crackling noise

[McV13]

i have a gtx 1050ti, i5 3470K and 16gb of ram, some skullcandy headphones which are very high quality and my cakewalk is doing this stupid audio crackling thing.

 

things ive tried:

1. changing audio drivers, that didnt work because they just didnt produce any audio

2. restarting and shutting down computer

3. reopening cakewalk

 

please someone tell me how to fix thank you very much, all support greatly appreciated

[John Vere]

Tutorial number 1 will definitely help you out 

 

[McV13]

made it a bit better but hasnt fixed it

[David Baay]

Check your DPC Latency - a measure of how ready your CPU is to respond to requests from the audio driver to fill its buffer:

https://www.resplendence.com/latencymon

Common causes of high/spiking DPC latency are Bluetooth and WiFi drivers. If not needed, the hardware should be disabled in BIOS. While you're there, also make sure that CPU-throttling features like Speedstep and C-States are disabled. And make sure your Power Management profile is set to High Power.

 

Edited May 6, 2022 by David Baay

[Promidi]

Are you using the latest Nvidia drivers ?  (Now at 512.59)

Try disabling C-states and Intel Speedstep (This is done in the PC's BIOS and the method varies between PCs)

Have you tried updating (you said changed, not updated) your audio drivers? (using manufacturer's websites rather than Windows updates)

Try Start + run "control powercfg.cpl,,1" (without quotes) and set CPU Min and Max to 100%

 

[McV13]

14 hours ago, David Baay said:

Check your DPC Latency - a measure of how ready your CPU is to respond to requests from the audio driver to fill its buffer:

https://www.resplendence.com/latencymon

Common causes of high/spiking DPC latency are Bluetooth and WiFi drivers. If not needed, the hardware should be disabled in BIOS. While you're there, also make sure that CPU-throttling features like Speedstep and C-States are disabled. And make sure your Power Management profile is set to High Power.

 

didnt work sadly, i also disabled firewall but that didnt work either

[McV13]

10 hours ago, Promidi said:

Are you using the latest Nvidia drivers ?  (Now at 512.59)

Try disabling C-states and Intel Speedstep (This is done in the PC's BIOS and the method varies between PCs)

Have you tried updating (you said changed, not updated) your audio drivers? (using manufacturer's websites rather than Windows updates)

Try Start + run "control powercfg.cpl,,1" (without quotes) and set CPU Min and Max to 100%

 

my drivers are up to date, my cpu is already at 100% min and max and max performance mode, ill try the other 2 but im not sure how to access my BIOS or what to type in to disable those (and if there are any negative side effects)

[Promidi]

1 minute ago, McV13 said:

ill try the other 2 but im not sure how to access my BIOS or what to type in to disable those (and if there are any negative side effects)

Regards C-states and Intel Speedstep, they are not typed in.  They are either enabled or disabled - but it’s done in your BIOS.

If you are not sure how to access your BIOS, then you might want to get someone who knows what they are doing to try this for you.  Changing the wrong setting in the BIOS could render your PC unbootable.

[McV13]

1 hour ago, McV13 said:

my drivers are up to date, my cpu is already at 100% min and max and max performance mode, ill try the other 2 but im not sure how to access my BIOS or what to type in to disable those (and if there are any negative side effects)

upd: updated drivers and hasnt fixed sadly

[John Vere]

Troubleshooting is a process of elimination. 
You are on the right track to eliminating things that cause this issue. 
But somehow I don’t think you have followed through with what is in the videos I made. 
1. Did you run Latency Monitor? That will rule out fussing with things like the BIOS. 
2. Did you increase your buffer settings? 
3. Did you set all clock rates the same? 

https://www.resplendence.com/latencymon

Edited May 7, 2022 by John Vere

[David Baay]

16 minutes ago, John Vere said:

1. Did you run Latency Monitor?

Yes, tell us what kind of numbers you're seeing. And what is the Performance Meter in Cakewalk and Windows Resource Monitor showing? What's in the project in the way of plugins? If you start disabling things do you find one in particular that's driving the load? What interface and driver mode? If it's onboard audio you should be using WASAPI Exclusive mode.

 

 

[John Vere]

1 hour ago, David Baay said:

If it's onboard audio you should be using WASAPI Exclusive mode.

 

Yes and no. I use WASAPI shared when using on board audio,  otherwise I can't use other apps that produce audio. But if all you use your computer for is Cakewalk then Exclusive mode has way better performance. I actually get around 7ms of RTL at 256 buffer. It would be a great driver if it reported this to Cakewalk correctly so the timing offset was correct.

