Crackle on recorded track

[WvDMuziek]

Hi guys n girls!

Scoured the forums for this one but couldn't quite find a solution so thought I'd try here.
When recording with Live 11 Suite I get this slight crackle on my guitar track. On playback it is never quite the same, suggesting it is generated by live during playback. Opened the recorded wav with an audio player (foobar or wavepad) and no crackle, track was completely clean. Exported the track through ableton though, and the crackle was present in the exported wav!
CPU meter never goes above 10%, running on a m.2 SSD on Windows 10 through a RME babyface pro (no hub) with 16gb ram and a Ryzen 3700x.

Hope one of you has the winning answer!
Cheers

[Davo]

My guess is buffer size

[WvDMuziek]

Buffer size is 256 at 48 khz, shouldn't be a problem I think and never was in Ableton 10

[cids]

Disable BT and Wifi if possible...

[yur2die4]

Is it warped? Complex and complex pro especially can potentially change the amplitude of the clip.

[Nads17]

Hey!

I have exactly the same problem going on!
I actually spent the last 2 weeks on trying to fix it, but couldn't find a solution so far.

However, at least I know quite well now what the problem is (and what it is not).
This is what I found out so far:

Like you said: the crackles are not in the audio itself. (Because if you playback on 44.1/24 , there are no crackles)
But you hear the crackles when playing back on 48/24 and also when rendering in 48/24.

The crackles appear only at the louder parts of the track. (But the audio is not distorted...since the crackles are not in the audio)

It seems to be no problem with my laptop. Because I asked 3 other people (some of which have more powerful computers. (I have a Thinkpad with intel i5)) to bounce the project for me and they all also had the same crackles in the bounced audio (and while playing back in Live at 48/24).

I also tried out a lot of other stuff and am pretty sure that it has nothing to do with my interface (Apollo Twin USB 3) or anything else.

What is also interesting is, that I opend the recorded sample (that is crackling on 48 in Ableton) in Audacity instead and there it is not crackling. So it seems to be an Ableton issue.

Also a side note: I already had the same issue in Ableton 10 since about September (that is when I switched my sample rate from 44.1 to 48 - to record for film music).

I just wrote Ableton support a few days ago, but haven't heard back yet.

Let me know if you have any thoughts on this or find a solution!
Maybe it would be good if you would contact the support as well, so they know it is not just the problem of 1 Person... ?

Greetings!

[yemoman]

Like yur2die4 mentioned, this is 100% caused by the warp algorithm. Strictly speaking the problem is the "Complex" (sometimes also the Complex Pro) algorithm. Switch the clip's warp type to "Beats" (or disable warping) and there should be no crackle. From my experience it's mostly audio in higher frequencies and with a narrow frequency band. And the worst: Most of the time it's pretty random.

I got in touch with Ableton a few years ago about that problem and sent them an example project to reproduce it. They acknowledged it but it never got fixed. I guess it's because they aren't intellectual owners of the time stretch algorithms as they are only licensed.

Since I investigated this bug I actually heard the crackle on multiple released songs. It's sad.

[Nads17]

Hi Yemoman & yur2die4 !

I just wanted to say Thanks for your advices !
For some reason I did not see yur2die4 's post when I wrote my post back in March (& I really wish I did cause it would have saved be a lot of time and nerves )
But anyways - your advice fixed my crackling problem ! Thank You a LOT!

Best wishes!