Hi Elwin,
our specialist had a look at your performance recording, but could not find a smoking gun, yet. Needs to dive deeper.
We would also like to get a system info from you. Please do
Hi
@Ulf I will have to reinstall the new Windows Update before I do so (Sorry About that).
I apologize for the late response as this is the first time I have seen it.
Hi Elwin, sorry, I didn’t mention, there’s no need to reinstall the update, just do as your system currently is.
I looked at HP’s website, and for my computer, the only driver they had available was for an outdated Windows 10 System, so that will not work.
Sorry for my late reply as I had to reupdate Windows 10 before I could do what you wanted me to do, and that took a long time.
I re-did the performance recording and did the system info. I posted the links down below.
Looking at the recent thread, I realize you told me that I did not need to reinstall the update, but I did not see it in time before I did it, so that’s a mistake of mine.
In the meantime, I do have a theory as to what could be wrong. Based on previous responses, It seems that the new Windows 10 update currently has issues with the audio driver, at least that’s what the website posted in a response says. I am thinking the deffective Audio driver is the one messing up the sound, and I think getting an External Audio Interface would eliminate the problem, since it would install its own audio drivers onto my computer. What do you think?
https://www.dropbox.com/s/on1m247pvwrzunf/LAPTOP-8MO4RGV9.06-12-2020.22-10-39.etl?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/1eidu81u910nzo5/System%20Information%206-12-2020.nfo?dl=0
Hi Elwin.
I am no windows expert (at all!), what I can say for sure is that an external audio interface will have a way more reliable internal clock, so the whole audio quality will increase (especially during playback). And the driver will probably receive more care from its developers. Not sure it will solve your issue though.
Hi Elwin,
thanks for the new data, we will have a look on Monday. It’s still too early to say what is screwing up the sound on your system. Could be e.g. even a crappy WiFi driver that has an impact on the audio, we saw such cases before. We still need to see.
But it is always a good idea to use an external audio device. They are specifically designed to deliver professional audio and accordingly they have dedicated audio drivers that are built with the needed expertise. I can recommend the Steinberg UR series of audio interfaces, though there are also excellent ones from other manufacturers.
Hello, I do not mean to bug you, but is there any update as to you all looking at the data I sent? I was just wondering since I never heard back from you. Thanks.
Hi Elwin, sorry, too many threads going on at the same time. Yes, our experts did have a look and although they can see that the audio engine switches into longer processing cycles (what causes the drop outs), they still can’t say what is the real reason behind this behaviour. In any case, it must have to do with the Windows update, but what exactly we can’t say. From a scientific or engineering point of view it is of course of highest interest to find the exact cause of it, on the other hand, we have so many things to do, that we simply can not afford to spend too much energy into this. Especially because it is not a widespread phenomena, you are the first and only customer reporting such behaviour after a Windows update. So we hope for your understanding, if we - at least for now - cease the case.
Oh, okay. Thank you for letting me know.
It’s okay, I understand that you all are busy, and I look forward to your responses when you all have time to respond in greater detail.
I am guessing that this has to do with HP’s Audio system. I will attempt to fix the problem myself, as I have a few ideas now that I know it’s an audio engine issue, and I’ll let you know if something works.
Thank you so much for helping me with this problem, and I understand that I happen to be the only one with this problem. I look forward to hearing from all of you in the future when you all have time.
Hi folks,
sorry for coming back so late on this issue. In the meantime, we could now also reproduce the issue in-house and we did a fair bit of analysis on it. We do see what is going wrong, but we don’t know, yet, what is causing the issue, therefore can not fix it. But we are also in contact with Microsoft to get help from them.
Anyhow, what I want to say now is, we have found an easy workaround. People who experience this problem use the Generic Low Latency Driver. That driver uses by default the smallest possible audio buffer size of 10ms. If you increase that to 20ms (or if that does not do, even higher) then the distorted sound shall go away. To increase the buffer size, go to Edit > Device Setup. In the dialog click on ‘Device Control Panel’ button and in the then appearing window find ‘Audio buffer size’ and switch on ‘user definable’ and move up the slider below it.
Of course, this is just a workaround, it should also work with 10ms, but we are on the case and look for a proper solution.
Sometimes it is possible to have different sampling rates for different software. Make sure that Windows sound is set to the same sampling rate as your Dorico settings and vis a versa. This is one of the chief causes of jittery, noisy, silence and or malformed sound production.
And…any interface/sound card as well…
Hi folks, good news on this.
The guys from Microsoft were very helpful on analysing this and it was a whole lot of work. Now it seems we have found the culprit and that is NotePerformer. I’m already in contact with Arne Wallander. He will send me a fix version as soon as possible, so that I can test it. Once reconfirmed he will make it publicly available.
There is still the question, why it is now suddenly a problem, because the bug was already around for a much longer time. Must be also a little change in Windows that now uncovered it. Anyway, finally hunted down…
So Arne Wallander provided me a fix version and I tested it thoroughly and the bug is gone now 
I don’t know when he will go public with that version, but start nagging him, if it takes too long 
Hello @Ulf,
Sorry, I forgot about this thread for a little bit. One thing, though, I did try testing it by switching to HALion, and the bug was still there. Maybe because NotePerformer already “messed” with the Driver Then.
So, with all the things pointing to NotePerformer and the Driver, would the issue have been fixed with an External Audio Interface?
Thank you for looking into this for me, I appreciate it!
@ Carlo Gesualdo,
How would I make sure the sample rate of Windows Sound is set to the same one that Dorico Uses?
Hi Elwin,
how did you test with HALion? When you switched to HALion when the sound was already messed up, then indeed the noise will continue.
But you can reset the driver by simply going to Edit > Device Setup, then click the Device Control Panel button, a new little window appears.
Just click OK in that window and that will reset the audio driver.
Another workaround is to set the ASIO buffer size to >= 20ms in that window just mentioned. With that buffer size the audio won’t get messed up either.
Lastly, Wallander Instruments already put out a beta version of NotePerformer with a fix for it. I just don’t know when the release version will go public.
@Ulf
I tested with HALion when the sound was already messed up.
Has anyone tried using an external audio interface with its own driver to see if the problem continues?
I tried setting the buffer size to 100ms when I tried the problem, and it still didn’t work.
Hm, with 100ms I don’t expect the problem to happen. On my laptop with built-in Realtek and Generic Low Latency driver the problem went away with 20ms.
However, with my external audio interface (Steinberg UR-22mkII) it is no problem at all, which by no means is a guarantee for any other audio interface out there.
Forgive my confusion, but I couldn’t quite understand what you meant by “which by no means is a guarantee…”
Did you mean that the problem won’t exist with a Steinberg Audio Interface, but might exist with a different external audio interface?
Yes, exactly.