I'm on Pro X 5 so I can't advise but sounds like it could be a bug.

Whats your install  history of this version? Did this just start happening or did you just upgrade from a previous version?

Well... it's kind of a long complex mess but basically, I upgraded from Prox5 and as I remember, that had developed the same glitch. 

The short story is I had to basically stop developing my studio build nearly a year ago due to my wife's medical conditions which are finally abating. At that time both of my Computers (Box 1 and Box 2) were failing and after 12 years so it was time to start new.

Fortunately Kyle has been a godsend in this process and continuing to get me up and running. My samp was in Box 2 only. I loaded it into box 1 and it is displaying the same issue (along with many others, likely related to the tweaks we are doing on the new rig).

So I was hoping it might be a setting in the DAW I've mistakenly clicked. I've tried to post this on the Magix samp forum but I have not had much luck navigating that forum yet.

Thanks for replying Chris. Maybe Marco or others might have an idea. Maybe I'll have some luck with Magix but I'm not holding my breath. It's not a big deal but I'm a bit fussy about things like this I guess.

It's sounding like a caching effect.

Have you got a rotating disk drive, a solid-state drive (SSD) or both in this computer? If both, how have you assigned the different drives?

It's important not to use your system drive for audio data.

All ssd. I'll have to check this out. We got temporarily delayed with installing the planned Raid system so I'm not remembering if I'm using the external HD for projects or just running everything through the system drive.

Thanks for the pointer. I'll get back to you soon.

If it's all SSD, the seek times are minimal, so the advice about not using the system drive for audio is less important. However, it's still a good idea to separate the drives for the audio and for the system as they will then be independently cached.

Boswell wrote:
If it's all SSD, the seek times are minimal, so the advice about not using the system drive for audio is less important. However, it's still a good idea to separate the drives for the audio and for the system as they will then be independently cached.

Will do. Thanks Bos,

My computers are in a machine room about 15 meters cable run away and I use USB/Cat5 powered extenders as follows,

(https://www.avacces…) "USB Extender 60m/196ft , 4x USB2.0 Port, Plug & Play, Supports All Operating Systems ." "High-speed USB2.0 up to 60m/196ft:
Up to 480Mpbs data transmission. Supports all operating systems (Windows, MacOS, Android, Linux); Compatible with USB 1.1 peripheral devices. Certificated by FCC, CE."

Could they somehow be the culprit? It seemed like a compatible and capable unit. I have 4 of them, 1 provides keyboard/mouse for my computer 1, another for my Faderport 16 via USB for the DAW in computer 1. Then another for my Pure 2 ADDA via USB for computer 2 and lastly the one for computer 2 keypad/mouse. Utilizing Samp in both computers I get the same delay. I don't believe I have any of them running off the same USB headers in either computer.

Been doing a considerable amount of tweaks to computer 1 and a few to computer 2 but same issue in both. They are both relatively new and powerful PC's running win 10 pro.

Is it thinking the available ram is a bit limited, so the audio is being loaded into a buffer, before playing? Or hard drives getting a bit fuller than it likes, meaning some extra shuffling around before it tries to play What kind of software monitoring can you access, to see disc activity and processor load?

Thanks Paulears. Here are the 2 computer specs. I'm doubtful it's a RAM issue but who knows?

Computer 1 has 64GB Ballistix Ram, AMD Ryzen 9 5950x 16 core @3.40 GHz, 64 bit with Zotac NVIDIA GT 710-1GB graphics card. ASRock X570 Creator motherboard. ADDA : 2-Lynx Aurora 16's with AES16e PCIe cards. Additional External HD 

Computer 2 is an HP Desktop M01-F1024 PC with 32GB RAM, AMD Ryzen 7 4700G @3.60GHz and 64 Bit with Radeon Graphics. ADDA: Antelope Pure 2 USB connection, 2 channel. Additional  External HD

Both computers are basically new with vey very little use. Same issue with both computers. The only apparent commonalities are the Samp DAW, power supply form the Equitek iso transformer and the usb extender rigs. And of course this not very experienced operator!

I know Marco has a lot of experience with Samplitude so I'm hoping he sees this. I can't seem to PM him through ROG. My messaging doesn't seem to be working. I know Chris is still trying to get all the bugs out of this new structure. Probably I'm not knowing how to navigate ROG these days. I've been away a while now.

I will try and contact Magix again. My Samp prox6 forum post remains unanswered.  I'll probably end up trying to contact support.

Any other thoughts are very welcome. Thanks again Paulears.

