Hi,

it’s been some time since I was last writing a post in here and I am suprised of the new facelift of motifator. Although more modern it will take some time to get accustomed to being so used to the old format.

I am experiencing for the first time some dropout issues that I can’t find a way around. I installed all latest updates as well as the 1.12 OS and Cubase 4.5 as well as others.

For the first time after almost 2 yrs I am getting dropouts both when playing a voice on the XS all the way to making projects in Cubase.

I am also having problems with viewing movies, playing games etc on the pc with frequent dropouts that are extremely annoying.

This never happend before i did all the updating. I tried restarting the pc, the mlan driver, increasing the buffer, searching for a missing update, playing around with settings in utility mode but nothing seems to do it. I do have a feeling this may be related to the new XS VST update for Cubase since I noticed the problem after I installed it. Not that I am 100% sure since the problem might of been around after doing the first updates before just hadn’t noticed.

Any ideas or other posts to point to? I tried searching on the forum but didn’t seem to find anything helpful. Maybe my keywords were not correct in searching.

BM or YamahaUS or anyone with an answer please help me it would be much appreciated.

I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest you have a PC issue, but I’m curious what drop-outs means to you, and how it behaves. Is it constant/intermittent? Can you make it happen, every time you do something?

Given the information that “I am also having problems viewing moves, playing games et..” I don’t have a crisp definition of drop out, but will assume it is sound.

Is this sound only? If you disconnect the XS, it’s mLan driver, etc., and view the movie, you are not using any Yamaha driver or software. Does it still drop out? (process of elimination)

Do you have anti virus software running?  How much free space is left on your disk drives?  How much RAM in PC? At this point, i’d be wondering if my OS was swapping memory to disk in an effort to keep up with fragmented drive, lack of memory or some competing processes…

Sound dropping out while playing a DVD movie: What software is playing the movie?  What game is causing the sound to drop out?  Both of these activities use your PC sound card.

The VST editor won’t have affected OS system level drivers. Especially if you’re not running them (Cubase/mLAN/VST)and the issue is occuring.

Isolating the issue will require a methodical approach and I would recommend not making random changes to buffers or other configuration items without a log so you can “un-do” those things.  Otherwise, you may compound your problem or create some new ones in the process.

tell us more about your PC.  What sound card and driver version. What OS and patch level?

Hi Tbone,

thanks for trying to help, -yes this is a obviously a sound issue (or else i wouldn’t be reporting it) and i don’t believe it to be the pc. Sound dissapears for 1-2 secs (dropouts) randomly in time. Only 2 hrs before I installed the updates my motif was playing fine and that held true for almost 2 yrs until the updates. I don’t think I acquired a pc issue in 2 hrs… this is somehow related to the updates. Also I got an XS8 and I am using the motif mlane2 as a soundcard for the pc (for movies, games etc).

Just to give you a tip try to deactivate (through BIOS) your Realtek or other motherboard soundriver because it can cause all kinds of conflicts and issues with your mlan and use your motif as a soundcard it’s pretty cool/ (must have mlan)

Tweaking the buffer won’t do anything to the PC or motif. I do it all the time depending on the VST I’ve loaded in Cubase and try to keep latency as low as possible for audio recordings.

Thanks for trying to help but is there someone out there with a similar issue? BM or YamahaUS any ideas?

THIS MIGHT BE AN MLAN 1.6.3 AND WIN AI 1.6.3 DRIVER CONFLICT I THINK I INSTALLED BOTH WHICH I ASSUME IS WRONG -TRYING TO SEE HOW TO GET RID OF THE FIRST- got only an XS8 with pc

i think this is a classic case of RTFM… Am I right BM?

Did you get it sorted out?

Bad_Mister - 28 February 2009 02:43 PM

Did you get it sorted out?

Yes all is fine! Thanks for asking BM. Once I unistalled the mlan driver and installed the ai driver all is ok.

It got confused and installed the mlan and ai driver and it seems that was causing all the trouble…

take care
peter

good to see you sorted it out…

I too have the XS8 and utilize the sound card function for streaming audio to my near field monitors, Cubase integration, etc. and have it working well with my internal SoundBlaster as well.

Sorry for stating the obvious to you. Was just trying to help you sort out the process and understand what your rig looked like.

To your point, the last Change would have been the most suspect. But eliminating the impact of that change was the first step I was contemplating.

peace.

Don’t like reviving old posts but my dropouts in sound started again!

I’m trying to figure out what the issue is since it doesn’t appear to be the drivers I installed that were causing it.

I’ve kept the task manager window open to check out if I’m getting cpu spikes (which is unlikely) but nothing of the sort.

The dropouts in sound last for 1-2 seconds and the CPU is under 2% when occuring.

THe troubling aspect about this is that I’ve noticed while simply playing a voice on the XS (in voice mode) without using Cubase or any other software this can happen also.

This seems awfully strange and I am not finding anyone else with similar issues on the forum.

Maybe I should check out the older posts too.

In the meantime if anyone can help please give me your opinion!

BM or Yanaha USA does this behavior of my XS8 ring a bell on some issue I might be having??

Or should I call technical support? I live in Greece (I am also American) and I am not sure that anyone in Greece could help me since the market is quite small here compared to the US, UK or Germany and the local dealer probably doesn’t have any specialists on the matter.

