"-224 Hard disk drive too slow" for anything Audio

[Achim]

I get this error shortly after opening the Reaktor 4 VSTi (carbonized) or placing any audio file on a track. Using Emagic EMI6|2m, Metro 6.06.
This happens sometimes even if I don't have any instrument open in Reaktor yet, so it doesn't need a lot of CPU.
Furthermore, the Stop button in the transport window starts blinking then (like being pressed every second), which doesn't allow to press "play" any more.
Only way to get out of this is do delete the VSTi from the Effects window and selecting one of my external midi-instruments from the popup. Or in case of an audio file, delete that on the respective track.

I had this happen before in 6.0.4 (or maybe 6.0.3, don't remember exactly which version it was).

While I'm at it: Opening the VSTi while a Midi-track with notes is selected, the instrument changes to the name of the VSTi (which is like I expect it), but the VSTi only starts playing when it is selected again in the track popup.

, Achim.

[Jerm]

Achim,

Another way around it is probably to use built-in instead of the USB audio. No?

If I could repeat this problem I could probably fix it. I wonder what the difference is between 6.04, 6.06 and 6.05?

Have you fiddled with buffer settings?

[Achim]

The difference between the versions may be non-existent since I didn't have the EMI for a while and couldn't test it then.

I tried my Audiowerk8 - it just crackles, no matter what buffer size I set it to. This is probably unrelated and I don't care too much since I rarely use it any more because of the better audio quality of the EMI.

Just retried the EMI - set the buffer size to 512 (256 before) - now it plays for some time (some minutes before the dreaded -224). Switching it to "output only mode" the error didn't occur yet.

I coudn't use the built-in audio like you suggested - there's only some multimedia-speakers connected to it for system sounds. My EMI and Audiowerk are connected to my Mackie 1402 mixer though, together with Virus C, Yammy DX 200 and Alesis QSR for sounds.
I won't change this setup because of a software bug - which I'm quite sure it is, since the EMI works flawlessly in e.g. Rax0.3.3b, where I also tested the Reaktor 4 VSTi. And it works with lots of audio tracks in OS9 with Logic Silver 4.8.1.

Another GUI-bug I just noticed while testing: If there are only audio tracks in a freshly opened file the zoom buttons (+,-) in the track window don't work - they are greyed out. The only way to get them working is by entering some midi-notes on a track.

And while I'm at it - on startup I always get a vertical scroll bar in the Graphic Editor but can't resize the window to make it disappear, though there's plenty of room below it (my Dock is on the left of the screen, hidden while I'm in Metro). A workaround is to alt-click the "+"-magnifier, then resize the window and then alt-click the "-"-magnifier. Seems there's only a few pixels missing in the default height of the Graphic Editor window.

Thanks for trying to help, Achim.

[Jerm]

Achim,

I noticed where the transport would keep flashing. Should be fixed in 6.06i1.
I am working on getting an EMI6|2 for testing.

[Jerm]

This problem is now found and will definitely be fixed in 6.0.7.2.

Note that increasing the audio packet size may help alleviate this problem before 6.0.7.2 is released.

It only is a problem for drivers that are not synchronized, namely USB audio drivers such as iMic, EZBus and EMI6|2. This problem is much more likely to occur on faster machines, especially dual processors!

Thank you Buserror.