It happens when I'm using a MIDI keyboard with VI in standalone mode. It's relatively unpredictable; it might happen on the second note I play, or I might go a minute or two without encountering it, then suddenly it'll happen.
It happens in a DAW when playing MIDI sequenced with a mouse (so it's not my playing or my MIDI keyboard).
It happens with just solo violin sustain patches, playing one at a time. Nothing taxing or complex. No other VSTs are loaded.
It happens in a DAW when rendering (bouncing) output in online or offline mode. I'm puzzled as to how this is this even possible. I thought the point of offline mode was to allow a sample player as much time as it needs to stream samples from disk?
It happens much more in "full speed" offline rendering compared to "real time" offline rendering. A full speed render, for example, could drop as many as 50% of the notes played.
It happens less if samples have played before, presumably because of disk caching (if I render the same sequence over and over it happens less and less).
It happens on two different hard drives (one a 7200 RPM, another a 5400 RPM, both SATA). I measured the 7200 RPM drive's worst-case seek at 17ms (average is 10), and its slowest transfer rate at 59 MB/sec (average is 115).
I've tried two different audio interfaces, one Firewire, one USB 2.0. I've tried changing the ASIO buffer size. Not that it should matter, because offline rendering shouldn't be affected by any of that.
Here's my setup:
- Windows 7 64-bit
- Core i5-2500 3.3 GHz
- 16 GB RAM
- SSD for operating system and programs
- 7200 RPM SATA hard drive for samples
- Windows power settings on "High Performance"
- No unnecessary programs running
Suggestions are most welcome. I'm very motivated to solve this problem.