UR22 glitching

For quite a while now I’ve been getting high-pitched glitching from my UR22, or at least I’m pretty sure it’s coming from the unit. When I play sound files off my laptop through it there’s frequent crackling, and when I record this appears as a brief high-pitched electronic sound exactly once every minute, and it appears visibly on the waveform. Occasionally it’ll happen outside of the one-minute time-frame, and sometimes in more extended bursts, but usually it’s regular. This is driving me crazy, as I can’t record for more than one minute without the take being ruined.

I’ve tried replacing the USB cable, which didn’t change anything, and using all 3 of the USB ports on my laptop, which didn’t help. I’ve tried shutting down other processes on the computer too, but this doesn’t seem to make a difference. I have to admit I’m not at all technically adept, so there may be something obvious I’m overlooking. The computer is an HP laptop with Intel Core 1.70/2.40GHz processor, 8G of RAM and 64-bit operating system. I was thinking maybe the RAM is not enough, but this problem has only started in the past few months, and there wasn’t a problem at first.

So I’m not 100% sure, but I think the problem is with the UR22 interface. The problem is the same regardless of input.
This is what the glitch sounds like, just against an ambient drone:
https://soundcloud.com/user-821328752/glitch-demo

I think it could be DPC latency which can be addressed by tweaking your OS for audio work. The default software to check this is latencymon: http://www.resplendence.com/latencymon_whatsnew

There are numerous guides about tweaking your OS for audio, depending on your specific OS but here’s one from Steinberg: https://www.steinberg.net/en/support/knowledgebase_new/show_details/kb_show/optimizing-windows-for-daws.html

Also, you can try a benchmark: http://www.dawbench.com/benchmarks.htm

The fact the problem wasn’t always there can be accounted for by new software/drivers/windows patches so it’s worth a shot.

Thanks for that info. I’ve done what tweaking of the OS I could figure out and tried downloading the newest drivers for the UR22 as well. Unfortunately the glitching is still there. It’s not quite as bad now, and happening at exactly 1 or 2 minute intervals, but still there.

Is this pretty much always a problem with the computer, or could it be the interface itself?

Hi, the fact the behaviour changed after some reconfiguration strongly suggests it’s solvable by more tweaking.

It’s pretty common (I would say almost default) on Windows OS-es which isn’t a real-time OS so not really suited for audiowork (as opposed to Apple which uses “core audio”) to experience glitching.

For example I have a dual-boot OS with one OS (Win 8.1) optimized for audio and one mainstream OS (first also Win 8.1 but now Win 10) and I experience glitching on the mainstream OS and none on my DAW OS.

I suggest you use latencymon to see if you still experience DPC latency and then find some guides on troubleshooting the responsible drivers and/or IRQ conflicts. It can require a bit of focus and patience to check all processes but it’s a one time thing after which you’ll be a happy UR-user :wink: