crackling audio

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AshBrook
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Joined: Fri Jun 03, 2016 10:43 am

crackling audio

Post by AshBrook » Fri Jun 03, 2016 11:00 am

Hi guys, I'm in desperate need of help. I just bought a new laptop. It is a Acer Aspire v15 i7-6500U 2.5GHz 16GB RAM. Before I was using a laptop with 4gb ram and it was an i5. while it didnt give me any crackling problems until I was working on big projects, it was still very slow and sometimes would freeze.

Now I've got this new laptop, with ableton live Suite and the Push 2. and Its giving me some hectic cracking. I've read up about the buffer size and nothing seems to work.

Oh also I'm using my DJ controller as a soundcard since its got xlr outputs for my speakers. I also used it in my old laptop, so I dont think its got anything to do with the problem. its a numark 4trak.

Here are the settings I'm using in Ableton

Driver Type is Asio
Audio device asio4all
buffer size 2048
input latency 47.2
output latency 47.2
driver error compensation 0
overall latency 94.3 ms

Tarekith
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Re: crackling audio

Post by Tarekith » Fri Jun 03, 2016 11:58 am

What happens if you use the actual Numark drivers for the sound card instead of asio4all?
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AshBrook
Posts: 2
Joined: Fri Jun 03, 2016 10:43 am

Re: crackling audio

Post by AshBrook » Fri Jun 03, 2016 1:20 pm

Same thing. Also when I disconnected the numark and played with headphones plugged into the laptop, it still crackled.

102455
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Location: UK
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Re: crackling audio

Post by 102455 » Fri Jun 03, 2016 4:49 pm

Dump ASIO4ALL, you don't need it.

Stromkraft
Posts: 7033
Joined: Wed Jun 25, 2014 11:34 am

Re: crackling audio

Post by Stromkraft » Sat Jun 04, 2016 9:27 am

Those latency numbers are unacceptable. I've found with my RME that you don't want to go over 1024 samples. Support told me to lower the buffer last time I had an issue.

Also, you shouldn't assume any laptop have good enough components for real time music apps. It might, but it pays off to do your research. There's nothing specific suggesting this must be the reason here but those numbers are way off to what they should be.

What are you requiring from this machine? Size of projects?
Make some music!

dpknight
Posts: 4
Joined: Sun Jun 26, 2016 1:11 pm

Re: crackling audio

Post by dpknight » Sun Jun 26, 2016 11:22 pm

I got cracking as an interaction between midi tracks. The bass guitar sound was very broken up but when I removed a fuzz sound it stopped. Not to do with load, I don't think, as other parts of the same piece had way more going on and didn't distort... I wondered whether it was an artifact of the musical wave forms themselves, like a harmonic.

bra10
Posts: 17
Joined: Mon May 14, 2007 10:17 am

Re: crackling audio

Post by bra10 » Mon Jun 27, 2016 6:10 am

Install freeware LatencyMon.
Deactivate drivers you don´t need for you work with ableton, esp. LAN, WiFi and Bluetooth.

That was the problem with my last laptop. My current laptop also had those crackling problems I solved with updating the driver for my soundcard.

Stromkraft
Posts: 7033
Joined: Wed Jun 25, 2014 11:34 am

Re: crackling audio

Post by Stromkraft » Mon Jun 27, 2016 11:47 am

dpknight wrote:I got cracking as an interaction between midi tracks. The bass guitar sound was very broken up but when I removed a fuzz sound it stopped. Not to do with load, I don't think, as other parts of the same piece had way more going on and didn't distort... I wondered whether it was an artifact of the musical wave forms themselves, like a harmonic.
Have you verified you're not overloading the sound in the signal path? I use Sonalksis FreeG to make sure I hit the level I want in my tracks. Turn off any processing and measure the volume and listen in solo.
Make some music!

danteZav
Posts: 23
Joined: Mon Feb 25, 2013 5:10 am

Re: crackling audio

Post by danteZav » Thu Jun 30, 2016 6:08 pm

my system is a high performance custom built machine and was having trouble dealing with ableton 9.6.1 in windows 8.1. a few tracks with one massive, one sylenth and operator was setting my CPU meter on fire at max buffer size, 44100hz, Asio driver checked, mulcticore support on and all that cookie cutter jazz so I had to do the next steps to save ableton and not switch to cubase:
updated the BIOS
updated my sound card drivers from the manufacturer
updated all my NI synths I'm using (from the service center)
gave ableton and NI synths admin rights
updated my motherboards USB peripherals
plugged my soundcard into a USB 2.0 port not the 3.0 where i had it (my card doesn't support it)
disabled CPU throttling from the BIOS
set my power options to high performance (no cpu throttling here. did I already mention this?)
Set processor scheduling to "Background services" (supposedly it improves the soundcard's performance on Windows)

Things are much smoother now and the CPU meter tits are calmed most of the time, except when i load that cpu hogger Serum vst -__-

specs:
AMD fx 8320 8 core cpu 3.6ghz
16bg corsair RAM
500gb SSD with 300gb free at the moment
1tb drive for storage
Steinberg UR22 sound card

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