Had some similiar problems recently where some mp3 files and sometimes also sound from AVCHD files put onto the timeline played strangely (just like a poorly connected cable) - both in preview and when rendered.

Trusting Vegas and thinking that the problem might originate from the sound files I opened a new instance of Vegas and rendered the audio to mp3/192 Kbps - and, volia: the problem disappeared.

The problem occours:
- 50+ percent of the times I use mp3's from SoundTaxi. At first the mp3 plays nicely - but after some time - and after adding/editing other soundtracs to the TL the problem pops up.
- In a very few cases using sound from AVCHD (1080 50i at 25 Mbps) - and the problem occours when I 1)spilt 2)delete a part of and 3)then crossfade the remaining audio parts of the file.

But, as said, no big deal, as I can cure the bad mp3's and AVCHDs by rendering them in a new instance of Vegas where only the "bad" clip is on the TL.

I regularly read audio from my USB2 WD Book 512gb drive, no issues. I've also read audio from my USB thumb drive w/o any issues.

Odds are either a) you're really fragmented (always a possibility), b) it's reading at USB 1.1 speed (shouldn't effect anything though but it might) or c) it's not optimized in settings in some way.

No specs in your profile so no help there. No specs at all in your post so no help there. No description of your testing procedure (You say "put it on the timeline". Well, I could put audio on my timeline & cause it to stutter if I had enough on there).

Yes I am talking about distorted audio PREVIEW. The audio is distorted to the point that editing it is not possible. I have not try to render it. I cant put that with video. There are 50% of recognizable audio. The file is recorded by zoom H4n 24 bit sliced 48000 times in second, uncompressed. The file is played perfect on all software players I have tried directly from WD 3T usb drive. The computer is HP i5 2core laptop, EliteBook 8540p. It is more then fine for audio. I conclude that the lack of use of buffering technique, or improper use of buffering by programers is the possible source of misery of many users. Please continue to test, perhaps we can help sony to fix it.
It just need more testing and proper exposure to tell that ti is priority BUG.
I like over all vegas pro 10, but have to work first. Placing distorted audio on timeline is ridicules. I rather have ERROR message, be certain that files on timeline truly represent my original audio file. regards Bogdan

I see there is same issue all over. Audio problems. Lets not forgot that we not talking about $50 shareware.

Good that you try to help. There is more precise description.
Resenting the sony vegas pro 10e.
Opening new project.
setting project to use audio 24 bit / 48000 slices/sec.
Selecting audio file .wav 24/48 file from WD 3 terabytes usb2 connected drive.
Placing file in timeline trigger creation of .sfk file.
Created sfk file is distorted, not represent the original audio file.

Opening the same way file from sony sound forge audio studio 10 will use mutated .sfk file.
deleting .sfk file and opening .wav in sony sound forge audio studio 10 create perfect .fsk file.

Same computer, same usb drive, same file, fragmented same way if any, opened by products of same sony. Computer not busy (only one tested task) ( i5 2core 4G ram HP EliteBook 8540p laptop ).
Tel me again that there is no BUG in vegas pro 10. and perhaps Sound Forge have bug opening audio with no noticeable distortions. I have 20Years of bug tracking as I program C C++ for that years.
PLEASE HELP SONY.

As a programmer, you can appreciate that it isn't a bug if it only affects a few (out of thousands) of users. It means there is something wrong with your PC or your Windows installation.

Most likely, a driver issue. I have had distorted audio when two drivers both thought they had control of the audio subsystem. Deleted the driver I knew I never wanted (some program installation loaded it without asking) and the problem went away.

You don't say which WD drive you are using, but if it's a "Green" drive, then I wouldn't use it for editing. Green drives have this annoying tendency to slow down to conserve energy (the Green) just when you don't want it to. If they are idle for a while, they shut down the platter spin to save more energy. Green drives are OK for backups, but I would never use them on a project.

Before you start throwing "BUG" all over everyone, have you tried using a different HDD?

All this is good, but you see the sony Sound Forge Audio Studio 10 have no problem, with same file, drive, computer, ... Simply it have no bug of this nature. Start testing. HELP SONY PROGRAMERS. This bug manifest in most posting about audio, not just one.

Lack of buffering, drive speed, latency, you name it, none of this will cause distorted audio. If I push my system hard enough I can get gapping in the audio playback i.e. its is dropping samples, that is not the same as distortion.

Perhaps that is what you mean when you say "There are 50% of recognizable audio."

Perhaps that is what you're talking about, I don't know for sure but it would help no end if we all knew what you are actually talking about.

There's a considerable difference between Sound Forge and Vegas.
Also Vegas code tends to be very MS compliant, no bespoke low level code.

My gut feeling is the problem you are having is gapping in the audio, not distortion. Whilst the datarate for audio is quite low the USB interface places a load on the CPU and as more files are being accessed this and other overheads increase. All of that can add up to the data not being delivered in time and gaps occuring in the sound.That can sound very bad. In general USB has never been favoured for audio, firewire is the prefered interface. Another thing to consider is how many actual USB interfaces does the laptop MoBo have? By that I mean actual discrete USB interfaces, to cut down cost the count is usually lower than the number of ports so your drive could be using a shared interface and that will not help either. Try swapping the drive onto a different USB port.

