Crackling problem

Hi all! It’s my first time here, and I hope someone may help me.

I bought a Steinberg UR22, but I’m having some crackling problems. If I try to record or just listen to somethintg, I hear a pretty irritating “crack” noise, just like the one you hear when you plug your headphone on an mp3 player. It just happens randomly. I’ve tried many thing, like changing the USB port, the power cable of my PC, i’ve also tried to see if the problem were my headphone, and I was wrong. But if I plug my UR22 to another PC, it just work fine.

So, my hypothesis was that maybe it’s a hardware related problem. I’m not very expert to these things, so I’m here, hoping to someone who con help me. Here are my computer specifics:

If you need further informations or you have any kind of suggestion, just let me know! Thank very much!

This sounds like an ASIO buffer issue, which means your computer cannot keep up with the audio data stream. To solve this, increase the buffer size in your recording software.
If you can’t find it, tell us what software you’re using and someone might know :slight_smile:

Well, the problem is that this issue is still there also when I’m not using Cubase. If I just go on Youtube to watch a video or I just open an mp3 files, I can still hear that crackling unbearable noise…
If I use the sound card of my computer, everything works fine, I’m having this problem specifically with my UR22.

That’s strange, that shouldn’t happen.
If you record something, is the crackling also recorded? Or is it added to the output?
It only crackles if you play something?

The crackling sound is recorded too, even if I turn off the michrophone. Everytime I play something, I can hear that crackling sound. I still think that it’s due to a hardware problem, but I can’t manage to sort that out.

Ok, in that case I have no idea what’s going on, that does sound like a hardware problem.

Try to connect the audio interface to a powered USB hub. A hub is usually not recommended for audio interfaces, but if the USB power from your motherboard is weak, it might be worth trying. (Audio interfaces consume more power than a mouse or a keyboard.)

Id like to say that changing the usb port to one with more power in it helped for me.

I have a similar issue with my system. Switching to another USB port fixes this. I have a Komplete Audio 6 interface and having it connected to the back of my PC or though as hub gives me pops and other artifacts. Connecting it to the front USB ports fixed this. In my case I suspect bad USB3 backward compatibility with the NI interface, but switching to a different USB hub/ USB connection on your motherboard can fix the issue.