# Kontakt Dropouts ONLY While Rendering, Exporting and Freezing



## Lionel Schmitt (Apr 15, 2022)

*NOTE: *
When almost being done with compiling this report I discovered an almost-solution.

I set Multiprocessor Support (- Options = Engine) to OFF in Kontakt and the issue was ALMOST resolved. Previously it just showed **. Not whether it was active or not, or how many cores.
I made a test project with loads of events which I kept rendering while troubleshooting. And with this attempt they all mostly rendered fine... but not fully. There was still the one or the other dropout, but almost nothing.

When activating Multiprocessor Support (16 cores - I have 18 but KT only goes to 16) dropouts ramp up a LOT and most events are affected again.

I'd be comfortable working with almost no dropouts but ofc there shouldn't be any dropouts at all, especially since even just the one or the other odd one can make exporting stems rather troubling. Especially in bigger projects and considering I have to freeze and render a lot. It also seems a bit random. Even with multiprocessor at 16 cores some events still render fully fine. It fluctuates a lot. But turning off still 99% fixes it. Tested it twice

I'm still making this post, also potentially for others with the same problem which can at least mostly be aided by turning that Multiprocessor thing off. Although the second time I tried rendering all events the one that had a dropout last time didn't have any and everything else seemed fine too. 

I'll update in a few days if it stayed low enough to work properly without multiprocessor support.

*Here the problem details I compiled before the fix: *

Huge problem with Kontakt and audio dropouts while rendering, freezing and exporting but NOT when exporting in real time or playing back.
I already reset my machine 2 times due to many issues, last time was about a week ago. It was a completely clean install, with the drive wiped out via the reset menu too... I was super careful what to install afterwards. 
First noticed while testing freeze in Cubase 12 today. Bad glitches at the end of freeze file tail (Omnisphere Piano)
Also several dropouts with Omni Pno if I remember well.
Just in case installing Cubase 12 broke anything I restored by system to 1-2 days back. no change.
I don't know if it only started by then or before already and I just somehow didn't notice. I freeze a lot, otherwise the load is too heavy for my machine so I don't know how it could have missed it. 

- Only Happens In Kontakt so far. Initially in Cubase 12 it also happened with Omnisphere, but not ever since, even with the same midi events that did it with for instance the Cinematic Studio Piano in Kontakt.
Now I tested Omnisphere Atmosphere strings with the same midi that makes CSS drop and Hans Zimmer Strings... also some Aparture Stack synth long. No dropouts at all.
It seems fairly random. Events that caused major dropouts before may suddenly render without any several times in a row. At the same time an event with a different library may lead to dropours consistently when rendering several times - in the same timeframe.

- Happens while rendering, freezing and export. NOT while playing back.

- I tested Cubase (my main DAW) and Studio One. Happens in both.

- No change when running a project from external SSD (created from scratch and project folder set there)

- No suspicious activity in the task manager - all disks at zero mostly. - CPU very low.

- Happens when just having a single instrument track in an empty project, so no overload anywhere. 

- While playing long sustained notes (like with CSS sustains) sometimes there are disk spikes in Kontakt (over 90%) lasting for 1-2 seconds but without loading to a dropout. I've had that a lot in the past but didn't worry about it since there were no dropouts, neither when rendering nor in live playback. The spikes strangely usually don't show in the disk monitors in the Task Manager.


*SOLUTION ATTEMPTS:*

- Killing voices in Kontakt is disabled

- Still happens at max driver buffer (50-60ms). Setting it very low doesn't make it worse, actually better, if anything.

- No effect when selecting "boost" for Audio priority in Cubase. 

- With and without Cubase Asio Guard.

- Render destination/drive has no effect

- Stopped Backblaze and PCloud backups without change. The backblaze process still showed for a while regardless, but eventually it seemed to have vanished. 

*- the helpful Multiprocessor thing, which I did when almost finishing this essay, as written above. *


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## handz (Oct 14, 2022)

I have the same issue now. In 20 years, this never happened to me, usually playback was choppy but export always fine, but other way around is nuts. Quite frustrating.


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## Emmanuel Rousseau (Oct 14, 2022)

handz said:


> I have the same issue now. In 20 years, this never happened to me, usually playback was choppy but export always fine, but other way around is nuts. Quite frustrating.


Have you tried activating the "Offline mode" in Kontakt before freezing? It fixes the problem in my case.


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## YuHirà (Dec 20, 2022)

I have had the same problem for a few weeks. It drives me nuts. I have Cubase 12 (and Pcloud by the way :-D ) and it mostly happens with string libraries, suddenly, after several days working on a session. When I play the music, everything is going fine but when I try to freeze, render in place or mix down, I get random dropouts coming from nowhere too. I tried a lot of things without success. I have to say that I'm happy not to be the only one!



Emmanuel Rousseau said:


> Have you tried activating the "Offline mode" in Kontakt before freezing? It fixes the problem in my case.



I'm not sure which option I have to activate. By default I have "like realtime". Do I have to switch off to Standard, High or Perfect?


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## DavidRubenstein (Dec 20, 2022)

I have noticed a similar problem; no dropouts when playing back, but occasional dropouts when rendering or freezing tracks. I especially noticed this on tracks using the pitch wheel. The only solution I have found is to render in real-time. This, of course, slows down my workflow a lot.


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## YuHirà (Dec 22, 2022)

On my side, it seems that activating the option "Offline mode / Standard" + disabling "Multiprocessor Support" resolves the issue for now. 

Thank you so much!


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## Emmanuel Rousseau (Dec 22, 2022)

@YuHirà Sorry for not replying sooner but glad you got it sorted !


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## Emanuel Fróes (Dec 22, 2022)

#metoo


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