Hey all! Could really use a PC-brainiac on this one.

My issue is a newly developed problem of 'Audio Drift' or Audio Lag. Not latency ...

EXAMPLE:
Any audio that's recorded onto the PC (via any software - Cakewalk/Sound Forge/Audacity etc.) slows down to where it's noticeable at about the 13 minute mark. When I'm editing video (from 2 cams) the camera's audio ALWAYS lines up - cell phone and pro-sumer Sony. But the AUDIO I recorded into the system through a good mic lags behind. Now to prove to myself it wasn't a FPS issue, I downloaded a dialogue from Youtube as an Mp3 (30 minutes long) and then played it back onto my PC which captured the audio thru line in. The LINE IN audio suffers identically. The mp3 is fine, but my audio recorded onto my PC lags (to where you get that stadium echo effect).

This happens when I use my audio card and its drivers (or even Windows WDM drivers) or even the onboard Realtek sound drivers (Win 10), and changing sample rates or buffer sizes (in the sound card's interface) has no effect.

Here's what I've done to assess/fix:

1. Optimized AND Defragged SSD (I know, you're not supposed to defrag, but once was worth a shot) that SONAR/SOUNDFORGE/Vegas runs on - my Win 10 64x Operating System Drive: C-Drive.

2. Cleaned out ALL unnecessary Windows bloatware and settings (as per PC optimization guides that have been around for years)

3. Tried JUST USING AUDIO software recording with no video-audio to sync with - same problem, so video is not the issue. Strictly audio recording over time.

4. Defragged 'landing' drives for the audio wav files (2 Terabyte HDD - fairly new)

5. Disabled Realtec/onboard sound in the BIOS and then went with the audio card - no change.

6. Removed ANY additional USER ACCOUNTS

7. Analysed system for ANY odd changes/software upgrades that could have been behind issues - and checked: no viruses/malware etc.

NO JOY. I lack a lot of you guys' expertise, but I can only guess that the problem to one of 3 things:

1. PC hardware (ram/cpu/mobo) is dying (system is 6-years old this coming December)
2. SSD (though reported as healthy with CrystalDisk) is dying
3. Windows Updates have altered something re Audio Syncing abilities.

Any others I might have missed?

In the next day or two, I'll be reimaging my hard drive to a larger SSD (from 550Gb to 1Tb) and see if that makes anything work better. If THAT's not the issue, then I hate to think what is.

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ANY GUIDANCE RE THE ABOVE. MUCH MUCH APPRECIATED! Looking forward to direction from someone.
Am willing to fork over some dough for a fully-working solution to this issue. It won't be much, but at least it'll be something to say 'thank you' for your time and efforts!

Cardamom

Here is links to my READ/WRITES Disc Benchmarks on my O.S./Programs Drive

SYSTEM SPECS

• Windows 10 64x PC, Age - 5.4 years old.
• PC Mobo - Z170-P D3
• CPU Intel i7-6700 3.4GHz
• 16Gb Ram (G-Skill DDR3-1600)
• SSD (System/O.S. & Programs) - Crucial 550Gb
• HDD's (all W.D. Blacks, 2 newer, 2 older)
• DAW - SONAR / SOUND FORGE
• N.L.E. Vegas 18 Pro
• All instruments on 2 HDD's, DOCUMENTS FILES on separate HDD, NvmE drive for faster Video Rendering

Anything else ya need, I'll provide it as requested. Thanks again!

 

Just to say, you aren't alone.
I have actually heard this happen on a friend's computer, and it scared me!
I couldn't work it out at all.
Your WD scratch discs and most importantly your system drive all have 15 to 20% free, yeah...?

 

Yes'm! Hi there SG. Any drives I use for 'active stuff' (audio files, O.S. & Programs, transfers) are way better than 35% free at worst. I am planning to try recording audio after installing UBUNTU and getting some supporting (free) audio recording software - see if THAT fixes (rather, 'reveals') things. Right now, I'm running a WINDOWS SAFE MODE test of Sound Forge to see if recording in Safe Mode points to a problem with bloaty-Windows 10 or something like that.

RESULTS JUST IN! - NO CHANGE. Safe Mode no better.

My switching out to Ubuntu will DEFINITELY tell me if my problem is in the guts of the computer (SSD/CPU/RAM/MOBO) won't it? (Please say yes!)

Thanks for the thoughts! Will keep you posted!
Cardamom

 

Last edited: Apr 7, 2021

Maybe your default audio settings aren't locking the card at 48Khz, 44.1Khz etc properly? Check default audio timing options in both windows audio defaults and your audio card asio driver and check everything matches, can't hurt..

 

That's not just your computer, it's the way audio and video work when recording double system. And that's why professional recording setups use Wordclock, Genlock & Timecode to avoid drift.

