AREA 51 R2 & USB Audio Device Issue

Oh no!  I bought my Alienware Area 51 R2 to run Pro Tools also. 

So this computer will not work with USB audio capture devices?  Yikes.  You this this will get solved or should I cancel my order?

It seems that all USB audio card are affected by the problem mentioned above. This is a major problem that must be corrected quickly by Alienware via a bios/driver update. Hope soon !

I contacted Dell for more insights on this issue and to, if necessary, cancel my order.

I too purchased this computer for the specific use of audio production using a Roland Quad Capture and Avid Eleven Rack/Pro Tools 11. 

I told the sales person this and she said "I sell a lot of these to people who are not gamers."

Very troubling.  This could be a disaster even before the pc gets built if they don't communication on this issue or resolve. 

If it can be prevented by disabling GPU drivers, what drives the video images?  But to me, for a pc of this class and expense, that is not acceptable.

I am so bummed out.  I just cancelled my order.  I was so looking forward to using the Alienware Area 51 R2 with my Roland Quad Capture, Avid Eleven Rack and Pro Tools 11 this year.

Please let me know if they resolve this issue.  I may reorder.

I don't want to go Apple and I don't want to build my own PC because I want the warranty and support.  Where the heck do I get a PC with Intel Haswell i7 6-core CPU and 16GB ram that is confirmed to work with Pro Tools 11 and USB devices?

So disappointed.  Even though very expensive, I loved this case for the egonomics and easy of working on.

Thanks for the response.  They may fix it or your solution may work well too.  I just can't spend that kind of dough and hope it works.   I hope it get's resolved and the opportunity to be an "Alien" presents itself again.  With the high end gamer pc being a targeted group, perhaps Alien could build and test targeted audio system that help high enders record and produce music that is "out of this world."

I am so bummed out.  I just cancelled my order.  I was so looking forward to using the Alienware Area 51 R2 with my Roland Quad Capture, Avid Eleven Rack and Pro Tools 11 this year.   Please let me know if they resolve this issue.  I may reorder.   I don't want to go Apple and I don't want to build my own PC because I want the warranty and support.  Where the heck do I get a PC with Intel Haswell i7 6-core CPU and 16GB ram that is confirmed to work with Pro Tools 11 and USB devices?   So disappointed.  Even though very expensive, I loved this case for the egonomics and easy of working on.

So I have been loading up my music software and plug-ins.  I got considerable improvement by following the tips in this tutorial - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnbfVFqkKOA#t=366

and

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZsZ5vTgOE4

I have installed both Sonar Producer x3 and Ableton Live 9 64 bit.  They seem to be working OK.  Ableton did not freeze as it did with my initial install and appears to be operating smoothly.  However, I have only loaded the demo song that came with the program and have not loaded any of my current projects with loads of tracks and vsts.  I have also installed NI Komplete 9 and a bunch of Waves plug-ins and they seem to be working fine.  When I am in my DAW I have not got the stuttering even when moving between screens as I initially reported.  I have yet to load one of my projects in as I am still loading up my system with my remaining plug-ins.  I hope to be working on my projects soon once everything is loaded and I will keep you updated. With that being said, I still get stutters when watching YouTube but not so much with streaming audio. I believe the SSD optimization tips helped. 

Fezzler - I am right there with you.  I have been using gaming rigs for both my music and video processing since 2005. I hate the hassle of building my own machines and I am always looking for better than average specs above and beyond what come with the standard workstations especially when working with music/video.  I wanted something that had the specs to handle anything and I am definitely not an Apple fan.  The Area 51 R2 has it all but I think that because everything is so new in this rig we may need to wait a bit for updates to help the process.  Also, I have a project that I will be working on soon that requires me to install Pro Tools.  I will keep you posted on how that goes. 

Tesla - Thanks for the tip on the PCIe USB -3.0 card. I may try that if I find that I am still encountering problems. 

Thank you MYKV.  Please keep me / us informed.

If they can get it resolved, I will repurchase.

