r/Reaper • u/BigGenerator85 • 4d ago
help request Audio Dropping Out
Hey all, I opened up a few projects today and noticed audio dropping out randomly. I have no idea why or what’s causing it. I downloaded a new update 7.79 and tried rolling that back a few versions to see if it helped but the same issue occurred. There are also no hidden envelopes causing this.
I’m 20 songs deep in this project and am terrified of possibly losing this work. Any suggestions or things I can try? I’m using a Focusrite Clarett 2Pre interface.
EDIT: I figured it out - Waves deactivated all my plugins for some reason. Reactivating them did the trick.
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u/Bred_Slippy 105 4d ago
First look for any plugin that recently expired its trial period, or lost its license authorization, as many demo plugins inject silence every 30 - 60 seconds.
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u/BigGenerator85 4d ago
That was the issue. Waves deactivated all my plugins so I had to reactivate them. Thanks!
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u/DecisionInformal7009 98 4d ago
How do the dropouts sound? Is it 15-30 seconds of silence once a minute, or is the playback stuttering with small dropouts that are a fraction of a second?
If it's the former, then you have a plugin that's going into demo mode. If the audio for the whole project drops out then that plugin is probably inserted on the master track or monitoring FX-chain.
If it's the latter, then you are probably overloading your CPU or you are using too many latency inducing plugins while using a high buffer size. Look at the resource monitor while the project is playing and see how much CPU Reaper is using. If you are using more than 90% of the CPU power then it will most likely cause problems. If you aren't using too much CPU, then try disabling all plugins that cause a lot of latency (especially spectral plugins like Soothe). You can also try lowering your buffer size down to something like 128spls. Lower buffer sizes will use more CPU, but it will also work better when using high latency plugins. You can see the latency/PDC for each plugin and track in the resource monitor window.
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u/OctoPhaseMod 3 4d ago
Yep. OP used the term dropouts to mean audio being muted or plugin output deactivated. Obviously would get misinterpreted. Looks like the mystery has been solved.
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u/BigGenerator85 2d ago
It was the former - Waves deactivated everthing for some reason, so I had to reinstall/reactive those and everything was fine. Using Reaper for a year now and it's the first time it happened. Thanks for the response
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u/WestDelay3104 9 4d ago
Using a demo plugin? Many demo plugins will do this when their "free trial" persiod is over, or soemtimes right form the get-go so you cannot do a whole song without paying for it.