Sounds clipping

SteveFrederick

I purchased the Komplete software months ago and have not been able to use it on one project yet. The sounds clip out whenever I add the plug-ins in Logic Pro X. I have send in request tickets several times and keep getting the same nonsense over and over again.

Yes, the programs all have full access

Yes, they are on a APFS Formatted HD

Yes, I increased buffer size and addressed multi-thread processing

I did fresh installs of everything multiple times, upgraded the software among other things I thought may help

I'm on an Intel Mac Pro with 128 GB RAM, Running Ventura 13.3.1, Radeon Pro Vega 64 16GB, 4TB External Drive APFS Dedicated to Logic/Native Instruments

When I open Kontakt 7 in standalone it seems to be okay, however the same settings in LogicPro X cut out immediately.

I don't expect any help from Native at this point but maybe someone in the community has had experience with this and can help.

Thanks

Kymeia

What is your audio interface? I presume you are using Core Audio? How many instances are you trying to run and with which instruments?

SteveFrederick

Thank you for the response Kymeia.

I am using the Apogee interface along with Apogee Element 88.

Trouble starts when I use more than one instance on NI within Logic Pro (or) If I have a project with a couple of audio tracks and I apply a NI instrument. I have not been able to create any project along with their instruments without it cutting out after roughly a second of play.

I have had issues with Kontakt, Monark, Retro Machines, Battery and Modular Icons to name a few

Kymeia

Thanks - very odd, your system and interface are top notch so this shouldn't be happening. All I can say is I am not experiencing this on my Mac Studio (M1Max, 64 GB RAM) so that may bring some hope but clearly NI support need to engage with you more to narrow down the cause.

SteveFrederick

Agreed, trouble with that is they don’t respond in a timely fashion. I’ve tried contacting them several times and by the time I get a response I’m done with the project. They really have the worst customer support I’ve ever experienced

ozon

Is the external 4TB drive a HDD or SSD? How is it connected (TB, USB-C, USB)? Have you measured the read/write performance of that disk?

SteveFrederick

This is a HDD connected via TB. I originally was using my internal drive with the same issue so I formatted this one to use exclusively for NI. No luck

I have not measured the performance, which tool would you recommend?

ozon

I use Blackmagic Disk Speed Test. There are other tools to do the same, maybe you already have one of them as part of some HD utilities package. A rotating disk based drive might be too slow to satisfy your disk streaming needs.

I'm no expert at optimising systems, maybe @D-One could share some knowledge?

Kymeia

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/67774#Comment_67774

I can't see this being the problem if you were having it already with stuff on the main drive - plus I have my samples on 2 TB Thunderbolt drives and as I said am not experiencing this.

SteveFrederick

And I have a host of other plug in’s from Toontrack, Waves, Izotope, Soundtoys and more, none of which give me any trouble

Kubrak

Do you have external HDD or SSD? If HDD it might make problems. At least with larger Kontakt libraries.

I am not on Mac, but I have no problem to run several instances of NI plugins on rather weak Win PC (i5 10th gen 4C/8T running at 3.2 GHz at most as it is passively cooled). It is able to run two instances of Kontakt with Light Series (very CPU intensive) and few more plugins (Massive X, Razor, ...) on top.

You should not have any problems on your setup.

D-One

Im confused about what mac you got... Is it a Mac Pro or iMac Pro?

Wait... External HDD via thunderbolt formated as AFPS? APFS is optimised for modern SDD's not old spinning HDD's, this might not be the cause but I would reformat it anyway.

Is this only an issue with Kontakt? How do other any products behave like the NI synths for example?

Do you have another host/daw to test? even if just a trial just to establish if it's an NI issue or a Logic issue to further debug it.

SteveFrederick

Thank you for your input, much appreciated

It’s an iMac Pro and I had the same issue while running the NI libraries from the internal drive. As mentioned I formatted the LaCie 4TB thunderbolt drive APFS and copied the libraries there to see if it made a difference. It did not.

I then copied all my Logic libraries there as well and they work fine. I don’t think it’s the drives.

I do not have another DAW on this rig. It works okay in standalone but that’s just one instance. One instance with no other tracks in Logic works okay too. It seems to cut out once there are multiple tracks

and it’s not just Kontakt, it’s ALL NI instruments

Kubrak

Well, definitely, problems must be caused by your setup. NI SW plays fine on way inferior systems to yours. Hard to say, where the problem is.

And internal disc is HDD or SSD? Kontakt may have dropouts if disc loads are slow. HDD is slow. You might have look at load of individual CPU cores as well to find out if CPU is not overloaded.

As I found at Wiki, iMac Pro should have internal PCIe NVMe SSD.... It should be many times faster than external HDD. If working correctly...

In any case, there is something strange about your setup....

By the way, Retro Machines and Modular Icons run in Kontakt.

SteveFrederick

Results from test

SteveFrederick

Disk Results