Glitching audio

Ryanboy · Post by **Ryanboy** » Mon Aug 06, 2007 11:53 am

I have recently got a new Dell Dimension Desktop running Windows Vista (32-bit) I have got 1gig ram and a the onboard sound.
When running ableton I realised there was problems straight away, when any audio track is played through the program, glitching occurs-making the program unusable. Whilst I have since found out vista isn`t fully supported and there are numerous problems, I was wondering if there was anything I could try to get this set-up running with it. I know a few mates who run it on vista no problem. I have tried updating drivers etc so far but no improvement!

edoian · Post by **edoian** » Mon Aug 06, 2007 11:55 am

Have you tried adjusting your latency?

Ryanboy · Post by **Ryanboy** » Mon Aug 06, 2007 12:01 pm

I have looked in preferences and output latency is 92.9ms, Ive tried changing it around-what should I be changing it to?

edoian · Post by **edoian** » Mon Aug 06, 2007 12:06 pm

Ryan im not an expert but try and mess about with the Audio buffer try and reduce/increase the number of samples. Im sure one of the other guys can give you more accurate description...im just learning meself

Ryanboy · Post by **Ryanboy** » Mon Aug 06, 2007 12:14 pm

Just had a play around with the audio buffer, i`ve got ASIO4all running with it to try and clear it up but no joy so far? I`m pretty new to this - all my djing was done on vinyl before! Thanks for the help tho,
if anyone has any other suggestions I`d appreciate it, Cheers!

capo-wear-i · Post by **capo-wear-i** » Mon Aug 06, 2007 5:48 pm

Ryanboy wrote:Just had a play around with the audio buffer, i`ve got ASIO4all running with it to try and clear it up but no joy so far? I`m pretty new to this - all my djing was done on vinyl before! Thanks for the help tho,
if anyone has any other suggestions I`d appreciate it, Cheers!

Have you selected ASIO4 all in abletons Audio driver preferences ? (RTFM)

Try posting a screenshot of your ASIO4all settings in expert mode.

I'd Forget using the standard onboard soundcard drivers - 92ms latency is unusable in any live sitution. Think more in terms of 10ms.

Ryanboy · Post by **Ryanboy** » Mon Aug 06, 2007 7:31 pm

Sorry no screenshot yet!
In the top left the music note is crossed out next to the
wdm device list which is sigma tel hda codec
ASIO buffer size below is 256 samples

Any ideas, i can see the latency is showing 8.7 now on ableton!
Still the same glitching problems!
Nothing in the top right-just 0 in and 0 out samples!
and the buffer offset below is 2ms (i guess these are the presets on it!)

capo-wear-i · Post by **capo-wear-i** » Mon Aug 06, 2007 8:14 pm

In the top left the music note is crossed out next to the
wdm device list which is sigma tel hda codec

That means that there may be a probelm. Try rebooting and see if it's still crossed out.

ASIO buffer size below is 256 samples

Good as a starting point

Any ideas, i can see the latency is showing 8.7 now on ableton!
Still the same glitching problems!

Could be any number of things - in device manager turn off anything that might be competing with the soundcard buffers : Wireless, bluetooth. Also try disabling AV.

Set yr computer to prioritise background services (google it!)

Nothing in the top right-just 0 in and 0 out samples!
and the buffer offset below is 2ms (i guess these are the presets on it!)

Don'y worry too much about these advanced settings until you've looked into everything else.

Ryanboy · Post by **Ryanboy** » Mon Aug 06, 2007 9:01 pm

Cheers for the suggestions, I`ll give it a go & see if it sorts anything!

Ryanboy · Post by **Ryanboy** » Wed Aug 08, 2007 1:07 pm

I have tried the suggestions mentioned in the previous posts (thanks for help given btw) but still no joy.

I am using the asio4all driver and have tried another sound driver for the dell system (from dell) which has made no difference.

I know of people with a similar set up to myself who can run ableton ok so hopefully there is a solution.