OOPS! I forgot to mention that I have saved and played the samp demo on the external HD's and I'm running LatencyMon. I'm not very experienced with LatencyMon but it doesn't say there are problems and the highest reading I get is with the "DPC routine execution time.NVIDIA Windows Kernel Mode Driver" which can read read up to 780??? This means little to me.

Not sure if I mentioned that this problem occurs with other songs as well that I have recorded.

All right, there is a few good probable causes posted here.

What makes me wonder is it's only the first project that you try to play that does this and you are good afteward. 

Here's one Idea, what if the project's drive is on idle ? Computers may stall drives to save energy. 

One test to be made is, before you start Samplitude, go on the project's drive and create an empty folder or a a text file. then do the same on the Vsti drive (if different) then open samp and start to play.. 

If everything runs fine, your solution lies in tweaking the power management settings. 

Let us know ! I'll try to figure out other causes.. ;)

Unfortunately this had no effect.

In your description of your two computers, you say that both have an "Additional  External HD". What physical form do these take, how are they interfaced (including powering), and what do you put on them?

Both computers have their own 4TB Seagate drive connected by separate usb to each. I utilize separate cat5 extenders for each computer.
I try to keep all projects/songs on these drives.  Some samples as well as drivers, firmware, system back ups and manuals. My DAW programs are on the system c drive.

Sounds like you have your drives right.

When you open a new session, is your bar marker set at zero?

When you open a new session, right click the bar marker does it look like this ?

My grid marker reads 1:01:000 if I have this right. 

When I right click the grid marker Show Grid and Bars/Beats are checked, not SMPTE (individual frame rate)

OOPS! I meant not project frame rate.

Set mine like yours. The project now starts at 00:00:00:00

but ...no luck. Same delay so far. Then next time without closing the project it starts immediately.

If the external USB drives are the ones with the project data on them, then it's likely that they are spinning down if the time between accesses is greater than a certain figure. Once you access them, they will spin up (which may take a few seconds) and stay in that state for whatever the timeout period is set to after the last access.

If you look at the drive settings in Disk Manager, you may find that you can either prevent the spin down, or else set a much longer time before it decides that it's time to drop off.

Thanks Bos. I'll check this out.

I'm a bit over my head because when I open the Device Manager and access the drive and open it I can't find a way to manipulate a settings. Can you advise?

But, I also have an internal A drive on one of my computers which I also stored the projects on. I'm basically using the external for back up in this computer. It is an ssd so no spinning up time and I get the same issue utilizing the songs from there. Does this make sense?

Further diagnostics.

I have Studio one loaded on computer 1 and Nuendo on computer 2. Projects/songs from those DAWs are stored on the same respective drives as the Samplitude ones yet they don't experience this delay issue.

This is all good information, apparently ruling some things out.

Samplitude is a large and extensive program with many overlays. It could be that your problem is on the system drive when the Samplitude overlay that has the replay code in it comes to load. But you say it is the same on two different systems, so unless it happened with a particular update of either Samp or the OS, it's hard to see how it could arise.

To add further information/confusion, I have the same HP as John, also with an upgrade to 32gb of RAM, and as far as I know, samplitude doesn't exhibit the behavior he's experiencing on my system. I can possibly double check later this week, but I don't recall any of this happening over here in samp pro x5

Is it possible that maybe it's a setting in Samplitude? I'm not super familiar with the settings in samp yet.

Would windows event viewer maybe give us insight into anything?

The only time I've experienced delayed playback in a daw is at super high buffer settings or when the computer is starting to sweat. The latter isn't the case for John. Maybe somehow the buffers are wicked high?

Boswell wrote:
This is all good information, apparently ruling some things out.

Samplitude is a large and extensive program with many overlays. It could be that your problem is on the system drive when the Samplitude overlay that has the replay code in it comes to load. But you say it is the same on two different systems, so unless it happened with a particular update of either Samp or the OS, it's hard to see how it could arise.

Because of the long interruption in my box 1 and box 2 computer install process, some memories are returning to me. I have a vague recollection of my upgrade to samp 6 and that may have been when this started happening. I'm not sure if I had this issue before this with the previous Box 2 computer or samp 5.

So much going on about then that I let it go at the time. Upon returning to the new installs many months later now, I just loaded samp into my box 1 as well from my Magix account.

Could I have a faulty license with a bug or some such? I'm awaiting a second response to my Magix support ticket. 

When you start the session that has this problem, are you loading or importing it in a personal template. 
Im wondering if this would still do this if you opened up a default session and hit play. 
 

This is starting to point to something you saved within the template that has a few bits ahead of start. 
 

thoughts?

