Audition than to the PC hardware.

      Hopefully these things will at least help you narrow down causes.

      Solution for Size of file - Create different WAV files breaking the file down to smaller bits. Each with it's own Audition Session.

      Limited Resources - Exit/Close programs running in the background or Restart your PC and Only open Audition -

      Be Blessed!!

      LaSalamander
      LaSalamanderAuthor
      Inspiring
      April 17, 2019

      SteveG(AudioMasters), I kind of doubt it's the buffer, because there's no delay in playback. It's literally the dragging of clips around that gets so sluggish. However, I'm using ASIO, Focusrite USB 2.0 Audio Driver, with 512 buffer size. But switch to MME didn't make a difference.

      SuiteSpot, my hardware setup is a Windows 10 Pro system, Intel Core i7-7700, 32GB RAM, and a Focusrite Scarlett 6i6.

      And thanks so much for the offer to check out my session! Here it is: John LaSala sluggishness.zip - Google Drive

      SteveG_AudioMasters_
      Community Expert
      SteveG_AudioMasters_Community Expert
      Community Expert
      April 17, 2019

      LaSalamander  wrote

      SteveG(AudioMasters) , I kind of doubt it's the buffer, because there's no delay in playback. It's literally the dragging of clips around that gets so sluggish. However, I'm using ASIO, Focusrite USB 2.0 Audio Driver, with 512 buffer size. But switch to MME didn't make a difference.

      Ah... in that case try turning the Hardware Acceleration on if it's off, and vice versa - see if that makes a difference:

      Travelor
      Travelor
      Participating Frequently
      April 17, 2019

      I had faith that SteveG(AudioMasters)​ would bring the knowledge...

      Hopefully this is the resolution. It is one of the area's that I mentioned in my post regarding the Graphics on the PC. The developers included some code in Audition to take advantage of the Graphics chip/memory. I am relatively new to Audition and it'a a good thing we've got a Master in our presence..

      Blessed Be!!!

      LaSalamander
      LaSalamanderAuthor
      Inspiring
      April 17, 2019

      Thanks for chiming in, guys. I just moved the relevant files (just two WAVs) from the secondary HDD to the primary SSD, to see if it made a difference. It did not. But yeah, I work off the HDD in a very similar fashion in other programs and there's no problem whatsoever. I can have a session open in Reaper, for example, with literally thousands (maybe even tens of thousands) of clips and it doesn't slow down the program one iota. Do the same thing in Audition and it's almost unusable (unless I mixdown, of course, but then I've lost the point of nondestructive editing.)

      As for the version, it's 12.1.0.182, but this has always been a problem for me, for many many versions. Oh, and this is on PC, but I could try it out on Mac, to see if it's different. I can report on that later.

      SteveG_AudioMasters_
      Community Expert
      SteveG_AudioMasters_Community Expert
      Community Expert
      April 17, 2019

      The other thing that occurred to me is that the time it takes to start can also depend to an extent on the sound device buffer size. Which audio system are you using - an MME-based one or ASIO?

      SuiteSpot
      SuiteSpot
      Inspiring
      April 17, 2019

      Which version of Audition are you running and are you on a PC or Mac?

      SteveG_AudioMasters_
      Community Expert
      SteveG_AudioMasters_Community Expert
      Community Expert
      April 17, 2019

      This is almost certainly a disk access issue. Playing a linear file just means streaming it continuously from the disk, but when you cut it up, there's a lot more activity necessary to locate and play the individual bits in the places that you've put them.

      As for why it's happening with Audition and not other software, I have no idea - you'd need a developer to comment on that, I think.

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