30th August 2008

Lives for gear

I just setup my new DAW and I’m experiencing some unexpected popping a clicking when playing VST synths. Here is an over view of my setup:

ASUS P5K-E/Wireless AP motherboard (wireless AP disabled in BIOS)
Intel Q9650 3.0GHz quad core CPU
Corsair 4GB DDR2 800MHz RAM
2 x WD 640GB HDs
3 x UAD-1 PCI cards
2 x FireFace 800s connected to PCIe card
Edirol UM-880 MIDI interface
Lucid GENx-192 word clock master
Windows XP Professional SP3

Here is a description of the issue and what I’ve tried to resolve it:
When I load a VST synth in native mode (i.e. not under Cubase), there is no popping or clicking when I’m not playing the synth. When I play the synth, I hear the occasional pop and clip on some patches, especially on complex patches when I play big chords and make changes (filter sweeps, etc.) Using the mod wheel on the VST synth frequently causes a pop/click, even when it’s not assigned to affect the synth patch.

I’ve disabled a ton of unnecessary services – XP loads in ~350MB
I’ve tuned XP to prioritize background services
I’m not running any anti-virus or other CPU-hungry background software – this system is very stripped down and lean
The issue occurs under two CPU-intensive VST synths (Arturia Jupiter-8V and Korg Analog Collection Legacy Cell), but not under some lighter weight VST synths (Korg Polysix)
CPU load is light even when I try to hold down tons of notes and make lots of changes to “push the issue” – overall CPU use never goes over 15% and no individual CPU core goes over 60% even when playing 20+ notes
I checked the audio levels in the FireFace mixer – I’m not near clipping on any channels in use
I’m running at 24-bit, 44.1kHz
The word clock sync is stable – no errors detected on the FF800s, no termination issues shown on the Lucid clock
I started at a buffer setting of 96 on the FF800s (~3ms). When I raise the latency on the FF800s, the issue seems to go away gradually. At a 1024 buffer setting, I believe it’s gone altogether. I have to do more testing – it was very late last night when I tried this part! ;-)

Is it possible that a brand new quad core CPU-based DAW can’t play native VST synths at low latencies without some popping and clicking? I think it’s odd that changes to the mod wheel when playing is the most likely thing to cause a pop/click – maybe that’s the key.
All questions/advice/ideas are welcome.
-Synth80s

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19th February 2013

Here for the gear

hi, i hope someone on here can help me because this one is killing me!!!
i try to record guitar with reaper and it works great for the first couple minutes but then it starts to CRACKLE AND HISS! i have to stop in the middle of a song, unplug replug usb, start again....huge pain in the ass!!!!!
my set-up is: guitar -> amp -> computer usb
Crackling is only while monitoring!!! the actual recording ISN'T EFFECTED. If i keep playing through the crackling it sounds fine and is CRACKLE-FREE on the recorded track.
My amp doesn't have any headphone out so i use computer headphones so i can record quietly....Crackling sounds the same with headphones or through computer speakers. Crackles come much faster when the guitar volume is too high and pushes the meter into the red. Impossible to hear the guitar when it crackles.
i think the answer might be in reaper buffer/latency settings or my soundcard settings?? idk....hopefully there's an easy fix for this...
Laptop - Windows 7
Intel core 2 duo 2.2Ghz
4 GB RAM
onboard soundcard
Amp - Line 6 Valve mkii
if you know PLEASE HELPP!!! Thank you muchly!!

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