Topic by Costis

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  • Costis
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  • Registered: 30-09-2018
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Topic: Sound breaking after pedal down repeated chords

Hi and Merry Christmas,

I am having issues when playing fast repeated three note chords on the bottom octaves with pedal down. Sound breaks at around 10 repetitions and eventually playback stops completely. Playback is gradually resumed after releasing the keys with a noisy sound effect.

This happens both in Reaper and in standalone. I am using Windows Audio Exclusive mode. Perfomance index is around 124 and I get around 12-15% when doing so. Polyphony is under 40 when the issue starts.

I have tried several tweaks, turned off multicore rendering and/or cpu overload detection, increased buffer to max, reduced internal sample rate, turned off the limiter, used different presets, but the issue persists.

When I record to the built in midi recorder then the issue is not reproduced when I play it back maybe due to lookahead.

Using version 6.6.0 I did not have this issue in older versions.

Any ideas or help would be greatly appreciated.

Reply by Qexl

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  • Registered: 04-09-2015
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Re: Sound breaking after pedal down repeated chords

Hey Costis, merry Christmas to you too!

Sounds a bit like glitching from 2 audio drivers in conflict over resources.

In Pianoteq, go to the menu Edit/Preferences.../devices tab and press "Show this device's control panel".

If more than one are 'lit' then click to disable them, leaving the driver you want running alone.

If using ASIO4all for example, this might show you that both a preferred audio driver is ready, at the same time as a system one.  You can click the ones you want on or off there. (on one system, there may be the driver I want plus onboard RealTek ones and also sometimes NVIDIA or some other OEM thing for surround etc. - they may all be called by something else we did on the system like view a web page with audio, watch a movie in a player or plugged in an HDMI cable yesterday etc.).

If still happening even with only the correct driver showing in the panel, maybe more info about system (including CPU, USB and/or MIDI cables used and dpiano brand/series#).

Best might be supplying a MIDI file and some audio displaying what's going on.

Otherwise, for now, hope the first things helped get you playing glitch free by boxing day!

Pianoteq Studio Bundle (Pro plus all instruments)  - Kawai MP11 digital piano - Yamaha HS8 monitors

Reply by Costis

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Re: Sound breaking after pedal down repeated chords

Thanks so much Qexi!

Just had the chance to test. Although there's no "Show this device's control panel" when using windows audio and I only have one built in card, I applied your logic and disabled Realtek digital output (unused) from the windows menu keeping only the speaker output active.

That did it! I can now only reproduce by playing very-very fast 4 note chords on bottom notes but no way of encountering the issue in real life at my level (maybe someone playing Gaspard de la nuit would ;-) )

Thanks do much again for your accurate advice and best wishes for a Happy New Year!!

Reply by Qexl

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Re: Sound breaking after pedal down repeated chords

So good to hear Costis!

That sort of little trick I'm sure relates to a lot of head-scratching in Win related audio.

Cheers and happy piano-ing

Pianoteq Studio Bundle (Pro plus all instruments)  - Kawai MP11 digital piano - Yamaha HS8 monitors