New virus: distorted sound (not buffer-related)

    In ableton live on mac I get distorted/bitcrushed sound from the virus. The volume is alo lower than it should be.
    The sound is fine with all other tracks. The virus is only connected with usb, straight to the imac (usb 3).



    If I reboot my mac it will behave again, but if I let it stay for a while (including screen-sleep) the distorted/bit-crushed sound gets back. Actually found out that I can fix the problem with just rebooting ableton live. Anyway that sure is a hassle too...


    I got it this saturday so it is brand new! I'm wondering if I got a faulty product (it is a demo-model from the shop).


    What can I do?

    Actually it's just the screen that sleeps - not the computer... Don't think the virus was sleeping either really. The problem came up also while using it. Sudden distortion...


    I am really wondering if I should ask for a new virus, just in case it was this model. Plus before I bought it I called the shop and asked if they had one in stock - they never mentioned that it was a demo-model before I had driven over an hout to get to the shop.

    Hey man I feel like I've been getting the same thing. Are you getting a full on crunchy sound, or just this weird sort of subtle distortion? That's what I'm getting - everything sounds a little too crunchy and not smooth and clean. And I am making sure that all the sounds have no filter saturation, distortion, anything on them. I feel it's gotten worse with the newest software update... Are you getting the same thing?

    Zitat von lurker94

    Hey man I feel like I've been getting the same thing. Are you getting a full on crunchy sound, or just this weird sort of subtle distortion? That's what I'm getting - everything sounds a little too crunchy and not smooth and clean. And I am making sure that all the sounds have no filter saturation, distortion, anything on them. I feel it's gotten worse with the newest software update... Are you getting the same thing?


    the way i understand it is that above sounds fully bit crushed. please open a dedicated thread for your issue.
    thanks, marc

    Zitat von Marc

    the way i understand it is that above sounds fully bit crushed. please open a dedicated thread for your issue.
    thanks, marc

    Funny how we can interpret things differently. To me it sounds like they are describing the same problem almost (unlikely and information given is a little vague).



    Vido you say rebooting "fixes" the problem but did not mention restarting/disconnecting the virus. Does disconnecting the USB, powering down your Virus, reconnecting USB and then powering the Virus back up not work?

    Zitat von theredfox

    Funny how we can interpret things differently. To me it sounds like they are describing the same problem almost (unlikely and information given is a little vague).


    those things happen ...


    Zitat von theredfox

    Vido you say rebooting "fixes" the problem but did not mention restarting/disconnecting the virus. Does disconnecting the USB, powering down your Virus, reconnecting USB and then powering the Virus back up not work?


    it both results in the same: the USB connection is build again, driver is loaded etc.
    marc

    I am experiancing this issue too amongst other issues.
    Using the "Virus USB" as my sound card in FL 10 with latest update OS and Drivers, works fine for 20 seconds then starts glitching out. Reminds me of the same sound/affect you get when your CPU is clipping with too many VSTs but not the case in mine. I have a near new laptop with a higher end i7 CPU and 4 GB of RAM. Watching the task manager whilst the issue occurs shows no spikes in CPU or RAM.
    Tried upping the buffer size. Makes issue worse.
    In DAW, changed sound card from Virus USB to ASIO4ALL (Virus Ti), fixed temporarily then issue returns.
    In ASIO4ALL, disable Virus and enable onboard - Everything runs fine. Switch back to Virus = PC Locks up completely (not BSOD though - just froze!)
    Using my M-Audio Fast Track Pro USB sound card for my DAW and Virus as just a VST/ external synth connected via USB = Setup works perfectly. Switch back to using the virus as my sound card, INSTANT issues....(Yes, I should just stick with using my M-Audio Sound card but why should I when the Virus is "on paper" a better sound card? + I want a simlified setup!)
    There is nothing in my Windows event logs either to suggest what could be happening here
    Strange!

    Zitat von Samwhich

    Reminds me of the same sound/affect you get when your CPU is clipping with too many VSTs

    It's not the CPU that's maxing out, it's the USB bandwidth that the Virus gets. Using The Virus as the soundcard, employs its "in" audio stream, while when only working under VC, you can choose just how many streams you want to use (patch/utility -> config, try to reduce and see if it improves things).
    One more thing to check is a better USB port to use with the Virus for better bandwidth, use the device manager in view->devices by connection mode, to help you choose a USB port where the Virus doesn't share its root hub with another USB device.
    Hope this helps.

    This seems to be caused by USB, indeed.


    Try routing to Analog and see if the problem recurs, if it does, it's caused by USB buffers running out.


    The reason for this is many. On OS X, the primary cause using Live seems to be hyperthreading. Disable hyperthreading. You can also try disabling power saving options. I've got a core i7 processor, and this solved the same problem. You get in, it works for 10 minutes, and then distortion starts.


    There is another strange thing with live. I've noticed that whenever CPU usage goes above 50% in Live, the Virus sync/crackling/FUBAR errors start. This MIGHT be due to a bad USB chip but I don't have high hopes for that. I think that has more to do with the kernel. When you're running Virus, try to run a program that accesses disk frequently. That will also cause Virus crackling/sync errors.


    Somehow USB transfer doesn't have high priority. I don't know if this is the same in OS X 10.6.x. But I'm pretty sure there is a strange behavior in OS X 10.7.x.


    I also completely disabled the dynamic pager! That works very well, and it doesn't break memory if you have enough RAM.

    Hi!
    Let me just share my experience..
    I've bought a new mac and when installing the virus app updated to OS5, I've configured Logic and to my surprise when I opened one of my tunes the virus channel sounded very low and quite distorted/bit crushed.
    First thing was to check if my virus desktop is OK, by disconnecting the USB cable to my Mac and just playing couple of chords on my midi keyboard connected Virus by MIDI cable.
    When the sound was okay, it was clear that it is not the synth itself, or at least not the hardware, so I thought something's wrong with the OS5.
    Then I remembered that when configuring Logic I've reduced I/O buffer size from default value 256 to 128. I've set it back to 256 and now the problem appears to be gone.
    Way too strange, no?


    I see that you've written that it is not a buffer problem, but wonder why the results seemed the same...


    P.S. If you have already settled the case, could you please share the solution with us..?

    Zitat von jhuettner

    Changing the buffer size forces most DAWs to reload the entire audio engine and this might have been the cause for the "fix", not the change in buffer size per se.


    Well, I guess you are right, but please note that I've restarted the DAW in question before bringing back the buffer size to the default value. Weird enough, no?