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Barely Hear Drums

Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2018 4:01 am
by dannerino
I have a fast computer and plenty of RAM. For a couple of sessions, Aerodrums worked well. Now suddenly I can barely hear the drums. The accompanying song is plenty loud. I've adjusted the mixing accordingly.

When I repeatedly tap a drum, it plays very softly except for about 1 in 10 hits. I don't believe it is based on where I'm hitting it or how hard I'm swinging.

Help.

Re: Barely Hear Drums

Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2018 12:36 pm
by Richard
If you're sure that you didn't accidentally decrease the drums volume in the mix then it sounds like you might have a frame rate issue that is causing erratic behaviour when hitting drums.

On the drumming screen, can you check if the small rectangular performance indicator in the top left corner of the screen is always green? If it changes to red it indicates that your computer is having trouble keeping up. If that's the case, can you tell me what 'fps' value it normally displays under the performance indicator?

Can you also tell me if you're running on a Mac and if you are, did you recently upgrade to High Sierra.

Re: Barely Hear Drums

Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2018 12:29 am
by dannerino
The FPS does change, and occasionally turns red. I don't suspect processor speed in general, as it is an i7. I'm running Windows 7, have 16 GB RAM. I do suspect possible conflicts affecting the FPS, but don't know enough about hardware to be more specific.

I am mostly computer literate, so any instructions to check or make changes to my system in an attempt to fix it, I'll be able to handle. I'm familiar with running cmd.exe as admin, running command line executables, even with parameters, editing the registry, etc. Give me some ideas of things to try.

Re: Barely Hear Drums

Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2018 11:13 am
by Richard
Here is a list of some things to try: https://aerodrums.com/fixit/#caa
The ctrl+g key combination to cycle through less demanding graphics modes has fixed performance issues for a lot of people.
I would also try fullscreen vs windowed to see if one or the other performs better.

Re: Barely Hear Drums

Posted: Fri Mar 16, 2018 3:39 am
by dannerino
I went through the list of things to try with no luck. I tried the CTRL G but it didn't help.

I recorded my playing, and have an mp3 of it. It would be helpful to hear that so you might understand what is happening. Sometimes the drum hits make strange sounds, not like rim shots, but like the computer struggled to get the whole sound out. I tried to upload the mp3, but it wasn't allowed.

I'm really leaning toward some sort of conflict that is causing aero to chug slowly. With a g7 and 16 GB, performance shouldn't be an issue. Any thoughts on conflicts?

Re: Barely Hear Drums

Posted: Fri Mar 16, 2018 12:03 pm
by Richard
Could you email your mp3 to me at richard.lee@aerodrums.com?

If you suspect an issue with the sound, could you try increase the Buffer Size on the latency screen to see if that makes it go away. As a test, you could also try an alternative audio device (e.g. Shared WASAPI or Windows Default instead of Exclusive WASAPI) just to help us figure out if the problem seems to be audio related.

One thing I'd suggest doing to see if there's potential conflicts with other attached USB devices is to unplug them all from your computer and only plug the camera and light directly into USB ports (i.e. don't use an external USB hub).

Re: Barely Hear Drums

Posted: Fri Mar 16, 2018 7:35 pm
by Richard
Thanks for sending the mp3. It does give some clues, although this is an issue we have never seen before. I'm assuming you're using the built-in Aerodrums sounds by the way. (It was hard to tell from the recording so if it's not the case please let me know.)

The only explanation we can come up for what we're hearing is that Aerodrums ran out of memory when trying to load the samples. This would be surprising though given that you said your computer has 16 GBs of RAM.

Could you try run Aerodrums directly after rebooting your computer to see if it behaves the same?

Could you also try creating a new drum kit with only one element and see if that sounds ok?

Re: Barely Hear Drums

Posted: Fri Mar 16, 2018 8:12 pm
by dannerino
I have run it with only the camera and lamp plugged into the USBs. Still experiencing the problem.

I have run it right after rebooting. In fact, the sound file I sent was recorded right after rebooting.

You mentioned changing a latency setting. When I click on the latency button, the only choices are to select Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced. I don't see any other options. Do I have an older version of ae? I have v1.0.24

Re: Barely Hear Drums

Posted: Fri Mar 16, 2018 11:37 pm
by Richard
Oh I see. In that case it sounds like you're in MIDI mode. Not sure how you're hearing anything in that case?? Have you set up some other software to receive MIDI from Aerodrums?

In any case, I think that clicking on the MIDI button and then selecting "No MIDI" will put Aerodrums back in the state it was in before you started having problems. Let us know if that fixes things for you.

Re: Barely Hear Drums

Posted: Sat Mar 17, 2018 1:57 am
by dannerino
OMG, I believe that may be it. I'm not at home now, but as soon as I get there, I'm going to change to No MIDI and see what happens. I'm confident that will fix things.

Why did I select MIDI Only anyway? Oh, I think I was looking into creating my own drum samples with Mixcraft. Can you explain how that is done? Just kidding. Thanks for all your help.