We see you have a Windows PC, running XP (32-bit). Can you think of anything that you have changed recently that might be a conflict to your computer doing audio? Update to SP3, for example. Wireless internet active? ...something else using the Firewire port? Let us know as much as you think is related.

The problems occured when after a period of several months I was lagging behind in updates and decided to updraded (almost all components had newer updates). I did all updating according to the pdf’s that came along with each zip file and as far as I can recall all went smoothly.

Didn’t change anything on the PC since or have any other problems. Only thing i did is update Cubase to 4.5.2 with no probs whatsoever during the installation process.

I now did what is usually A BAD IDEA and unistalled all drivers and installed from the begging -except the OS-. Same reaction - at random points the sound just dissapears for 1-2 sec although Cubase or Media player’s timer is moving smoothly. Computer CPU has no spikes. Changed the buffer to a higher number all the way to 1012 same thing again after a while.

Only thing that hasn’t changed is the OS. Should I re-install it or is that simply a very bad idea???

I think I might call support in the UK or US being a native english speaker and everything since I can’t seem to pinpoint what’s causing this behavior.

Just hope my baby is ok since I’ve got her looking brand new just like when I bought her almost 2 yrs ago. The plastic cover from the LCD screen is still on there if you know what i mean!!

cmorganis - 12 March 2009 12:28 AM

Don’t like reviving old posts but my dropouts in sound started again!

The dropouts in sound last for 1-2 seconds and the CPU is under 2% when occuring.

THe troubling aspect about this is that I’ve noticed while simply playing a voice on the XS (in voice mode) without using Cubase or any other software this can happen also.

These statements may be key to explore.  Not running CB or other s/w you get this 1-2 second drop out.

How are your monitoring your XS?

If you were to play that same Voice, while directly monitoring the XS with headphones, does the drop-out occur?

My suggestion would be to eliminate the PC altogether, or perhaps Yamaha has a diagnostic utility for their mLAN card you can download/run. 

I would suspect cabling first… then focus on the mLAN sound card… that is, if playing the XS alone didn’t reproduce the drop out.

just a thought.

thanks for suggestions Tbone,

I’ll definetely check out some of the things you just mentioned. Although I am worried this might be worse than I thought since this has happend with the motif working on its own too like when playing in voice mode without bringing in the PC in any way. I am afraid something went wrong when I updated to 1.12 maybe a corrupt installation file or something....just hope is nothing irreversible....

I am quite sad, I was saving money for some time for the motif and most importantly making music is what keeps me going since everything else in my life sucks//

thanks for the help again Tbone

BM or Yamaha US

you had asked me for any info I could find to help in solving the issues on my problems. Well I noticed through the mlan driver that when these hiccups/dropouts occur a brief message appears in the mlan activity monitor briefly saying: DBC error any idea what the heck that is????

By the way the dropouts in Cubase have gotten worse now. It’s almost impossible to listen to a whole composition in Cubase....

“I’ll definetely check out some of the things you just mentioned. Although I am worried this might be worse than I thought since this has happend with the motif working on its own too like when playing in voice mode without bringing in the PC in any way. I am afraid something went wrong when I updated to 1.12 maybe a corrupt installation file or something....just hope is nothing irreversible....

...you had asked me for any info I could find to help in solving the issues on my problems. Well I noticed through the mlan driver that when these hiccups/dropouts occur a brief message appears in the mlan activity monitor briefly saying: DBC error any idea what the heck that is???? ”

A DBC (data bulk continuity counter) error is the cause of your dropouts. This is a kind of digital counter that is responsible for ensuring that all the data packets sent are arriving. Now how you are able to get DBC errors when not connected to the PC (that I don’t understand). But the hiccups in your sound are definitely caused by that error. And can be due to a conflict. I don’t have all the information here now, but that is a major clue.

When the office opens tomorrow, I’ll attempt to gather some information and hopefully will have something for you in terms of how to proceed. As to why you are receiving these errors now after having a working system - definitely has to do with some changes either to your computer that now conflict with the audio drivers or firewire card.

It is unlikely that it has anything to do with the XS operating system 1.12 (highly unlikely). Anyway, stay tuned…

thanks BM I’ll be coming in as often as I can.

The truth is that I had an issue with the motif stand-alone the first time I had the dropouts. For about a month now I am ok with the motif stand-alone: -i know it sounds weird-. In any case i had a working system 2-3 hrs right before the updates (which include Cubase updates too).

So at this point in time I have only PC related dropouts quite often. How do i know they are PC related? I did an experiment: I simply had an arpeggio looping away while doing some work on cubase and guess what? Cubase playback (or media player) playback dropped out but the arp kept on looping. So this is certainly Mlan related and not unit related as it appears.

Concerning the dropouts of the motif standalone -> I either somehow got over the first problem or that was unrelated to this or I am remembering incorrectly (brain fart). But about a month and half ago I can recall I was playing the motif’s grand piano when I got those dropouts. I had just updated to 1.12. I am trying very hard to remember if maybe I am mistaken and it was a VST piano sample which in that case it’s all Mlan related… and all makes sense...anyway DBC error is the only 100% sure issue at this point that I can verify.