[PD] Audio drops when using readsf~ with large sound files

[IOhannes m zmoelnig]

david lemarechal wrote:
> Hi List,
> 
> I have to play simultaneously 8 large soundfile (about 30min at
> 44,1kHz/16bit, e.g. about 70 Mb each in wav format) on 8 different outputs.
> 
> I use readsf~ on Windows but audio drops out at every disk access (when
> the Disk Acess LED of my laptop blinks), and of course this occurs very
> frequently... I can hear about one minute without drops, then it occurs
> at a fixed frequency (which I didn't calculate exactly).
> 
> I tried to load each files with a long delay, tried to defragment,
> nothing change. I tried to change the bloksize flag, and the arguments
> of readsf~, with no luck.

make the buffer for readsf~ HUGE (like [readsf~ 2 1e8] or so)
make the audiobuf in pd as big as possible.
make your harddisk as fast as possible (reorganize it; buy a new one)
if you have enough ram, you could also consider using a ramdisk.

oh and: do the 8 soundfiles have to be played independently? or is it
really just a kind of 8track soundfile (split into 8 mono files).
if so, i would _highly_ suggest creating one big 8channel interleaved
soundfile and play that one instead of 8 separate files.
your harddisk heads will be thankful for not having to move from one
file to the other every block.


i don't think that there are "better" soundfile players out there (there
are soundfile players with more (and less) features; but in your case
they should behave very similar or worse).

we have been using [readsf~] successfully with 24 channel soundfiles
without any dropouts.