Clicks/pops start/stop playback, moving faders - returned

[Dmace]

Hi Guys. Long time since I've been here. I'm an old time Cake user, been through every version over the years, and have been using it successfully for years, with problems over the years like everyone else.

Two weeks ago while tracking vocals and guitars I started to notice some distortion in the recordings. I'd introduced one new bit of gear. A Focusrite Clarett OctoPre to add more channels. To cut a long story short, while tracking, every time I hit start stop, I'd gets clicks and pops. It was then evident that I indeed had clicks recorded along with the audio. Then I noticed on playback, bass that I had previously recorded before for the same song, seemed to have some distortion, then I noticed every time I moved a fader, I was getting, like static.  But this is only low freq related. Only bass, or kick drum, or low end synth, will make this happen. Every thing else like guitars, snare's, vocals etc, is perfect. Just bass stuff.

Now this type of behaviour surfaced more than 10 years ago. Cake users collaborated, and to my memory, it really came down to Nvidia drivers for particularly new GTX cards, like the 750ti. Seemed the problem was solved for most. All these years later, and suddenly I have the same problem, except this time it forced me to shut down the tracking sessions, which was for the last songs of someone's album. So for me, this is serious. I'm hoping someone may have an answer, or had similar issues recently, so we can find a cause. My PC is now in complete rebuild, and I have not found either the cause or the fault. I've changed interfaces, drivers, new installs of pretty much everything, done multiple tests on software, hardware, taken out my GTX 1060 graphics and run onboard graphics. In short, every single I could think of. Nothing has worked, so I've essentially started from scratch, again.

My gear is: MSI Z390 A Pro MB with 16g high speed ram. i5 9600K 3.7Ghz. Can't remember what the PS is, but is 500watt high spec. I built this PC around 12months ago or so and it had been working extremely well. For now, it has a brand new 1tb Samsung 860 evo SSD as it's only drive. All installs direct, nothing from previous drives. So bare bones, to root out the issue. The installation as of 2 days ago is completely new. New windows 10 home install, cake, and all my essential plugs, just to get back up running. All drivers including everything for the MB and all devices, are all new updates.  Fired up Cake. Exactly the same thing. I cannot move a slider with it causing severe noise while playback of bass things, cannot stop the clicks on start/stop, no matter what my setting are, cannot record clean audio, even direct into the interface. I've gone back to my old Focusrite 18i20 as it was never an issue. I had moved to an Audient, but that was nearly a year ago, with no issues until now.

What settings do I use I hear you ask. All my tracking is set up for direct monitor only. Vocals is direct with outboard effects returned to the vocalist, same as guitars, etc. So in general, I never vary from 1024 buffer settings, always record in 44.1 24bit depth. But, I've played with every setting, removed the audio.ini file numerous times. Just nothing works or changes anything whatsoever. I've loaded up working versions of Live10 suite, Samplitude X4 pro. They are fine. It's just Cake. I've two projects near completion and changing DAWS for those projects, with around 20 songs completed and mastered, waiting for the final songs, for now, is simply not an option.

Has anyone got any ideas pleeessee lol!!   I've run out of ideas. Right now, I'm thinking my MB has an issue. But in the past, it's just never come down to that. Or. MS has done it again......

cheers.  Dave.

 

 

[msmcleod]

There's so many things that could cause this, it's hard to know where to start.

However, if this has just started when you added the Focusrite Clarett OctoPre, my suspicion is that the word clock's aren't sync'd up between the octopre and your audio interface.

How have you currently got the wordclock set up on the two devices?

There's normally three options:

• Use your audio interface as the wordclock master, and the octopre as the slave. To do this, you'll need a BNC wordclock cable to connect the wordclock output from your interface to the wordclock input on the octopre  (this is assuming your interface has a wordclock output). You'll need to consult the octopre user manual, but you may also need a T-Connector & terminator if the octopre doesn't have that option built in.
   
• Use the octopre as the master, and the audio interface as the slave. The octopre can send the wordclock signal over the ADAT cable, so no extra cables needed here. 
   
• Use and external wordclock. and configure both your interface and octopre as slaves to that. For two devices, two BNC cables, a T-Connector and maybe a terminator might be needed. This is the pro option (and the most expensive), but IMO not needed for 2 devices.

 

 

[Dmace]

Hi. thanks for the reply. No, not the issue. That was probably the first thing I thought of. I was using the Octo as the master and slaving the interface, buy I tried all combinations. The interface will also sync as master over the optic cable. Since that day, the Octopre hasn't been in the loop. But that's only the day I noticed it, I don't really know when this started. But, I've got a complete newly installed hardrive and all software now including the OS, and running my 18i20  and it still does the same thing. I've also pulled my entire console apart, removed every power cable, and gone back to just the PC, interface and monitor.  It has to be hardware related I feel, but I simply cannot find what's causing it. The only thing not swapped out on the MB to date is the CPU and PS.

Can anyone else replicate the fader movement noises while playing back bass audio? Just grab your fader and slide it up and down. Track slider or master. anything in it's path is what I'm finding.

[Noel Borthwick]

Does it matter which fader is moved? Do you hear noise when moving a fader that doesn't control that signal, such as the fader for an empty track?

[Dmace]

Gday Noel. Hope you are well. Only the faders that relate. So for the bass, the track fader that holds the audio, the fader in my sends , and the master fader assigned, as in the Headphone or Master. So anything in that path. Then the same for the kick drum, which is from XLN. Nothing over driven or anything like that. You get the noise just by moving up/down, irrespective of neg 20 db or neg 5. Seems to be a graphical issue, but only if low frequencies are playing. Or maybe, that's the only time I can hear it? Although, it's pretty loud. I had something similiar around 2009 or so, but not this bad. I've replaced all USB drivers, even a new mouse and keyboard. Just can't pinpoint it.  And the noise and clicks on what's being recorded is pretty weird too, although I'm thinking not connected, which is why I've replaced all leads on the electrical side and removed all my leads and power cables. Any thoughts on what to try Noel?  Thanks. Dave.

[Sylvester Thompson]

I too am having a similar issue with pops and starting and stopping  play. That as well the occasional pop through out the recording. I have done every thing I can think of to fix this as far as the optimizing my computer for audio recording. I have adjusted the latency as well as aud. ini. several ways to see if that was the issue. But still get the odd pop here and there on play back. The pops are not in the recorded file but just happen randomly thru out play back. 

Drivers are all up to date all unnecessary services are disabled. I have an i9 on an asus prime z590-A. I'm using a Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 3rd generation interface. USB connected. I am wondering if it might be the usb cable itself? Thanks in advance for any thoughts regarding this issue. Hope for a solution for Dmace and myself.