Hey Producers

Before I Work on Laptop Intel i3 with 4 GB RAM, and when i mix a track i face lots of difficulties such as crackling in sound and CPU load 100%., I GET VERY FRUSTATED WITH THIS. So to fix this problem i bought a new PC Intel i7 (4790K) WITH 16GB RAM, and M Audio M Track Soundcard, It was working very good, but today when i mixing a track with lots of plugins such like fab filter and waves and Some other stuff, i face same difficulties like soundcrakling, then i check CPU usage and it was normal at 20%....i want to know why i am facing these problems although i have good production PC, What is the solution for this.
Any Help Would be appreciated
Thanks

 

This might help http://www.resplendence.com/latencymon

 

What is your Asio Audio buffer set try 512 and move down to you until you hear cracking again and move up one or two times maybe three depending on the project

Which daw are you using?

 

I am Using FL Studio and Cubase.

 

Yeah, try to up the buffer size.

 

He probably has other problems than just a too low ASIO buffer [as CPU utilisation was really low - 20%], OS and/or hardware related that are harder to pinpoint just from knowing CPU, RAM, and the audio card. Could be speedstep CPU powersaving. Could be VGA driver. Could be something else in Windows [which Windows?] that is not set up properly. In my experience it is usually some bad driver that causes DPC spikes, or it could be the CPU power saving features. It could also just be a bad, unsynchronised, digital out from the audio card to your DA converter, if you have one. *yes*

The first step that I do is always eliminate all the unnecessary background programs [find them in the system tray] and unnecessary start up programs. I've got only 2 icons there in my main OS: RME Mixer and RME configuration. *yes* Then disable some unneeded services. [blackwiper website can help you wt] If using Windows 7 you can try running your DAW without Aero, if it's turned on, and with Aero if it's turned off. Before that install the latest VGA driver [but sometimes it's not the latest one that works best...] But I'm guessing you might be using Windows 8.1... the only Windows that I never use for anything audio related, or anything else for that matter. A shot in the dark: have you disabled Windows sounds? *yes* Lots of people forget that one thing... and try using "High Performance" power configuration/profile for a [good] start.

Here are some links for [mostly for XP, Win7, Vista] Windows optimisation:

http://www.xpfree.org/simple_speedup_guide.htm
http://www.blackviper.com/
http://tweaks.com/
http://www.philrees.co.uk/pc4music/optimisation.php

Also, check this out: https://www.biostars.org/p/75548/ for how to ask a technical question properly. The most important tip is under "Describe your problem carefully" paragraph.

If you're a proficient Windows user you should be able to trace the problem by following my advice and these links. If you're not, good luck!

 

What he said ^^

Also higher clock rates can cause this with amd

 

Higher clock rates cause this with AMD?! I've never heard of that, sorry, but I'm not saying it's impossible, just that I've never encountered or heard of it. I'm running my AMD Phenom II at 3.6-4GHz [if needed] for audio/XP with no power management at all, and 3.2GHz for office/Linux with Cool and Quiet to save as much energy as possible. But AMD CPUs have problems with Cool and Quiet and C1 power states, same as Intel with their SpeedStep equivalent and its various power states. I found these power states and power management the main culprit for having proper audio in modern PCs with high CPU utilisation [~90%, 100% can't work at all]. And you need to fiddle with it to find out what it is that's causing the problem. The simplest solution if you use Win7 is to go into the power manager and change the power profile from "Balanced" to "High Performance" [it's hidden, look for it]. This will deplete a laptop's battery quite soon, mind you, but it should at least greatly help or completely alleviate the problem.

Btw. on very rare occasions even VGA powersaving can also cause crackles, be it AMD or NVidia. That's something that's a bit harder to turn off, but googling it can help. I actually edited the VGA BIOS on my Nvidia GT240 card to support some lower but not so low frequencies and disabled its powersaving from XP for an additional 10% CPU performance without crackling. But that's me, I like to tinker with my PC to the bone. Therefore my PC's DPC latency dwindles always between 10-20 microsec in DPC checker. I'm also getting there with my laptop that runs Win7 for audio OS.

 

also check your plugins/tracks, are plugins working in demo/trial mode? how many reverbs are you using? how many fx plugins do you have on each track? how many kontakt tracks are there? how many tracks are you using? switch off all fx plugins to see if that helps

 

Hey Thanks. I am Also Using Windows 7 Proffesional. i increase the buffer to 1024 But this was not working for me... i mean my pc get fully hang ..Unable to work in my DAW RIGHT NOW

 

1. Try the LATENCY checker posted above .. or even this one --- > http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml

THIS EXACT THING HAPPENED TO ME RECENTLY... the DPC LATENCY CHECKER showed me that my "latency" had occasional spikes over 2000 !!!!! It was due to a USB device I plugged in that was not "studio friendly" (remove hardware 1 by 1 or shut down tasks/apps 1 by 1 to find what causes YOUR spikes) latency spikes CAN cause sound crackle

NOTE: This is assuming you already configured your laptop for optimal "DAW" use


2. Make sure in cubase you have M-AUDIO ASIO set... as it can be set to generic ASIO also...

 

in power options turn it to high performance setting as cpu core parking can cause this.

then run latencymon like sinwave said to see if a driver is causing large dcp latency spikes