Afternoon all

I've recently installed what i'm presuming are some power hungry pieces of vst software cos i'm starting to get crackling and stuttering when i'm playing back the tracks i'm working on

Currently i'm using a pc with an AMD Phenom quad core processor with 4 gig of ddr2 ram

My question is do you think this is a more than likely a memory issue and would another 4gb of ram help?

I've not had any problems in the past, it's only since i've started using these new power hungry pieces of kit

Thanks

 

Crackling and stuttering has got nothing to do with RAM. It's either bad ASIO driver, so try with a bigger latency [512, 1024 samples], or too many programs running in the background that use CPU. You can check that with the free DPC latency checker.

 

Hmmmmmmmm... you're not using x32 OS, do you??? If yes, you answered your question. BTW, go for more RAM + x64 OS.

 

I just threw 24 Gigs of RAM in my PC.. made very little difference to how many tracks I can run without audio breaking up.

It's mostly the quality of your soundcard and your CPU. and your windows settings.

I would however, if all you have is 4 Gigs install some more ram, its good for overall system performance.

WHat VST are eating ur CPU by the way?

 

I know the new D16 Group "Lush" VSTi is causing a lot of heavy CPU/latency problems.

32Bit OS will only recognize 3 Gig of RAM so installing more is pointless 64Bit OS is required for more

 

Thanks for the reply's chaps

I'm using win 7 64 bit, and i have an edirol ua101 external usb 10/in/10 out soundcard This One Here

My motherboard is ..(checks spec) Asus M2N68-vm This One Here

I'm not sure which vst's are eating into my cpu, on one particular track i'm running...Linplug CRX4, Synapse Dune, NI B4II, NI FM7, NI Maschine, Addictive drums, Jupiter 8V, Arturia Analog factory, NI pro 53

I'm not sure how good or how bad the motherboard is as i'm clueless with the techy stuff

I'll try messing with the latency in a bit, see if that helps

Any other suggestions?

Cheers guys

 

If I remember correctly addictive drums are hungry one, guess all depends on customization, but if you use full effects potential you are probably touching a limit with other stuff.

Try to freeze channels to release some power, or bounce something if you can fit it with your workflow

 

With a Cpu of that spec and that much RAM you should have no problems running a few instances of ANY VSTi with playable latecy settings ( 2 - 10ms arguably ). The problem is either your soundcard latency settings,soundcard drivers or some other setting in your DAW. Make sure session is not set to 192KHZ or something high , keep it at 44.1 or 48 at the highest, or reset to defaults if you are in doubt. With a quad core a 4 gig of Ram you should get away with 5-7 ms of latency( also measured in samples usually 32 and up) on even the most power hungry VSTi 's....Hope this helps. -Ant

PS - addictive drums is not hungry at all I can tell you that for sure - I would freeze off all that NI stuff first - any good DAW will tell you how much CPU each instrument is using

 

Just saw what VSTi's you are running Im assuming by "track" you mean one session. More RAM will definetely help you but is not your only cause of this problem. . First off your computer needs 1 gig of RAM for other stuff other than your DAW. With the remaining 3 gigs you are pushing the limit with all those instruments. You also have to be realistic and realize that there is a limit on how many instruments you can run before you have to freeze tracks and free up CPU power for the one's you want to play live. At low latency that amount of VSti's would challenge most computers except maybe the latest I7 processors or dual quad Xeons, and even at the highest latency you are still gonna be using considerable CPU on your machine. Check your CPU/RAm performance meter as well to get a better idea of whats happening. Lastly I didn't see what DAW you are using but this can make a huge difference. Reaper in my experience allows you to run the most plugins before glitching, and Cubase the least.

 

You know, looking at what instruments you're using in this track, I think Arturia Analog Factory might be the problematic one. Why? Only due to badly programmed GUI. Most of the Arturia synths give me problems with crackling at the lowest latencies, too. That's why I stopped using anything Arturia. It's crap anyway. NI instruments are a little better regarding graphics using much CPU, but in general - the less complicated and "photo-realistic" GUI, the better the performance of the synth. Most of the VST synth developers have problems with programming the GUI, not the audio DSP. Sometimes you can make the crackling go away just by closing the GUI of the synth, but it's best that you "freeze" the synths that cause problems like that. Or stop using them completely like I did. I want a smooth ride when I'm making music, not to troubleshoot their fucked up code. What I'm saying is that some graphical user interfaces of some VST or VSTi can give you DPC/CPU spikes, and that causes the crackling. Making ASIO driver latency bigger usually helps, but when there's too much of such synths only "freeze" helps. Or using some other synth. ;)

Sometimes updating your graphic card drivers can help, but it's kinda tricky to find the best driver for your VGA that works best with your DAW. Like, for my NVidia Geforce 240GT I found v196.46 driver to work the best and smoothest with Reaper on Windows XP x86. It could be different for some other DAW /OS combination, and probably is.

 

Thanks again for the responses chaps

I'll try a few things what you've all suggested, and hopefuly by a process of elimination i'll find out what the problem is

I'll try removing the synths one by one and replacing them with a different synth see if i can isolate the problem that way

@ Sinewave, you know what, something in the back of my mind just reminded me that i may of had a problem with the aturia analog factory before, i'll uninstall that first, see if that's what the problem is

I'm even having more problems now, when i try to add guitar rig 5 to an audio track it's not recognising it and it fails to load. so i closed the song down, opened up a new file, added an audio track, added guitar rig to the track and...it worked

Went back to the song i'm working on that's causing me problems, tried to add guitar rig....wouldn't recognise it, so god knows what's going on there?

Ahhhh, the joys of computers eh? Never had these kind of problems in the past with my trusty old fostex x 28 four track '0)

 

Biggest thing u can do is lower make ur latency higher in your soundcards control panel... its the number 1 reason for pops and crackles, setting it at 512, or 1024 should be fine as long as ur not direct monitoring vocals or guitar.

 

"... Jupiter 8V, Arturia Analog factory... "
I smell a rat there for a start!

Arturia's apps (version 2+) are known for their high CPU usage.
Analog Factory is Arturi's equivalent of NI's Komplete. I havent tried either but certainly you've got some doubleup / overlap there with JP8V & Pro53 & Analog Factory all together.

Can you get by with only (JP8V+Pro53) or (Analog Factory) on their own and not all 3 together?

 

@ One reason Yeah cheers dude, i've done that now and it seem to be ok

I was recording the bass last night and when i was recording it, it was slightly behind in the headphones, is that because of the latency?

If so, if i'm recording live instruments, shall i set the latency back to 'normal' to record in realtime?

@ Dalmation, it seems to make sense what you say but i'm scared in case i lose the sounds i've got and can't find anything else to replace them

I'll try and get this song boxed off i think, then do what you've suggested

I seem to like the Arturia gear though, maybe it's because i'm a big fan of 80's sounds

 

the more ram the better,in general,but u have to consider having a processor that can support heavy tasks.
is your o.s 64 bit?because if it s 32 bit it s pretty useless instaling more ram since it won t be read

 

The more ram you can throw into your machine the better things are with these new power hungry plugins.

 

In S1 you can see what plugin / fx is hogging your system
I'm using a laptop with 2.2 dual core with 3 gigs and i can tell you now the processor and ram gets max out at around 12 / 15 audio channels with vsti's and fx

On my other system an i5 with 16gig it's about 1/4 of the systems capability on the meter