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Old 04-22-2020, 10:52 PM   #1
plant-on
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Default Reaper crackling only on stop with UAD2 plugins

I'm running a fairly modern computer (i9 9900K, Gigabyte Z390 Designare, SSDs galore) with a a Fireface 400 and something was really bugging me when I use lots of UAD plugins (lots being 20 or so of their heaviest plugins spread out over 2x UAD Quads).

1. Pressing start would sometimes (most of the time) take a good 4-5 seconds to actually start playing.
2. Upon pressing stop there would be this crackly mess. Playback itself was rock solid, but when you press stop everything would kind of freeze up and stutter and essentially I couldn't do anything for a second or two until it had stopped.
3. Pressing mute or solo on a track would cause a crackly mess - even if there were no plugins on that track.
4. Looping didn't have this problem however changing the loop region while playing did cause problems.
5. This seemed to happen the more sends I had, particularly for some of the UAD reverbs (Lexicon 224, 480L, but not the EMT 250).
6. This only happened when I had UAD 2 plugins in use, if they are bypassed the problem goes away.
7. Plugins from Soundtoys, Sonnox, Slate, Plugin Alliance, et al. all work fine and don't have this problem.
8. Strangely the problem was WORSE with higher buffer settings. At 128 samples there was barely any issue when pressing stop, at 1024 it was a nightmare. UAD cards (like the CPU in your actual computer) doesn't like low buffer settings with high plugin counts. I've found that once you get up to about 80% of your DSP on your UAD2 cards, you can forget about having a low buffer. I'd love to leave my buffer at 64 samples for mixing and recording, but the UAD cards just can't handle it.

The thing is I LOVE my UAD plugins, while there are other manufacturers that also make great plugins UAD really have some unique plugins that are very, very good.

So I put up with it and did so for years.

Occasionally I'd try fixing this. Trying different buffer settings, "optimizing" my computer (turning off non-essential services etc..), trawling forums for someone else who is experiencing this (apparently there is no one???) and a whole range of other things.

But yesterday it pissed me off so much I decided I was have another crack at solving this - and I finally did!!!

This is what I did in the Reaper Preferences to fix it;

1. Under 'Buffering', set 'render-ahead' to 400ms (up from the default of 200ms).
2. Under 'Playback', ensure both 'Flush FX when looping' and 'Run FX when stopped' are both unchecked.
3. Under 'Playback', set 'Run FX for 4000ms after stopping' is set to 0ms (default is 4000ms)

I tried this out on a fresh Reaper ini file to isolate these values and these seem to be the ones that fix the problem for me.

I now have almost instant playback and no crackles when pressing stop. There is a very slight (400ms??) lag when I press stop but this isn't that back.

So I'm curious to understand why this is working, my thinking is;

1. Rendering more ahead of time perhaps ensures at low latency the UAD isn't under as much time pressure meaning I can run lower buffer settings.
1. Not running the FX on stop ensures the crackle is not present.

I'm curious to hear from anyone else whose had this issue and how they solved it?
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Old 05-27-2020, 10:27 AM   #2
Xeddy
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You made my day, thank you! This was a real problem,in particular with big pdc plugins like acustica audio stuff, with this workaround every stop&play is smooth and I haven't dropouts/glitches anymore, fantastic.

I noticed only a small thing using Melodyne in ARA mode, with the "Run FX when stopped" option unchecked, the playhead in the melodyne editor isn't updated with the project untill play it, and if you change the position of the playhead from melodyne it change the reaper playhead position but not the melodyne one, so it can be quite confusing.
But I think this is absolutely normal, so when using melodyne recheck the option and everything is ok.

Thanks you for the advice!
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Old 05-27-2020, 01:48 PM   #3
JDSStudios
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A while back I saw some information on the buffer having to be at 512 for best behaviour on UAD 1 cards, not more or less.
I forgot where I got that from, but I thin it was from the jBridge forum.

Just curious, do you have Windows focus set to “Background devices” ?
That is still a avoid set for Windows 10 also.
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Old 06-06-2020, 08:42 AM   #4
Xeddy
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JDSStudios View Post
A while back I saw some information on the buffer having to be at 512 for best behaviour on UAD 1 cards, not more or less.
I forgot where I got that from, but I thin it was from the jBridge forum.

Just curious, do you have Windows focus set to “Background devices” ?
That is still a avoid set for Windows 10 also.
Sorry for the big delay!

Yes, I have the processor scheduling set on background services.

I found that info in the presonus "Optimizing Your Computer for Audio - Windows 10" guide and in the SOS "Windows 10 For Musicians" article.
These are dated reference, I know, do you think that this setting is an "error" nowadays? If yes, why?

Thanks in advance for infos!
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