Audio Hardware settings forcing the wrong sample rate

[B4DYC]

(Audition CC) Right in the middle of a multitrack session mixdown, my Audio Hardware settings began defaulting to 48KHz even though the session is set for 44.1K and all of the files in the session are 44.1K. This results in horrible sample dropping during playback and renders Audition unusable. MME did not throw up any errors or warnings, and MME is the only Device Class that will recognize my devices. The sample rate listed under Latency: (48,000Hz) in the Audio Hardware dialog is unchangeable. This dialog also indicates a sample rate of 48K no matter what file or session is open, and the vast majority of my files and sessions are 44.1K and are all unusable until I get this solved. Any thoughts on why this is happening or what to do about it?

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

If you set it up like that (or something like it) in this laptop, you have to do the following steps to get everything to stay where it should be, and not do resampling:

Fundamentally, get the sample rate default in the Windows Sound settings to be the same as your session settings - then it shouldn't attempt to do weird things. The other thing you might want to either enable or more likely, disable is that checkbox that says 'Use machine-specific defaults' as that can also severely influence your sound device behaviour.

[B4DYC]

Steve, thanks so much for the reply. Already confirmed that system sample rate is the same as session and files. "Use machine-specific defaults" also made no difference. I have also discovered that I have an ASIO version of on-board audio, but selecting that makes no difference, and the i/o buffer is locked at 1024. I have disabled all plug-ins but this is not a plug-in heavy session, and now it is dropping samples even on single files in edit mode with no plug-ins active. Also, the drive that Audidion lives on is a brand new NVMe mounted right to the motherboard, so don't think there are any performance issues. Are you willing to dig a little deeper with me?

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

I can't really, because I don't have the machine in front of me, but I do have a suggestion: Download and install ASIO4ALL (it's free) and use that as the ASIO interface. The huge advantage of this driver is that it includes some diagnostics, and might give you a clue as to what's going on. It's quite illuminating reading though their site news as well. Whatever it is, it's inevitably going to be caused by something in the OS - it's not Audition doing this.

ASIO4ALL 

[B4DYC · Accepted solution]

Just wanted to pass along the end of this story for others who might be searching in the future. As you are no doubt aware there are many possible causes for the problem I described, but in this case the sample rate in the Audio Hardware settings dialog was a red herring; that was incidental to the issue of dropped samples but I resolved that also in the process. The real issue of the dropped samples was caused by the quantity and type of processing plug-ins I had instantiated in this session. It would have been an obvious cause except that there weren't really that many, and I have a purpose-built audio workstation that should be able to keep up with a far more complex session than this one. I still don't know what exactly sent my system over the edge but I'm speaking with someone from Adobe in a day or so who should be able to point it out. I also eliminated plug-ins as the cause earlier when I disarmed the effects rack as a potential solution but to no avail. The reason for that is that disarming the effects rack is not the same thing as removing the effects from the session in that they are still sucking up ram even if you can't hear them. So, don't be fooled like I was that your system should be able to keep up and that plug-ins can't be the cause until you completely remove them from the session. Hope this has been helpful. It took a lot of minds to figure this one out.