Montag, 19. September 2011

Fighting Pro Tools DAE Error -9073!

Some technical issue on troubleshootings with the music production tool Pro Tools:

A DAE Error 9073 gave me a hard time some days ago.
It happened on my DualCore Laptop (4Gig Ram) that I am using live on stage with a Pro Tools 9 system. I found different ways of solving this problem in different discussions. Everyone had different ideas to solve this error. Here is a quick summery how to help yourself. At least it worked in my case:

1. Extend the DAE Playback Buffer Size to Level 4!
a DAE 9073 happens when the head of your harddrive can´t get the data fast enough to fill the Playback Buffer. Increasing the buffer size gives the system more time to fill the buffer. On the other hand your system acts a bit "lame". Means, if you hit PLAY it takes a second before the software starts to play your regions because the buffer is filling up first. So put it back to Level 2 when you record in the studio.

2. Defragmentize your Harddrive MIGHT work, a better way to solve the problem is to
make a new, very small partition on your harddrive. If your session is about 4 Gigs long, make a partition of 5 Gigs and put your session in there. So the head of your harddrive will not move all over the drive but stays in that very small partition and is able to get the data faster.

3. Pro Tools loves 7200 RPM harddrives. Slower ones may cause the problem.
4. Don´t host your Pro Tools System and the recordings on the same harddrive.
5. Increase HW Buffer Size to 1024 Samples.

Number 3 and 4 did not work in my case. I have a Laptop with a single 5400 RPM drive. Number 1,2 and 5 helped solving the DAE -9073. Well, hope it works everytime in the future, too!