Midi playback skips and stuffers when I use multiple tracks with the synth. New soundcard needed?

peredy wrote on 11/21/2011, 7:16 PM

Midi playback skips and studders terribly, and says 100% of my cpu is used when I use multiple tracks with the synth. I know I have enough Ram and my processor is good. What I'm wondering is if the payback midi thats on my computer is causing this problem, and if getting a new soundcard with a better driver will fix this.

What sound card type at minimum would solve this issue? And would getting a soundcard that has it's own RAM help? Thank you for any information :)

 

Here are my specs:

 

Microsoft XP Professional

4 GB Ram (3.25 showing in properties of my computer)

2.8Ghz Pentium 4 processor

Computer: Dell gx270 Optiplex

Sound Playback: SoundMAX Digital Audio

Sound Recording: SoundMAX Digital Audio

Midi music playback: Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth

 

Thank you for any information :)

 

 

Comments

Procyon wrote on 11/21/2011, 7:51 PM

Thank you for all of the information.  You don't know what a nice thing that is.  But, you did leave out one important detail...what version of Music Maker are you using?  Without knowing that...

You seem to have plenty of power under the hood.  Before you run out and buy a new sound card, you may just need to increase the size of your playback buffers a bit.  They are in the Program Settings. Hit the 'P' key or look under the File menu.

Procyon wrote on 11/21/2011, 9:06 PM

Sorry if I am doing this wrong.

Nope...you did it just fine.

I'm surprised you were able to download a TRIAL version of MM-17 since it is no longer the current version, which is now MM-MX.

Yes, some people do have difficulties loading this software on their computers for many mysterious reasons (and you can't always blame the computer or the software).  The TRIAL versions are more for finding out if the software is something you're interested it, not necessarily to see if you can load and run it correctly, but that doesn't hurt either.

Back to the issue at hand...did you try adjusting the buffers?

Procyon wrote on 11/22/2011, 5:45 AM

The M-Audio could possibly help, I can't say for sure, but it certainly couldn't hurt.  It may just be the built-in sound ships just can't handle it.  It's clear that the CPU is being taxed too much.

 One thing though...you should make sure you have a USB 2.0 port available.  Being an XP machine, it's possible you only have USB 1.0 ports.  You may have to install a USB 2.0 card.

howardm0925 wrote on 12/20/2011, 2:37 PM

Try this also: ( This may help you out  if you haven't gotten it straight yet)

when you open your music maker program, if there's an options button at the top of console (click on it) then -

check to see if: system/audio  is listed ....if it is then (click on it) this should open a box-window where -

you can select the correct soundcard setting  (asio , mme, and wdm). It will be set to a default setting, if you

have these options select :mme or (wdm multichannel) mme should make it function properly, but you can try

wdm(multichannel) also. Plus if you see a  buffer adjustment aerea listed you may need to increase buffers to

justify play back of the midi files.I hope this helps ( that's what i had to do to get my computer and music program 

to work together

Yours Musically,

Melvin E. Howard

 

 

 

howardm0925 wrote on 12/20/2011, 2:45 PM

as for the cpu usage data go into computer settings or control panel and make adjustment on how mcuh of your

cpu you want to use for your programs verses normal usage. that way you can limit how much of your cpu is-

consumed by your progams. Again i hope this helps you out.

Yours Musically,

Melvin E. Howard