Cannot solve Detected Dropped Samples warning...

Question

I've been noticing the "Detected Dropped Samples" warning keeps popping up at the bottom right, sometimes when I record, sometimes when I playback.  When I thought that maybe "Smart monitoring" was the cause, I switched over to Direct monitoring - but the issue still occurs. I tried sessions at 44 and sessions at 48. Issue still occurs. I tried with Track FX enabled and disabled. Issue still occurs. I tried enabling/disabling the audio hardware preference "Force hardware to document sample rate...". Issue still occurs. I updated Audition as well as all Focusrite Scarlett drivers/software. Issue still occurs. The ONLY thing I've done where I noticed progress is when I increase my buffer size to OVER 128. At 128 it still happens but extremely rare. However, why would this be a factor when I'm recording with Direct Monitoring?Although I see the warning appear, I don't actually hear any artifacts. So...is it really an issue? I'd rather hear FX without latency and live with the warning if it's not actually causing audible issues in my recording.I am ONLY recording a single voiceover track. My computer is a powerhouse (except for the video card which is 8 years old). But everything else was upgraded in the last year. So if a buffer size of less than 128 is actually causing this warning, WHY is that being a problem when I'm only recording or playing back a single track, with no or very few plugins, on a high-performance machine? Help please!

SteveG_AudioMasters_ · Answer

Latency is cruel. You may think you have the greatest computer since sliced bread, but actually, that's not what causes the problem - it's generally to do with your hard disk performance, and how data is buffered in and out of it - not necessarily anything that you can alter, other than by using a better-performing one, which is how I've got around this completely.

You will never eliminate latency entirely, so the buffers that prevent it being an issue will still have to be there, whatever you do. Apart from anything else, you have an external sound device; that has its own latency, plus the latency of the USB transfer, although that should be pretty low. Anyway, if you want to do an experiment to find out how much difference the right drive can make, you don't even need to take your computer apart. What you need is an external SSD in a case, and a USB3 connection to it - that should do it. This will give anything up to 100x faster access, and easily double the transfer speed, if not more.

In general it's not processor speed, or the amount of RAM that will appear to slow your machine down these days; we're well past that. It's data transfer speed. Just think about it; you've got all this blindingly fast electronics in a box, and you're trying to run it off a mechanical device that spins around and makes a load of noise? I slung them all out years ago, and haven't regretted it for a moment.

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Scanning file for viruses.

This file cannot be downloaded