Any more ideas/suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Ryanboy · Post by **Ryanboy** » Thu Aug 09, 2007 12:59 pm

Whenever I run ableton the screen on ASIO4 (WDM Device list) shows the sound driver (which is Sigma Tel Hda Codec) as being crossed out, when ableton is then closed the cross disappears and the device is listed as running again.
I also get ableton to run without the sound driver being crossed out, tho even when this occurs it still gives the auido glitching error, on any file played through the program. Any ideas for alternative sound drivers (i`ve tried 2different drivers so far, so could it be worth trying other drivers? or could it maybe something else not compatible with ableton? I`ve tried the above suggestions but still no joy!

Any fresh ideas would be appreciated!

Ryanboy · Post by **Ryanboy** » Sun Aug 12, 2007 5:20 pm

Oh No, still no luck even starting the music files playing cleanly without the glitching. Starting to look like I`m not gonna get ableton running on this system!

Not sure what to try next, its not clear to me whether its vista or the actual machine (drivers etc) that are not matching up with ableton. I know a lot of the audio applications are not compatible with vista never mind ableton but I don`t have any extras currently added so surely with the system in this basic state it should be easier to fix the problem?

Quite a few people are running it ok on vista! could it be the processor or something or definitely vista?

capo-wear-i · Post by **capo-wear-i** » Mon Aug 13, 2007 11:51 am

Hmm....

Sorry I can't be of more help, but I'm not familiar enough with Vista to sort out low level problems like this.

This is definitely a Vista /Driver problem, and not directly related to Abelton. If you tried using the ASIO4all drivers with any music application, I'd guess that you would get the same results.

Consider buying an external soundcard with proper ASIO drivers (ie not using ASIO4all) - you'll need to do this eventually anyway. £120+ would be good starting point. Just seems like your on-board sound won't play ball with ASIO4 all under Vista.

One last thing - did you check the box in ASIO 4 all that says 'always re-sample 48khz to 41khz' ?

Ryanboy · Post by **Ryanboy** » Thu Aug 16, 2007 10:12 pm

I have tried altering asio4all and the latency comes right down and the glitching is reduced , tho it is still there.
I have tried reason on this system and that runs fine (tho I have been told its vista compliant) which makes me think it is ableton in particular that doesn`t want to tun with this set-up!

I did check the always re-sample (48khz to 41khz) no major change there
I am looking to purchase a new soundcard and keyboard controller in the near future so that may help the situation!

Could it be worth trying different sound drivers, i have tried about 3 so far with no success! Maybe I will have to wait a good while before I can run ableton. I am even tempted to buy a new system, tho most have vista so it would b a case of gettin one somewhere with XP to sort this out, not ideal though!

Any more ideas would b very welcome!

capo-wear-i · Post by **capo-wear-i** » Sun Aug 19, 2007 3:24 pm

Ryanboy wrote:I have tried altering asio4all and the latency comes right down and the glitching is reduced , tho it is still there.
I have tried reason on this system and that runs fine (tho I have been told its vista compliant) which makes me think it is ableton in particular that doesn`t want to tun with this set-up!

I did check the always re-sample (48khz to 41khz) no major change there
I am looking to purchase a new soundcard and keyboard controller in the near future so that may help the situation!

Could it be worth trying different sound drivers, i have tried about 3 so far with no success! Maybe I will have to wait a good while before I can run ableton. I am even tempted to buy a new system, tho most have vista so it would b a case of gettin one somewhere with XP to sort this out, not ideal though!

Any more ideas would b very welcome!

You can try some more drivers if you like, but I don't think that you'll necessarily get better performance. ASIO4all isn't really meant to be a permenant cure-all solution, it just 'sort-of' allows you to get 'some' performance out of the crappy on-board soundcard. No guarantees. If you want better performance, you'll have to stump up the cash for a better soundcard ..You won't find many people on this board using ASIO4all and on-board sound as a long term solution - you really need a card with it's own dedicated VISTA ASIO drivers - that rules out any on-board sound chips. Sorry if that isn't what you wanted to hear, chap

XP would be a good place to start if you can't afford a soundcard at the mo.