Digital noise on multitrack recording from waves card

dLive dLive Troubleshooting
1

Here is my issue:

I have 2 systems:

S7000 + DM64
C3500 + CDM64

Both system fitted with Dante card on the Mix racks and Waves 3 Card On the surfaces.
when I’m recording multitrack Fed by the C3500 thru the Waves card I’m getting a constant random clicks on all the tracks sounding like clock problem.
however on the S7000 the recording is fine.
Both Waves cards on the 2 surfaces are configured in the same way operation at 48K but problem appears only on the C3500.
Everything else appears to be locked and synced. Do i have a defective Waves card in the C3500??

Any ideas to what can be the problem or where should i look??

Help will be appreciated.

Eli Lishinsky

2

Anytime I’ve had issues like this, it’s been 1 of 2 things (other than clock, of course). Either a bad cable or an unsupported OS. I use only shielded Cat6 cables now and on my MacBook Pro, Sierra OS as High Sierra is not supported on Soundgrid Studio. I’m not sure if you’re recording to a PC or a Mac, though.

3

Does any one else experiencing this Problem!!

4

So I also began having issues with “digital noise” a few months ago (again). I got with Waves on it and tried a few things over a few days. I finally found someone there who figured it out. I already had the WSG buffer set at 192 sample. But that wasn’t the only buffer that needed to be adjusted. It ended up being a very simple change. In Soundgrid Studio, click on the Setup tab on top. Then select the Settings tab on the left. Check your network buffer. As I recall, it defaults to something like 208. Set it as high as you can. Mine is set to 1088 now and that fixed my issue.

Let me know if that fixes your issue.

Art

5

Thank you Art
i will try

6

Hi Lishinsky,

Can you open a support ticket at support.allen-heath.com and include details of your clock settings, so we can look into this for you?

  • dLive clock settings (MixRack Audio Sync) for each desk
  • Dante clock settings (Dante Controller) for each card
  • Waves clock settings (SG Studio) for each card
7

thanks Nicola
i will try fix the problem by increasing the network buffer size as Art suggested, if that doesn’t help ill open a ticket.

8

This is a serious problem. In my case I bought the Waves 3 card because technically it is supposed to be able to transmit up to 128 channels at 96 Khz to record. This is a very attractive feature, because in the market there are currently not many options with these characteristics in a similar price range. Of course it is not cheap, but if it does what it promises it seems a good investment.
I bought my Waves 3 card in June 2017, mainly I use it to have assisted dsp in the dLive. Frankly, it’s not that the dLive needs external dsp, but some Waves things are interesting and attractive to me.

I must say that to date I will have made approximately 250 concerts with a dLive C3500, CDM48 system and I have never had a clock problem within the dLive system.

Multirack SoundGrid has always worked well, I have not had any serious problems, although on two or three occasional occasions I lost the synchronicity of the Waves 3 card, with the consequent problem that implies. Still to this day I do not know what was the reason for such lost whimsical.

I have recorded up to 40 tracks at 96 Khz in a Mac book pro with OS X El Capitan and up to now everything has always gone well. I have not had problems with drops, clicks or any type of digital artifact. But when I have tried large sessions the thing has changed substantially.

I recently made a recording of a live concert with a dLive C2500, CDM 48, DX168 system. The recording was 70 tracks, at 96 Khz (which incidentally, that’s the fun of having a Waves 3 card), all Cat 6 cables, new and high quality, a NetGear GS-108 switch (the advised by Waves) to do the split and two (to have redundancy in the recording) new PCs with Windows 10 Pro N, OS disks SSD and dedicated discs for recording type M.2 SSD Samsung Evo Plus (currently I do not know anything faster in both reading and writing).
That day the Waves 3 card only provided digital split for recording, there was no assisted dsp processing for the dLive with Multirack.

In the SoundGrid Studio settings, the WSG buffer adjusted to the maximum, this is 192 samples and the buffer driver adjusted to the maximum, 1088.

It is simply impossible. (If someone has succeeded, please explain how they have achieved it).

The result is that recording does record, but there are drops (they are like micro cuts in the signal) multiplied in all the tracks in a totally random way without adhering to any type of concrete pattern. It is an absolute failure and totally inexcusable.

I do not know what the causes of all this may be, but the Waves 3 card should not lose the sync so lightly. It is not a product to pass the time.

Some of you included the technical staff of Allen & Heath can tell me how to explain to the client that after hiring a recording service with 70 tracks in high resolution (96 Khz, 24 bits) including a backup system, the result has been an authentic failure and it has not worked ???
Sincerely, it makes you want to catch a plane to Laos…!

My main indignation is that in a product of this category should not have any problem with the transmission of data at a massive level because otherwise it loses all its value and effectiveness, plus it is not possible to deal with a multitrack recording service in high resolution (96 Khz, 24 bits) with guarantees of success.

I got in touch with Waves’ support (I must say that they are very well served and they are in for the job), but we have not yet managed to find out where the problem lies. I have been suggested to make a list of several tests, for which I need to almost replicate the situation. Currently, due to my work, I do not have time to do tests and experiments. It will take some time until I can do it.