Hi all,

I'm having trouble with a new Sequoia system. I'm getting instances during recording and sometimes playback, where the software loses sync with RME audio cards and all I get is audio hash, tons of digital clicks.

Right now, I'm wondering for those of you running Sequoia on Windows 10, what motherboard brand and model are you using? Which software version? And what kind of interface?

I have an ASUS Z590M-Plus motherboard, 2 RME HDSP AES32 cards, Sequoia Version 16. Have gone through weeks of testing and tweaks with the all three parties- computer builder, Magix, and RME.

I'm just trying to find a working combination.

More detailed description of the issue: https://www.magix.info/us/forum/sequ...hash--1287636/

Thanks in advance for any thoughts!

Hi,
Did you try with another daw? Don't misunderstand me, Sequoia is great (I work with Samplitude and RME/MADI) but it is to find a way to isolate the problem (software or hardware).
Another test could be another interface in USB (even a cheap one) and your Sequoia.

What you describe could be a clock problem parameter...

To my knowledge, the problem is in the PCI to PCIE bridge card you have to use to interface the said motherboard and RME HDSP AES32 sound card. You can’t plug the sound card into your motherboard without the bridge card. Although you didn’t mention this in your post.

RME HDSP AES32 is an old product that uses PCI interface. Your motherboard is current design and has no PCI slot. I assume you have to use some sort of bridge card to make the motherboard and sound card to work with each other. As far as I know there is no PCI to PCIe bridge card that is truly suitable for audio work. The solution to your problem is to ditch the sound card and get something new and uses PCIe interface. If you want to stay with RME, the sound card you want is their HDSPe AES.

Good luck.

There is no problem using Reaper. I actually purchased 3 identical Sequoia systems at the same time. The problem happens on all 3 systems, although the audio hash time interval is not predictable. But that proves that it isn't a bad motherboard or card in one system.

I've tried different A/Ds, clocked both using word clock and AES. But, this occurs occasionally when editing on internal clock.

Apologies, I didn't correctly identify the cards. They are brand new HDSPe cards from RME.

Please make sure your settings are correct in RME TotalMix.

There are some small settings that may be not set right.

What settings should I review? I don't do much in that window...

Sorry, Player, but I cannot help you without being there.

Check clock assignment for one thing.

One MUST deal with the TotalMix window when using RME AES cards.

Ran Sequoia 16, Windows 10, RME DigiFace DANTE with 52 inputs recently. Stable for a week at 24/96. Computer is an Origin PC EVO15-S laptop, i7, 32GB RAM, SSDs.

Haven't ever used PCI cards. Sorry!

Oh, I thought you knew about certain hidden settings that should be set a certain way.

Of course, clock settings always checked before booting Sequoia.

dunno about sequoia but with nunedo (and some other platforms), one can disable totalmix (which of course still doesn't absolve the op from choosing the right sound card and specifically driver and clock settings)...

Problems like this are almost always related to a badly behaved PC process or device driver. You can use a tool like this one to help you figure out what is happening.
Respendence LatencyMon
You'll undoubtedly see a latency spike when the problem occurs. Now your job is to figure out what's causing it.

Open Task Manager to see what is running in background. Many processes have strange names, but a web search will tell you what it is and whether it is essential to your system or not. If you open your System Tray, you'll often see icons for programs that you wouldn't have guessed are hanging around all the time. Right click to close them and tell them not to run at start up.

The fact that this disturbance happens regularly but rarely suggests some scheduled process like an update check that needs to be turned off. Open Task Scheduler to see what it was that started running when the problem occurred. If you see a task that's scheduled to rerun in just over an hour, that's a dead giveaway for your problem.

Driver problems tend to manifest more frequently or be triggered by some particular user behavior like opening browser or resizing a window. Common culprits are bus-hogging graphics cards and network adapters. The problem is usually fixable by dialing back acceleration parameters or downloading a different driver.

I notice that you posted your question to a general Magix support forum. That's not where Samplitude and Sequoia power users hang out. Instead, join the dedicated Samplitude/Sequoia Support Forum

David L. Rick
Seventh String Recording

So it looks it's not a hardware (audio side) problem and at least not a clock one.

Are all the 3 Sequoia hardware (PC) identical? Same MB, same CPU, Ram etc?
If it's the case, it could also be a bad choice of one component inside the computers in combination with Sequoia.

Good luck!

Yes, they are the same. In one system we have tried a different brand of RAM to see if that solves it- no luck.

The computers have the ASUS motherboard that Magix/Sequoia suggests, and RME cards. Nobody can determine which component is the problem, although I suspect Magix ASIO communication with RME. No issue when recording with Reaper.

Magix says since they cannot recreate the issue in Germany, there is nothing they can do. Very frustrated.

Can you test with another video card?
Even good video cards bring sometime troubles (believe me, I had this problem. I have 4 screens on my main computer, 2x2 out). Easy to test because you probably have a small one with your MB .
Then I would suggest to test with another MB, then with another CPU.

You wrote in the magix-info forum:

This is a dead give-away that it's not a hardware problem but a software one. Something is hogging cycles/resources and causing Sequoia to miss processing deadlines. This is not necessarily Sequoia's fault: With two different audio engines, five distinct monitoring modes, various buffer types and sizes, plus a choice of thread-allocation options, this DAW can be tuned to behave like a plow horse or a pure-bred race horse. The more you ask of it, the more temperamental it becomes, so you'll need to pay a lot more attention to what other tasks are competing with it. OTOH, if you don't need all that real-time monitoring and processing stuff, you can configure it conservatively and it will run on a tablet. (I have actually run Samplitude, which has exactly the same audio engine, on a Microsoft Surface Go!) Or not... even a top-of-the-line multi-core i7 processor can't compensate for some other process or driver that is breaking the rules. Your job is to find out what's misbehaving and tell it to stop.

I realize this is a Sequoia and not a Pyramix thread, but for the OP -- it might be worth taking some time to go through Merging's recommended (and very thorough) configuration for Windows computers, here:
https://confluence.merging.com/displ...guration+Guide

Many of their recommendations would make good sense for any computer which is running real-time audio applications in general.

With unexplainable problems such as OP's, I would swap the hard drive with a fresh one and do a clean install of OS, Sequoia and sound card driver, nothing else. I am almost certain the problems will go away with a clean install. I am speaking with 22 years of experience of using Sequoia and building PCs. I have not found a single computer in those 22 years I couldn't make it to work with Sequoia.