NLE's like Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve & Power Director have a sync function where a 2nd audiotrack can be matched onto an existing one. Third party software Red Giant - Plural Eyes does the same. When you have none of these, you'd have to edit and reallign the audio every couple of minutes to remain sync. Check this vid for some explanation:

 

if you are going to Linux anyway, why not start there? See what it has to say about your hardware, because you will be ruling out everything else. switching operating systems so windows doesn't touch anything has always been a good option

 

so if I understand correctly, you're using some generic shitty mic and generic shitty onboard audio chip?

problem is, that audio samplerate consistency depends on quality of audio interface clocking (or external clocking) - if it "drifts", then what you described can easily happen - in extreme scenario, shittiest audio interfaces result in inconsistent audio drifts between individual channels of the same interface

best you can do is to get proper audio interface (and it doesn't really need to be that expensive, just some proper hardware-accelerated ASIO capable interface with proper internal master clocking)



here's the problem described+discussed:
https://www.gearslutz.com/board/new...87-drifting-clocks-i-think-how-sync-them.html

 

Buy a dedicated audio interface (like RME and similar). You can't really be using shitty MoBo soundcard (with huge latency) if you want to do that kind of work.
Learn about sync and buffers (audio samples).

 

it's not that simple,
using cameras which aren't physically wired/sync'ed to one master clock/interface means there will always be clock drift since every device uses different pulse/crystal,
one of the basic things to check out is if video/camera is using fixed framerate, which hopefully should retain certain consistency of video/audio sync,
I learned the hard way trying to sync multiple NDI video sources and audio interface into livestreaming multi-cam multi-audio broadcast being rather hardcore, especially on time-critical sources like drums where every inconsistency becomes rather apparent

 

Yeah, that is pretty self-explanatory. Making mistakes and learning from them is a great way to learn.

 

Okay guys. Thank you very much for all your up-front thoughts and assessments. All interesting and leading.

So far, I'm getting the idea that I SHOULD have been noticing this mismatched Audio Timing/sync issue long ago (yet for some reason, re my 35-40 minute FB vids, it hadn't happened until recently). That all said, would I be right in saying it'd be worth trying a new Audio Card (thinking Audient ID14) and ITS DRIVERS for a more even audio clock (no or less drift)? (though, from what y'all are saying, it still wouldn't clock to the video cam's audio tracks perfectly even with that). I know of (and have a demo of PluralEyez) software that can tweak things, and can live with that. In Vegas, I can even stretch or shrink the audio to match the video. Still haven't wiped a free disc to see if UBUNTU operating system will record audio with a more even clock.

ps: after installing a new, larger SSD (which I imaged from my smaller one) I now have a new problem - the audio clock fluctuates throughout a 15 minute duration! It starts at one speed, speeds up a bit and then slows down ... I cannot worth with that. That's just nuts. Definitely have to install Ubuntu and record with that to uncover if this is a Windows nonsense issue or my system (CPU/RAM/MOBO).

Final thoughts anyone?
Please & thanks in advance.
Cardamom

 

i dont get it
WHAT is your audio device/interface (make)?
Do you use ASIO drivers, like ASIO4ALL

NOTHING WILL WORK PROPERLY WITHOUT THIS

why not a system rollback?
there has to be a system recovery point, if there was a
system changed @ a distinct point.

 

Last edited: Apr 11, 2021

@Cardamom, everything you are describing seems normal - just like @tzzsmk noted.

Having a better interface (cleaner clock) is desirable because of the steadier sampling (vs time) frequency, but you are talking about different devices and that still doesn't solve drifting. Either one device is master and other synchronize or you have a dedicated master clock.

Yes, it probably would not.

I don't get this one.. fluctuates against what? Video?

 

isn't it standard or recommended on Windows machines to actually disable any sort of onboard "interface" completely, if possible ? (with whatever external)
op mentions being able to still "see" the Realtek. could that still matter?

why don't you put Linux onto a bootable usb instead of wiping a drive first? you can look at the hardware exactly how it is. is it something stupid like disk fragmentation, or whatever else that is the problem. It would be interesting to see what would go on with the windows disk if you resized that partition in gparted or libparted.

 

Last edited: Apr 11, 2021

Sounds like windows 10 weirdnesses well something to try in win10 find where advanced audio settings are one where you can see you hardware audio interfaces like a list or google it how to disable turn off audio effects like noise suspension etc etc on the selected audio interface especially line in or similar check if you have Dolby, dts or something look into the settings of these you probably have updated drivers but check to make sure ther are the latest maybe downgrading the drivers may do the trick update windows? this one is especially tricky but if your music making box already does win updates check if there is more for you system this is some tips that you can try good luck.

 

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/procmon

find out whats causing the glitch with this.