Hi all,
I am intermittently experiencing pops, audio dropouts and crackles when recording with Cubase 13 Pro. Even when recording only 1 track. This problem doesn’t happen all the time.
I ran LatencyMon (with Cubase running) and got this outcome!!
“Conclusion: Your system appears to be having trouble handling real-time audio and other tasks. You are likely to experience buffer underruns appearing as drop outs, clicks or pops. One or more DPC routines that belong to a driver running in your system appear to be executing for too long. Also one or more ISR routines that belong to a driver running in your system appear to be executing for too long. One problem may be related to power management, disable CPU throttling settings in Control Panel and BIOS setup. Check for BIOS updates.”
·Current measured interrupt to process latency (µs): 180.10
·Highest measured interrupt to process latency (µs): 3152.40
·Highest reported ISR routine execution time (µs): 2334.482372 (HDAudBus.sys - High Definition Audio Bus Driver, Microsoft Corporation)
·Highest reported DPC routine execution time (µs): 3079.870994 (Wdf01000.sys - Kernel Mode Driver Framework Runtime, Microsoft Corporation)
·Reported total hard page fault count: 7943
I’m not sure what this means, but is sounds bad. I’ll do a little research on rectification.
Cheers
Paul
You need to uninstall or disable in device manager all other sound drivers in order to change that result. HDAudio is typically the audio from your video card HDMI output.
It may help to remove the extra audio drivers and disable internal audio in the bios. Especially if Windows is using them for system sounds. In fact system sounds should be disabled (ie chimes and mouse action sounds). With such an old sound device, if it is being shared with the system it would affect performance.
I disagree that the sound device has negligible effect. Borrow someones RME audio device after you have done the above and see what I mean.
Hi Kenobi1,
many thanks for your help. As a start, I disabled the other sound devices (apart from the Tascam interface). This seems to have solved the problem, thank you! I’ll try my project again in the morning to confirm resolution.
I take your point that a new interface would be an improvement (otherwise how could they sell any?)
I have an RME Babyface pro fs and yes you can get low latency at higher buffer sizes but it doesn’t fix all problems. You only have to go to the RME forum to see this.
If you are using an external audio interface then disable the the inbuilt one in bios. That is what I do. In my desktop I have disabled in bios that as well as wi fi and Bluetooth. I use a wired Ethernet connection. To use a pc for serious DAW work it’s best to strip to the bare minimum.
I’ve had similar problems on a my machines. Sudden crackles and spikes no matter what I tried …
After fiddling around with latencymon, it turned out it was the controller of an external harddrive that caused the system to "hang"or “freeze” up to like 20-100ms…!
Try detaching all unnecessary devices, try to disable all unneeded stuff in your computers BIOS.
Hi all,
After a lot of trial and error (and many false hopes!), I think I have solved my problem.
Latency Mon Now:
Conclusion: Your system appears to be suitable for handling real-time audio and other tasks without dropouts.
·Current measured interrupt to process latency (µs): 106.0
·Highest measured interrupt to process latency (µs): 261.50
·Highest reported ISR routine execution time (µs): 68.142628 (Wdf01000.sys - Kernel Mode Driver Framework Runtime, Microsoft Corporation)
·Reported total hard page fault count: 96
I still don’t understand what this really means, but in terms of latency, it’s a big improvement on my original results. Also, running Cubase 13 Pro is now without pops and clicks, even using Steinberg’s large, mega track count demos.
I can have mu Tascam US set on ‘Low Latency’ (There are five options: lowest, low, normal, high & highest). In my DAW, low latency appears as: Input Latency – 2.992ms & Output Latency – 14.989ms, which is fine for me.
Ging back to my original question, I still wonder if a new interface will be a significant improvement.
I will follow this post with the steps I have taken.
Many thanks for all the assistance provided.
It’s very frustrating when you buy a supposedly powerful PC, bump the RAM up to 48GB, put in a fast 2 Gb SSD and it won’t run a 16 track project without cracking up…. I take it, I am not alone in this.
Below is a checklist (for me) of what I need to do for a tracking / mixing session and what I need to do to set my PC back for normal operation.
My Computer is a Dell XPS 8940 tower, so other machines may have different drivers and BIOS
Go to Device Manager and disable:
a. Audio devices (disable all except the Tascam US2000)
b. Blue tooth
c. Display adapters – NVIDIA GeForce RTX3060 Ti
d. Network adapters – Ethernet & WiFi Controllers (Killer E2600 & 6 AX 1650i)
e. Sound, video & Game Controllers – (disable all except the Tascam US2000)
Control Panel – Sound: Select No sounds and No Play Windows Startup Sounds
Shutdown PC
Turned off my printer and unplugged the Router Ethernet Cable from the back of my PC
Turn on Tascam US2000
Turn on PC and access BIOS (F2 at Dell splash screen)
Bios – Select the Intel Video driver (not auto or Nvidia)
Continue boot up into Windows 11
Task Manager – Turn off all unwanted programs with large memory consumption (e.g. Skype, Teams, Norton, NVidia Help, Waves Max Audio, MS Edge, Killer Intelligence Centre, Family Controller, Dell Diagnostics, Dell Analytics, Dell Data Management, MS My Day).
Load up Cubase 13 Pro
Given past history, I am not super confident that this will be a long term solution (time will tell), but short-term results are very pleasing.
While my main is an RME, I do use the Tascam US2000 on Windows 10 with few issues.
The only issue I have had over the years is US2000 playback where it crackles and drop-outs. My solution is turn off the US2000 then on and everything works correct.
Greg, many thanks for your input. 12 years is a lifetime in digital equipment.
Given I still have issues after all the adjustments I have made to my PC, a new interface (with much better configurability and buffer controls) appears to be the only way forward.
It could be it’s the caps on your Tascam. A competent electronics engineer can diagnose it and fix it if you don’t want to buy a new interface - gave my TC sk48 a new lease of life.
I’d be inclined to wipe the C: drive and start from scratch. Dell and suchlike companies, are notorious for the amount “helpful” software dumped on customers’ hard drives.
I bought a new PC from Scan (if you’re in the UK, you know who I mean) but I still did a clean install - after making sure the thing worked, of course.
I do this every couple of years, anyway, just to clear out all the dross that builds up. But then, I have enough HDD space to keep backups of all my install programs, and I save it for those Sunday afternoons when I am bored…
Good suggestion, TobyShark, but I suspect the problem is with the driver (latest is dated 2015!). I’m not against6 buying a new interface, I just hate the idea of buying a new interface and still having the same problems!
Hey Googly_Smythe, many thanks for the suggestion - I did this recently and changed over the C drive from an average 500Gb SSD to a very fast Kingston 2Tb SSD.
Paul
Well, I bit the bullet and bought a Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 3rd Gen, ($829 Aussie dollars).
Just installed it and did a quick run through (without closing down any onboard devices or changing the BIOS from standard).
Very happy with the initial results. No crackling or dropouts on Buffer size 96 with round trip latency of 13.7ms.
This is particularly pleasing as I still have a lot of options (shutdown software devices, adjust Bios, etc) and buffer size to play with if things start to crackle or drop out.