Bob.

Please fill out your system specs in your user profile.

What audio hardware are you using.

Are you using Mapper, Wave Classic, or ASIO in Vegas?

I cannot reproduce this with any external USB drive I have, but I don't have your exact model.

If you copy one of the offending files to an internal hard drive, does the problem persist?

Peter

By comparing to the same audio in Sound Forge, are you saying the audio is the only thing on the Vegas timeline? What effects, plugins, etc. are you using?

Hi There. I've had the same problems, I thought I was going mad. I had a project on a 3TB USB 3.0 Seagate GoFlex drive, the project was a simple single stream of video, with 3 audio tracks, all 48khz 16 bit.

During sections (10 times of say 2 - 5 seconds in length) of the project, (the project was about 1.5 hours long) In preview mode, I could see the waveforms quite clearly, and they looked correct, if I zoomed all the way into the audio waveforms on the timeline, they would then jump about, and show weird waveforms, I could zoom out and they would look ok again. If I played by using the sapcebar, I would get Pink noise, or slow-audio, as if it was slowed to 50% speed. If I rendered the project, I would get the same output as the preview.

Really weird, My only solution was to copy the project back to my raid and then render. Which is a pain as we are talking a USB3.0 drive running at 75mb/s.

Since then I did a bit more testing, and I copied the projcet to a 2TB Seagate GoFlex USB3.0 drive, so the only difference being the drive size, and the project is now fine. This is very repeatable, and the sections where it goes funny are consistant. Also just incase it was just a bad drive, I copied the data to another Seagate 3TB USB3.0 drive, and I get exactly the same faults. The audio streams are absolutley fine in every other audio software.

Don't know if it helps much, but It toomk a while to get my head around what was going on.

Matt

Something to try:

In audio preferences, turn off track buffering.

Peter

Turning ( off or on as default, changing its buffer time ) track buffering have no noticeable effect.

The only one audio on the timeline about 5 minutes long. No additional plugins. vegas pro 10e, reset to all default setting.

The problem is only when using usb drive ( WD 3T ) connected to usb2.
The hardware is laptop HP EliteBook 8540p
This will tell you about hardware. I will make more testing when time permits.
I will try to organize vegas pro 10 users to join me in testing so you start having clearer idea about this bug. Perhaps if time permit I can make video and put on YouTube if that will help. I have other usb drives that I will start testing.

I have tested using other usb drive, this time WD 500G connected to usb2.
The audio is good.
On my computer the only sony vegas pro 10e have problem with this wd 3T usb drive.
All other sony software have no problem with it.
conclusion: BUG in vegas pro 10e.

I am afraid it can manifest in other situations. This is to simple to reproduce to not to notice. Is that unconventional disk access, or buffering is not working at all.???

I have exactly the same issue with a nested project using wave file 48khz. the sound is distorted and when zooming in the waveform change.
The nested project is on the same hard disk as the master project.
When I render the sound is ok.

Edit - Deleted: Thought that my example had something to do with Bogdans problem - but as this not seems to be the case I do not want to hijack Bogdans thread and will make a new thread for this.

I have added hardware info to my profile.
Is there possible to post video on this issue to this forum?
If not I will try YouTube and add link on this forum.

You didn't indicate the audio hardware you use.

If you could answer my earlier questions, I would appreciate it.

Is then audio wave, mp3, or another format?

Does it make any difference what the media type is?

Peter

> Please fill out your system specs in your user profile.
System specs updated ( I will get more info if needed )

> What audio hardware are you using.
NVIDIA NVS 5100M

> Are you using Mapper, Wave Classic, or ASIO in Vegas?
Default setting ( tell me how to find this information please)

> I cannot reproduce this with any external USB drive I have, but I don't have your exact model.
The bug showing with WD 3T usb2 connected drive, and not with WD 500G usb2 connected drive. ( WD 3T usb drive from costco about $150. I will post specific info so you can test on same drive).
Please note that I open just one audio file in new project in vegas pro 10 after general reset.

In Project Properties in audio I set:
Sample rate to: "48,000hz"
Bit depth to: "24"
Resample and stretch quality to: "Best"

In Project Properties in Ruler I set:
Ruler time format to: "SMPTE Film Sync IVTC (23,976 fps, Video)"



> If you copy one of the offending files to an internal hard drive, does the problem persist?
No it do not persist. To be exact I copy file from usb drive to internal drive.
Audio file is not corrupted and not showing any problem in sony Sound Forge Audio Studio 10, and other programs, regardless of the media ( drive ) located on.

I suspect resampling in vegas pro 10e is having bug that is hardware, timing, ... dependent. Resampling is not real time reading or recording. It need to be timing independent, and if there is no expected audio data available for internal processing then it can send error message to the user, and not produce scrambled unusable data in any circumstances. This bug makes vegas pro 10 to be not trusted. Is not fan when you have to check all audio if it is not crumbled, mutated, spiky, drooped, noised, ... just for short time. I think this bug is surfacing in many audio complains I have read. There is only fraction of people that will write. Please help in quest for best video editing program.

Dear ritsmer,
The example of audio is for most sound like flashing toilet.
After reading your explanation I am not certain that ti is flashing toilet sound.
The sound in second run is distorted.