Had a rehearsal last night and was using 2 instances of GP for the first time ever. I spent the week putting together the needed rackspaces. One instance for bottom keyboard, the other for top. Each rackspace may have about 6 VST3s in each. Basic sounds (piano, EP etc) on bottom and a few things like strings and horns on the top. I run way more intense racks on my other gig with dozens of VSTs. I’m on a Macbook Pro 14" running M2Max and 36GB of RAM.
I built the racks and played with them all week last week and no problems. Get to the rehearsal and load it all up. 15-30 seconds into any song, audio stops. Rebooted, regained audio for another 15-30 seconds, rinse and repeat. The major change from what I had setup during the week is that I was using my PlayAudio 1U for the sound card at home while building the racks and at the rehearsal I tried using a Radial USB Pro as well as a Chinese knock off sound cable I had on me. I’ve used both of those before without incident as well. My next thought was that this was an old building and maybe the power was dirty. At home I have everything plugged into a Furman power conditioner which I also use on the other gigs with the intense rack spaces. Last night was straight out of the wall with no conditioning.
I will try to replicate that at home today to see if I can recreate the issue with power. FWIW I’m still on Sonoma and My audio buffers were at 256 at 44.1 in each instance. I’ll report back here if I discover anything but just wondering if nyone else has come a cross this were Macs lose audio on dirty power? Love to hear your experience if this has happened to you.
Not sure, but you might experiment with turning of wifi when at rehearsal. You could have some conflict with various plugins attempting to phone home for updates, etc.
More seriously - it’s generally not such a great idea to rehearse/configure with one audio environment and then switch to another at the last minute - one has no idea whether a different driver will have issues or problems. I don’t know anything about the Radial but I have seen quite a few people report issues with that interface in the past.
Yeah I blew it on that. When I first powered on and the audio cut out I noticed that I still had WiFi and Bluetooth enabled. I shut those both down and rebooted the MacBook but it didn’t help in the particular situation. Thanks
I’m sure you already checked this but last night I was having trouble with one particular sound. It just wouldn’t come out, even though the levels were showing on the MacBook.- It was driving me crazy until I realized that for some reason, the output was set to three and four, which I don’t have audio on-I set it back to one and two and I got the full audio here just something somebody should know if they’re searching on audio output-(It’s an easy oversight, but I figure I’ve been asking a bazillion questions. This is the least I can do.lol)
Yeah I was running 44.1khz and 256 for each of the 2 instances. Just in case that was a possibility. I usually keep my buffer at about 192 most of the time which puts me at about 4.4ms but is plenty for my use case. I’ve used the Radial live before without issue but never with 2 concurrent instances.
The cables are in good shape but I did substiture the one feeding the sound cards just in case. My issue was no sound at all after 15-30 seconds from either GP instance or VST3. It didn’t matter whether I was playing the instance responding to the bottom controller or the one for the top. When the sound went dead it just went dead. I started thinking possibly the power because this only happened to me one other time and in both instances I was rehearsing or performing in old buildings with questionable power. That was the only common denominator I could think of. I’m going to try to recreate it tonight here at home and if I’m lucky I will then I can work the problem to find out what happened. Fortunately it was just a rehearsal and there was a spare keyboard workstation I borrowed to get through it.
Some quick things you should check when this occurs
Is MIDI working?
Part 1 - open the MIDI In block and click on some notes. Do you hear anything?
If you do, then, with the MIDI In block open, play some notes on your keyboard? Do you see keys in the MIDI In block turning on and off?
If not, open the global MIDI Monitor, play your keyboard. Are MIDI messages being displayed?
Also, if you’re using GP5, in the wiring view, you can check for activity to see if the MIDI cables are flashing when you play notes
If not, then there’s a problem with incoming MIDI
Is audio coming out of Gig Performer?
If you are seeing MIDI coming in, then check the meters on the output side - bottom right. Do you see green when you play something? If you do, then the problem is happening after audio leaves Gig Performer
Thank you for this. Yes I saw the midi activity light in the upper right corner lighting up as well as the links in the wiring view. I have setup my rig this afternoon at home using the Radial sound card, even down to the matching USB cables and ports on the MacBook. I have the Radial set to 48Khz and buffer at 192 on both instances. Same gig files loaded. I plugged the laptop directly into the wall instead of into my PDU. It hasn’t glitched, dropped or hiccuped once all afternoon.
Aside from the power at the rehearsal facility, the only other thing I could think of is that here at home I’m using headphones off the Radial and not an XLR connected to a speaker. Even if the power supply of the laptop wasn’t letting noise into the system, it’s possible that something was going on from the sound card to the speaker and back up the USB cable to the computer. It’s a long shot but I’ve performed a number of gigs with this setup. The only difference I can think of is that usually when I use the Radial it’s at some show where it is connected to a DI so its galvanically isolated from downstream audio gear. Last night it wasn’t and I didn’t have the ground lift button enabled or the ISO switches on the side of the radial engaged. At this point that’s my running theory anyway.
Yeah… Appreciate the thought. I always carry extra USB cables for just such a situation. That said, the ones I use currently are longer than needed, so I’m going to order some that are closer to the length I require for my keyboard rig. I can’t completely rule out some kind of noise induction, but the cables weren’t really near anything that puts out EMI . You never know though. What brand of cables do you use? I’m always looking for tips from others in the trenches.
It’s not really a knock off of anything you’d find on Sweetwater. But I can honestly say that there’s been a few times where this cable bailed me out and it worked fine. Even with a small buffer size. I wouldn’t do a big show with it but in a pinch it was better than nothing I suppose.
Hmm, you use a USB to 1/4 inch cable. I have never seen that.
I think most people just use high speed USB C from the laptop to the audio interface. (And 1/4 cable out from the audio interface to the mixer/amp/whatever.)
That’s what I normally use. I have an iConnectivity PlayAudio1U that is mounted in a rack with a TB4 cable between my laptop and it that then feeds XLR out. If I’m not bringing my rack for a rehearsal or for a smaller gig, I use either my MOTU M4 or Radial USB-PRO. But there’s been a few times where I had a rehearsal and forgot to pack the Radial, but I had this cable and it bailed me out of the situation.
