ASIO Buffer Size Crackling

[bucket1216]

Hi all,

I recently noticed some really intense crackling during playback. Now, I create wildly dramatic and harsh sounds regularly, so I'm constantly introducing artifacts and impossible transients, but this was clearly different to my ear. Google quickly told me to increase my ASIO buffer size to 512 and work my way down until I got to an acceptable mix between latency and noise.

Problem is, the buffer size is already at 512. When i push it to 1024, I get rid of most (not all) of the popping and crackling during playback. But what gives? Why did this change suddenly? I'm on windows and I'm fully updated. Keeping an eye on task manager, and my CPU and RAM seem to be under quite low usage. Same soundcard, same headphones...It seems to happen when the sounds get intense, but I'm not even hardly using any plugins.

If I'm understanding the concept of ASIO buffer size correctly, it could make sense that it's the bottleneck where CPU is fine, but I still don't understand why or what to do about it. I've never had this problem before today.

[Stella645]

I'm on windows and I'm fully updated.

What version Windows and did you notice this issue before your last major update?

[bucket1216]

Originally Posted by Stella645

What version Windows and did you notice this issue before your last major update?

I'm on Windows 10. What I meant is that REAPER is fully updated. Sorry for not being clear there. There's a decent chance that there was a Windows update concurrent with the beginning of this issue.

So if that's the case, what should I do? Reinstall the ASIO drivers? I'm way out of my depth here.

[Fergler]

There is a great tool for Windows called LatencyMon which would be the first check I would do to see if there's issues. Audio CPU threads are an interesting subject you can definitely rabbit hole down, but the gist is: Every part of your system can affect the priority and speed of delivery of computed data, and this includes audio buffers. Even if your system is showing minimal CPU use, there could be other things causing the delivery of this data to be delayed resulting in the glitch sounds.

[Wallaby]

And that ASIO driver is made from who ?
Get an RME interface, no matter wich one, then you have a proper ASIO driver, made by RME.
No more crackeling buffer problems.

[nepenthe]

Originally Posted by bucket1216

Hi all,

I recently noticed some really intense crackling during playback. Now, I create wildly dramatic and harsh sounds regularly, so I'm constantly introducing artifacts and impossible transients, but this was clearly different to my ear. Google quickly told me to increase my ASIO buffer size to 512 and work my way down until I got to an acceptable mix between latency and noise.

Problem is, the buffer size is already at 512. When i push it to 1024, I get rid of most (not all) of the popping and crackling during playback. But what gives? Why did this change suddenly? I'm on windows and I'm fully updated. Keeping an eye on task manager, and my CPU and RAM seem to be under quite low usage. Same soundcard, same headphones...It seems to happen when the sounds get intense, but I'm not even hardly using any plugins.

If I'm understanding the concept of ASIO buffer size correctly, it could make sense that it's the bottleneck where CPU is fine, but I still don't understand why or what to do about it. I've never had this problem before today.

Open the performance monitor in Reaper and check to see if you're overloading a core. You may have too many FX on one channel.

[DVDdoug]

I'm not an expert on this but...

my CPU and RAM seem to be under quite low usage.

Whatever is interrupting the audio doesn't have to be using a lot of resources. It's just has to hog the system for a few milliseconds too long and you get buffer overflow.

...The operating system is always multitasking and interrupting, even if you're only running one application.


There is a free online book called Glitch Freeabout optimizing your computer for audio.