Yes, smoothly playing audio is one thing.  But adding plug-ins, multiple tracks, effects, and capturing plus rendering audio are all key too.   

www.youtube.com/watch

Well, I decided to play it safe and purchase a similar PC from PC Audio Labs out of Nashville, TN, that is tested and warranted to work with my USB audio cards.

Again, not a knock on Alienware or the Area 51 R2.  Very cool and powerful and innovative computer I was looking to leverage for audio production.  But, was not meant to be.  Sucks! 

I wonder if others will start emulating there case design?

Well what do you know?  Look at this from CES 2105.  CyberPower Trinity? 

www.pcworld.com/.../cyberpowers-fang-trinity-gaming-pc-is-simply-insane.html:550:0

So I have been mixing, writing and recording with the Area 51 R2 (Win 8.1, 64 bit) using Ableton, Sonar X3 and Pro Tools 10 all 64 bit.  Using the settings that I had suggested earlier, which should more than likely be done when using any rig, it does work quite well.  To add I had to go into system, Advanced Settings and set for high performance.  My Area 51's audio every once in a while does briefly pause kind of like when your ASIO settings are set too fast.  However, it doesn't bug me too much because it happens and resumes very quickly and after those tweaks I made, not that often.  It usually happens when I have a plug-in window open but it does not do it with all plug-ins.  For example, one of the plug-ins that causes the audio to pause is the Waves V-EQ.  When I manipulate the dials for frequency I do get a minor audio pause.  I think because of the animation?  When you move the dials or move your cursor over the dials the little fequency volume box pops up and that's when it happens.  At times when you move your cursor from the plug-ins window back to your DAW's main screens it happens every once in a while too.  Other than that, it runs a boat load of tracks and plug-ins like a champ with no dropouts or crashes.  To give you an idea, I am currently working on a project in Sonar X3 Producer that has a total of 16 drum tracks, 15 quitar tracks, two bass tracks along with 10 aux buses.  Each track has maybe 4-5 plug-ins (Console Emulation, EQ, Compression, Tape emulation, etc).  So far they system has not tapped out and I have not had to bounce or freeze any tracks.  Even though there is that audio pause every once in a while the processing power is amazing as my renders and and bounces are consideraby faster than my old quad-core machine. 

I am using a Roland Studio Capture as my primary interface and I have tested this on my Edirol UA-101.

With all that being said, it would still be nice to have that audio issue fixed as it does kind of freak me out because an occurance like that on my old PC would have caused a dropout.  So it makes me a little paranoid when I hear it.

Follow up - I have been working on my band's EP and the audio stutters are starting to wear on me. I am using Sonare Producer X3 and the song I am currently mixing has roughly 34 tracks, 10 busses and I am using at least 4 plug-ins on every track which my older system would never have been able to handle.  So it is bitter-sweet.  The part that gets me is my CPU and memory meters are no where close to showing that they are topping out.  That irritates me.  I have also been experiencing program freezes which causes me to reboot the system every once in a while.  Sonar also has multiple sections that I can access - edit view, console view, buss view, automations etc.  I am at a point to where the more areas I try to access with my mouse the more the audio stutters and freezes up.  If I do not move my mouse eveything is fine but when mixing I am always moving it.  No problems with rendering though and rendering time is fast!  The freezes and stutters are killing me though.  So I have ordered a USB 3.0 PCI-e card as Tesla suggested in an earlier post.  I am hoping that it works for my situation.  If it does...this would be my dream system!  I will post my results when I install it. 

I have used Pro Tools 10 (64 bit) on this system but it is not my DAW of choice.  PT 10 is a bit buggy anyway so I cannot tell if it's the program or the computer.  I am thinking it might be a combination of both. 

My computer is an Area 51 R2 running Windows 8.1 64 bit, 24 GB Ram, audio interface is a Roland Studio Capture. 

I don't know if home recording is too small a market, but you would think it would be a small stretch to create The Alien R51 AP  (Audio Production).

This is not serious from DELL ! 5 months, and there no drivers or bios update about this issue !
A PCIe USB-3 Card is not an option for me, coz i'm on a triple SLI GTX-980, no more PCI Slots available...

There some I/O Interferences between USB, PCIe, and maybe Sata... Waiting for a solution !