Random Audio Dropouts During Recording

[candicel21850873]

I'm using the latest version of Audition on my iMac ios 10.13.4.

I record and then go back and listen. No problem. Then I hit record again and several times this evening, I hit record and it records silence. I can see the audio on the meter so audio is getting through the DAW to Audition. I'm not recording tracks in a session. I'm recording directly into the editor. I've restarted my computer several times. This week I updated Audition and the iOs on my iMac. I can't get it to record until I shut everything down and restart the computer. Then when I open up the computer it works. But there was a weird glitch on one. I couldn't get it to record any more on the track. So I created a new WAV so I could complete my work. This is maddening. Please help.

[ryclark]

What is the source of your audio? Is it coming from an external audio interface or the Mac's built in soundcard?

[candicel21850873]

Actually both. Through my audio interface and through the internal microphone. I was able to replicate the problem with Adobe Audition person on the phone and screen sharing. Then she blamed Steinberg. It can't be Adobe! That's hogwash! Last night, I started working again. I record a few minutes or so. Go back and listen. Then hit record to record more...sometimes it works, other times it doesn't. Once it doesn't work, meaning it's recording silence when I can visually see the audio going into Audition! The only way to correct the problem - which is unacceptable since we pay a monthly subscription for this program (THERE SHOULD BE NO BUGS) is to create a new WAV file. It seems the file just corrupts. No rhyme. No reason. Just suddenly and without warning. Here's a screen shot of the silence recorded.

I made no changes in any settings. All I did was turn on the studio monitors to listen back. Didn't like what I heard and then turned off the studio monitors, and hit record.

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

candicel21850873  wrote

The only way to correct the problem - which is unacceptable since we pay a monthly subscription for this program (THERE SHOULD BE NO BUGS) is to create a new WAV file. It seems the file just corrupts. No rhyme. No reason. Just suddenly and without warning. Here's a screen shot of the silence recorded.

No bugs? Very funny. That would make it the only piece of software on the planet without any! ALL software has bugs - it's just that some of them haven't been discovered yet. But, I don't think that's what's going on here at all...

I'm not going to say that it's Steinberg - but I'm not going to say that it's Audition either. What you have there is a file that's written as zeros when it should have had the audio you think you recorded in it, and that's important to note (and of course what the helpline failed to notice).

We know this because it has a duration, and doesn't just stop dead, which is what would happen if Audition failed to record it. The chances are that it's not the audio going into audition that's failing, but the OS's ability to write it correctly to your HD. Now, the fact that it does some of the time also says quite a lot; it implies that something in the OS has completely overwritten the priority given to recording audio. Now certainly in PCs, and almost certainly in Macs as well, Audition allocates itself maximum priority for disk access during recording but the OS can, and under some circumstances will take that priority back.

I'm moderately confident that it's not Audition, as nobody else has reported anything like it - and also Audition has a very good track record in this regard. I'm assuming from the screenshot that this is a Waveform view recording, and of course that gives another avenue of investigation - it's written to a temp file before being saved, and if, for instance, this is in the same location as any other temporary storage that the OS has access to, then there's a distinct possibility of 'interference'.

Everything in your Mac or PC works as a co-operative system (in this case the sound device, Audition and the OS), and sometimes failures are hard to detect because of this - but this is most definitely the area I'd be looking in, I'm afraid.

The other thing you might like to try doing is recording in Multi-track mode, as files are written direct to disk, and there's rather less to go wrong as a result.

[candicel21850873]

Thanks, SteveG. It's maddening, for sure. I spent 3 hours on the phone with Audition and Apple yesterday. Two hours on the phone with Apple last week. It's really weird. I mean, like you see above...when it's recording silence, I see it recording silence, and the meter is showing audio levels that would show up on the Audition timeline. I'll give it a try, recording in a session instead. My preference when voicing tracks is to record in wave form. But I'll try this. I've been using Audition for a long, long time...I started on Cool Edit. I sing the praises of this program and I'm thinking about learning another that isn't subscription based, esp. with the so-called phone help yesterday. She wasn't helpful.

[candicel21850873]

The source of the audio is Steinberg Audio interface. I can see and hear the audio...but it's not recording on the timeline. What I mean by I can see it is that the meter is showing a good audio signal. Then silence is recorded.