I have a AES16e-50 and it seems like all of my software is unable to sync with the card. The card syncs nice in both internal and aes50 clocks but there is clicks, pops and noises with all buffer lengths and samplerates. Strange thing is that with card syncing from aes50 (96k) it is possible to set programs to run with other rates. With long buffers (4096 or 8192 samples) the problem does not significantly get better or worse even if programs are running on 88.2k rate while card is running 96k. It is possible to set software even to 44,1k rate while card is running 96k and still get somewhat recognizable audio through. When routing through internal mixer audio is ok as long as card and aes50 source are properly set up and they manage to lock sync.

Both software and firmware are latest available and I have tried to re-install the drivers and software. I'm running win7 64bit, CPU is AMD A10-5800K and I have 8gb of ram installed so that should be enough of power. I plan on running vst-plugins in live environment so low latency is necessary. Is there any way to test where the sync is lost or do you have any ideas what to try?

Thanks in advance!

 -Ossi Miikkulainen

So do the problems happen with playing back known good audio through AES50, or do you have the problems with both play back AND recording or input monitoring? 

When slaving to AES50, does the Lynx Mixer ever show that sync is lost? 

Lynx mixer never shows that the sync is lost as it would mean complete loss of aes50 stream also. If I force another rate or select wrong clock master/slave settings it does not find sync and all audio through aes50 drops. 

My source is locked to 96k samplerate, if I let it be master and tell card to take sync from aes50 I can choose any samplerate in software but the card is locked to 96k and audio is glitchy. If I tell card to be master at 96k and my source to slave same thing happens, card shows sync lock to 96k, software can be set to any rate and audio is broken. If card is in any other rate than 96k it does not find sync and there is no audio through aes50, also if there are two masters or two slaves at 96k it doesn't find sync and no aes50 audio is present.

No, the mixer lock is not enabled.

From the Lynx Mixer click Mixer > About. What is the firmware version of your AES16e card? If it is 14, try http://www.lynxstudio.com/upload/FWUpdate20150225.exe" rel="nofollow - this updater and see if that changes the behavior. 

Firmware was version 14, I downgraded it and didn't notice any difference. My educated guess is that the ASIO-driver somehow is unable to communicate the sync between software and hardware as both ends report all-ok. If the software is given permission to decide samplerate and the card is on internal clock it is possible to change hardware samplerate from software. (that naturally drops sync between stagebox and the card)

I have tried to re-install the drivers but it haven't helped, I'll try tomorrow a complete clean install of windows, drivers and software. Is it possible to somehow extract software clock and compare it to the cards clock?

Why don't you set the Sync Source in the Lynx Mixer to AES50. Then set your software to operate at 96k. See if that works. 

Also, if you are still getting distortion you might try increasing your buffer size from within the DAW and see if that helps. 

If the card does not get sync with aes50 the whole connection is dead. Also when using only lynx mixer to route audio from stagebox inputs back to stagebox outputs everything is fine so the aes50 side and lynx mixer works ok. Only when trying to record, play or loop back audio through any software everything becomes glitchy. I have tried every possible combination of clock sources and SR selection sources but so far nothing has worked.

Is it possible that there is some kind of hardware-specific optimization in the DMA-transfer from card to host-computer's ram or in the pci-express interface? If the problem is in the bus between card and ram then it doesn't matter how large the buffer in ram is as any data to buffer and from buffer gets corrupted.

First off, I would suggesting running the http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml" rel="nofollow - DPC latency checker to see if you are getting spikes. If so, this will give us an objective way of measuring if changes made to the system will help or not. 

Look into your Bios. If you have Speedstep or EIST, disable it. Same with C States (C1, C3. C6, etc). 

I have currently installed Reaper, Waves MultiRack and Waves Tracks Live on the computer and no plugins. With Reaper it is possible to disable hyperthreading but it makes no difference. No cpu is showing anything unusual, with Reaper only one cpu has any load at all, with tracks live all of the cpu's have some load with only one of them continuous.

With Reaper the problem is not so bad, with tracks live it is very bad and noticeable and waves multirack does not start audio at all.

Is the card installed directly or are you using an expansion chassis? 

Do you have a different computer you can test the card in?

 

I don't have other computer right now but I think I can borrow one. Do you know if it is possible to monitor that bus data anyhow? 

Thanks. 

Because of all the christmas-hassle I didn't get chance to get that RMA-quote so I ran some more tests. When running Reaper or Waves TracksLive I can get audio through clean with 64 sample buffers, with plugins in Reaper I need 128 samples for somewhat reliable operation. Most of the problems seem to come along between software output and aes50 input of host device as my last plugin in chain is fft spectrogram that shows almost no noise at all but the audio from aes50 has clearly problems. I've also tested recording audio and then playing it back several times and the noise is not in the recorded audio as it shows up in different times.

With 256 sample buffers I get acceptable reliability but I'd like to have shorter buffers. The strange thing is that even with very long buffers the Waves Multirack still refuses to start audio. I still get the same message every 10 seconds or so stating that MultiRack has lost sync and audio will be stopped. Is this still likely to be hardware issue or is there something I could test or try? If it is not likely to be hardware problem then I will contact Waves support and ask their opinion.

Also, is there reason to suspect that the AES50 from the Stage box is problematic? Has it been used in another context successfully? I don't suppose you have some other AES50 device we can try with the system? 

edit: I tested both the stagebox and the aes16e-50 cards with both desks.

I have been having similar problems with the lynx AES16e-50 hooked up to a Midas DL32 stage box running RML labs Software Audio Console ( SAC ) as the software. I don't think it is a clocking issue. For me It seems to be a dropped buffer issue between the DAW software and the Lynx Mixer? I could not get clean audio out at 1 buffer 64 samples, 1 buffer 128 samples or even 1 buffer 264 samples, but when I tried 3 buffers at 32 samples it worked. I then tried 2 buffers at 32 samples and it remained stable with no audible glitches. SAC has a window in the software Where it reports slipped buffers and while I was trying all this it never reported any slipped buffers yet something was definitely going on.

Phase 2:

AS I started to test further with more audio source input and screen changes, plugin window opening etc..

I've found that the SAC program ( which has several "settings" to choose from such as Realtime Priority, High Priority, Single CPU etc.. ) needed to be set to High Priority NOT Realtime Priority in order to have mostly clean audio. I say mostly, because with this setting I got rid of the constant "dropped Buffer" sounds but SAC Itself will now drop the occasional buffer and register the event in its window.

This is what has lead me to the possibility that there could be some conflict in the transfer between the DAW and The Lynx mixer? i.e. both cannot have "Real time priority" just a theory as the lynx mixer does not report slipped buffers as far as I can tell.

What DAW type software was used in testing with the Lynx AES16e-50?

Is it even possible for the card/lynx mixer to run fine at 2x32 samples but NOT at 1x higher buffer sizes? this would seem strange to me.

Thoughts?

Hal

Hi Hal,

The Lynx Mixer simply reveals the hardware state of the card. It doesn't exist in any independent capacity, so  transfer to the Lynx Mixer are the same as transfer to the card. The Lynx Mixer will report dropped samples, which you would typically see with buffer underruns. 

Hal, from the Lynx Mixer: Mixer > About, what is the firmware rev on your AES16e card?

Mixer version is 2.00 build 23, firmware version is 14.0 but I have already tried version 13.2 with no success.

I installed my Motu 896mk3 to the same computer and programs and plugins run nice with same samplerates and buffer lengths so after all it really seems to be a hardware issue.