I suspect you’ve been debating this as well…  
 

Trying the clean install and then re setup your system. erk… 🤔 major pain but it may be the simpler and best way to resolve things. 

Thanks Chris. I get the re-install and I've done this many times on my Box 1 though not the Box 2. But I'm not clear on what you mean by re setup my system?

vibrations1951 wrote:
But I'm not clear on what you mean by re setup my system?

I mean, whatever it takes to reconfigure Samplitude.

This is the Magix final comment after very delayed responses:

"We have to say, that the delay on fist start is a normal behavior in samplitude. dependent of cuts , objects and VIP performance the time is more or less."

Sounds like a cop out to me, how about you? I had saved my Samp 2 DAW and it doesn't have this problem. Needless to say this seems like very unprofessional and inadequate support from Magix to me. 

Perhaps I'm missing something here? Wouldn't be the first time I'm not getting it. Am I alone or have others had similar experience with them? Kind of a shame because I was liking the DAW so far but not so much now if I can't depend upon their "support"!

To be fair, Cubase for me now takes ages to load because I've so much stuff spread over disks and a network drive that it too is a slow first start - or sometimes a no start. I have got used to NOT keep clicking but wait a second or two till whatever housekeeping is being done, is complete. After that every device that can start it - via keyboard, mouse, external play buttons works just fine.

For me it's just another little pause that computers just do. Not a big deal. Your response from them probably means it's normal, and they mean it's not a fault, just standard behaviour? They responded, that's pretty good service compared to many? You just don't like their answer. My wife's sat nav takes 30 seconds for first turn left/turn right, by which time she has gone the wrong way, leaving our house. Suzuki never even replied. I just sit there till it first speaks.

Paulears I greatly appreciate and admire your informed, thoughtful and fair response. Keeps it real.

Unfortunately for me I'm still struggling with giving in to acceptance of digital technology and increasing hegemonic control of our lives by the corporate world that seems to give and then takes away. Probably always been that way.

If I were a more reasonable person I guess I would fall in line with the new societal norm (I'm old) that teaches when to push the button and not care about questioning why or providing a better solution. I guess I should be grateful that digital technology is "inexpensive" enough to allow me the privilege to dabble in sound engineering without laying out hundreds of thousands more on analog gear.

 Tolerance, flexibility and gratitude will keep me in acceptance I'm told. I'll work on that but no promises! Thanks again.

Rant over...

Good balanced response, Paul!

I feel for @vibrations1951  ...  We all seem to be reacting to things a lot more these days which is par for the course. Crazy world indeed. Add a DAW now working the way it should doesn't help, that's for sure.

I have a feeling there is a fix for this but how, where and why. Often times there is something we've done and saved into the template which added a process or ghost glitch between the processing , thus causing precisely what has happened to you. This annoying pause would likely drive me crazy too.

I've been using both Samplitude and Sequoia for years and never had this happen but I do recall being totally stumped and frustrated over something similar which I finally found it to being just what I said above. Could be a plugin, a value added into something. Hope you find it or at the very least.. it becomes something tolerable until the day you go ... awe... its gone lol!.

It's interesting to note that when we tried the same demo session on samplitude pro X2, it didn't exhibit the same delay at start. So it's possible either the new demo had some updated edits or plugs, or it's something going on with the newer versions.

The demo is pretty small, and meant to play nice on tons of machines, which is why I personally feel unsatisfied with magix answer so far. On state of the art computers, and a relatively small session, a delay at start is not normal behavior, there's definitely a problem.

kmetal wrote:
It's interesting to note that when we tried the same demo session on samplitude pro X2, it didn't exhibit the same delay at start. So it's possible either the new demo had some updated edits or plugs, or it's something going on with the newer versions.

The demo is pretty small, and meant to play nice on tons of machines, which is why I personally feel unsatisfied with magix answer so far. On state of the art computers, and a relatively small session, a delay at start is not normal behavior, there's definitely a problem.

 

Thanks Kyle. And on top of that, small projects (2 tracks no edits, added dynamics or effects) do the same delay if they are the first project played once Samp is open. This issue is occurring on 2 more than adequate, basically new computers with only the demo and 2 small projects on each. Something is wrong here for sure.

I may be very wrong yet I am having  a very hard time believing it's something I've done cause I've hardly done anything yet! Humble pie is not my favorite but I would be happy to chomp down a piece to clear this up. Wouldn't be my first and undoubtedly will not be my last.

Not the end of the world but pretty aggravating to me. Yes Chris I agree. Societal as well as personal stressors are at an all time high. I have much more important and pressing life issues going on right now and plan to address this later with respect and dignity, and rest assured Magix, I'm not about to let this go just yet.