rmx output sound cuts out occasionally with traktor + vista

hi everyone,

im new here, i bought and rmx and traktor a couple of days ago and its awesome!  but im having one small problem, every now and then the output sound will occasionally cut out for a very short amount of time.  its ok now but if i start playing out it could be a bit embarressing! anyone know what could be causing it and how to stop it?

thanks in advance!

matt

Hello Matt_47,

Can you check if you still meet this sound cuts if you:

1) disable the USB ports power management through Device Manager:
- Right click on MY COMPUTER icon on your desktop and select Properties.
- In the Left–hand section, click on Device Manager.
- Under Universal Serial Bus Controllers, Double-click on USB root hub.
- In Power Management tab, uncheck Allow the computer to turn off this device to
save power,
- Repeat the same operation on each USB Root Hub line,

2) Make sure you have the adequate power option in Vista
- Start > Settings > Control Panel > Power Options
- Under Select a power Plan, choose High Performance.

3) Close all keep background tasks
- Disable all communications software ( Messenger, Skype, etc)
- Close all download applications (Torrents, etc)
- Disable any WI-FI or network connections 
- Disable your all protections programs ( Antivirus, Firewall, etc).

Hercules has made a summary of Windows optimization on

http://ts.hercules.com/includes/view_faq.php?id=364&d=2008-09-26&folder=eng

Thanks for the advice Maxdjack! I'll try that tonight.

I just did the things you said and managed to do a 2 hour mix with no cutting out so thanks a lot!

Unfortunately I now have a new problem! Occasionally the output master volume will swell (i.e. go from quiet to loud smoothly and quickly over and over again).. any ideas anyone what would be causing this?   I don't think it's my amplifier/speaker as my traktor output master volume indicator shows the same swelling, so I guess it must be caused by something in the RMX?

Test your Rmx as a MIDI controller as described in the procedure below:

http://ts.hercules.com/faqs/eng/her_eng_00353.pdf

It could be that the volume fader is spiking, i.e. sending data even when not moving. If this is the case, it would make sense that the volume in Traktor is behaving in the same way.

Something you might want to do when you first launch Traktor is to move all faders and knobs in order to cover their complete range of values. 

Thanks for your reply DJ Phatso.  I've just tested my RMX using that procedure and all the midi controls seem to be sending data properly.  They're also covering the complete range of values in traktor.  If it is the MIDI not functioning properly I think the only way to test it now would be to wait till i next hear the swelling and see if traktor is registering midi inputs when i'm not using the controller.. Any Ideas what else it could be?

Thanks again

EDIT: I just had a bit of a mix again, and the volume swells happened again - I checked the midi indicator on traktor while they were happening and traktor wasnt recieving any inputs.  Also, the swells sort of seemed to happen more when the crossfader was in the centre and I was mixing two tracks together

Hello Matt_47,

To whether check the delay for Traktor to carry the MIDI controls occurs
- inside Traktor 
- or before Traktor, 
you can try to MIDI-OX Midi monitor as a background task ( http://www.midiox.com/) to monitor the MIDI commands received in the environment. 
- If the MIDI commands are detected in MIDI OX at the moment they are not carried by Traktor, then the issue may come from a Traktor setting, 
- if the MIDI commands are not received in MIDI OX at the same moment, then the issue is not in Traktor.

From reading your post again, I think this as nothing to do with MIDI at all, but I'm not sure what it could be. 

Can you try playing music with another application (iTunes for example) to see if the problem also occurs ?

BTW, Native Instruments just released update 1.1.1 for Traktor. I would recommand installing it.

As for Maxdjack recommandation, it sounds like a good plan, but unfortunately to make this happen, you need to install additional MIDI virtual cables as the MIDI driver can only be used by one application at a time ( i.e. if you enable the Rmx MIDI In and Out in MIDI OX, Traktor won't allow you to enable them in MIDI setup)  

thanks for all the replies guys.  I tried mixing on traktor with no controller (just with the mouse) and I still got the swelling so I guess its either traktor or something with my computer in general.. I'll try the itunes thing too.  May post on the NI Traktor forum and see what people have to say there.

Thanks again

I fixed it!   Under preferences > Mixer, I just unticked master volume control..  Have to control the master myself but its nothing compared to the annoying swells!

Thanks for all your input guys