Merging Technologies

Mahalo and HUGE ALOHA for the most warm welcome I received from Frank in the great North upon my first newbie note. I am trying to get Native Music up and running on a lovely HP Elitebook (Sandybridge2.1ghz quad/8g RAM/SSD) which has been tweaked for audio with respect to power profile and core usage restrictions.

Running the latest V7.1.9 and the latest firmware/drivers for RME UFX with legacy 64bit IEC1394 drivers in the HP, we got the transport to roll. However, when the whole chain was tested yesterday, huge dropouts in audio monitoring through Pyramix. One can see the input metering on the UFX NOT dropping out while the outputs DO dropout visibly on the UFX meters. This is with transport stationary, on input monitor.

One would suppose I would be inquiring on the RME forum about now, but this exact setup works FLAWLESSLY with Nuendo 4 launched instead of Pyramix Native.

Following the good advice of Dennis at Merging, I have tried both IEC1394 and USB implementations of the RME UFX with the same results, both on internal clock and external. Before purchase, I was told that some users out here were using the RME product. I own a FF800, which has served me well in another location, (in 32bit-land) for almost 8 years. I have a huge respect for RME as such; my experience has been flawless.

Can anyone offer any thoughts on what might be going on here? Please feel free to hit my email via my website, and thanks in advance! Hellvis

What other software do you have installed on the machine?

I had a similar issue on a Laptop that had both Pyramix Native (v6 at the time) and SADiE Native installed and had to close a service in device manager related to SADiE to allow Pyramix to work.

A newer version of SADiE and of Pyramix since then and I no longer have the issue (In fact I only had it about a week I think where it actually had to be done) but it could maybe be something along those lines?

Shaun

Thanks very much for your detailed reply, Shaun: After trying a few tricks with the Merging specialist, Dennis, we contacted RME support. Their fellow in Florida referred me to a product specialist on the East coast who, after 2 1/2 hours online controlling and configuring my Elitebook online, got it settled down.

Turned off a bunch of processes (included battery management, internal sound features on both sound and video cards, non-essential ports like LAN and HDMI). Then I learned the true key - "DPC execution time monitoring". The fellow downloaded a simple real time application that read these, and the Elitebook was RED-LINING when we began. As he turned processes off, the unit gradually quieted down to a relaxed state, wherein all software suddenly worked without a hitch!
I cannot stress enough here how important this to everyone using laptops. Unlike Vista, which seemed to know its own limitations and built in an "audio priority mode" for our software to grab onto, Win 7 is a vain beast, arrogantly believing that it can handle everything at once. It is left to us to discover the tools of measurement necessary to reign it in!

HellvisP.

The software tool mentioned here is this:

DPC Latency Checker

http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml

Highly recommended for all Pyramix users. I seem to have a version of it built-in to the Weiss AFI-1 interface I now use.

Graemme

Hi, Graemme: Wow - I also own the mighty Weiss AFI-1, and have no idea where this software is and how it may be used! This device is on the playback side of my mastering chain; another HP laptop feeds the (white) Black Lion D/A converter via the Weiss AFI-1. How do I launch this to optimize the other HP?
Cheers to all for their informed help! HellvisP.