Another selling point for purchasing a proper ASIO interface. On board audio is actually at lot more complicated to use if you want things working properly. At one point I even swore I would stop helping people who use it and quickly realized that would be the majority of new users. So I took the time to figure it out and spent a couple of months using it on my "Studio B" desktop editing midi and even working with Melodyne. But bottom line is forget about recording new audio unless you don't mind nudging tracks back a 1/16 note or more. 

[McV13]

installing latency monitor rn

[McV13]

i use MME- 32 bit, wasapi and asio dont work for me

[msmcleod]

7 minutes ago, McV13 said:

i use MME- 32 bit, wasapi and asio dont work for me

MME is the worst performing driver mode, and is most likely your issue here.

Here are the driver modes in order of best performance:

• ASIO  - use this when your audio interface has it's own dedicated ASIO driver (except if it's an onboard Realtek device)
• WASAPI Exclusive - use this when using an onboard audio device. Performance should be almost as good as ASIO.
• WASAPI Shared - use this  when using an onboard audio device that doesn't support Exclusive mode
• WDM - for use with very old devices
• MME - for use with even older devices

What audio interface are you using?  If we know this we may be able to suggest a solution.

[McV13]

20 hours ago, John Vere said:

Yes and no. I use WASAPI shared when using on board audio,  otherwise I can't use other apps that produce audio. But if all you use your computer for is Cakewalk then Exclusive mode has way better performance. I actually get around 7ms of RTL at 256 buffer. It would be a great driver if it reported this to Cakewalk correctly so the timing offset was correct.

Another selling point for purchasing a proper ASIO interface. On board audio is actually at lot more complicated to use if you want things working properly. At one point I even swore I would stop helping people who use it and quickly realized that would be the majority of new users. So I took the time to figure it out and spent a couple of months using it on my "Studio B" desktop editing midi and even working with Melodyne. But bottom line is forget about recording new audio unless you don't mind nudging tracks back a 1/16 note or more. 

how do i change from mme 32 bit and get the sound to work (probably a really stupid question but worth asking anyway)

22 hours ago, John Vere said:

Troubleshooting is a process of elimination. 
You are on the right track to eliminating things that cause this issue. 
But somehow I don’t think you have followed through with what is in the videos I made. 
1. Did you run Latency Monitor? That will rule out fussing with things like the BIOS. 
2. Did you increase your buffer settings? 
3. Did you set all clock rates the same? 

https://www.resplendence.com/latencymon

it says everythings fine and in the green.

[McV13]

Just now, msmcleod said:

MME is the worst performing driver mode, and is most likely your issue here.

Here are the driver modes in order of best performance:

• ASIO  - use this when your audio interface has it's own dedicated ASIO driver (except if it's an onboard Realtek device)
• WASAPI Exclusive - use this when using an onboard audio device. Performance should be almost as good as ASIO.
• WASAPI Shared - use this  when using an onboard audio device that doesn't support Exclusive mode
• WDM - for use with very old devices
• MME - for use with even older devices

What audio interface are you using?  If we know this we may be able to suggest a solution.

whats an audio interface

[msmcleod]

1 minute ago, McV13 said:

whats an audio interface

whatever your sound is coming out of  (i.e. what your headphones or speakers are plugged into)

[McV13]

4 minutes ago, msmcleod said:

whatever your sound is coming out of  (i.e. what your headphones or speakers are plugged into)

theyre plugged into my computer, headphone port

Edited May 8, 2022 by McV13

[user 905133]

On 5/8/2022 at 10:09 AM, McV13 said:

i use MME- 32 bit, wasapi and asio dont work for me

WOW.  I learned something.  MME-32 does indeed still work (somewhat).  I just tested it with a 2011 era PC using my on-board audio device. 

However, once I start doing anything that involves using my PCs resources (visual resources that involve updating graphics, such as opening tracks, transport/scrolling, meters moving, recording, etc. ) I started to get that stupid crackling.  I don't get that with WASAPI. 

Just playing a plug-in (Voltage Modular) that contains a soft synth (AAS's CV-1) and an FX Rack (IK's MixBox) in realtime from a usb keyboard, I do not get the crackling. 

My PC is an HP with an Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-3470 CPU @ 3.20GHz  processor and 8 GB RAM.

UPDATE: The crackling seemed to go away when I minimized Cakewalk so there was no graphical updating of visual elements. Also, after I rebooted Cakewalk (still with MME-32), the only crackling I had was on a recorded track. I didn't get the crackling recording or playing new audio tracks. During playback, I even heavily resized a number of windows thinking that might trigger the crackling.  (It didn't.)

Not sure if shutting down Cakewalk and restarting it a few minutes later triggered something in the audio chain that cleared up the crackling.  Probably just coincidental. Also, it is possible that PC services were using resource the first time that weren't being used after rebooting Cakewalk.  (I didn't have Task Manager on at the time.)

[image deleted to reclaim allotment]

UPDATE: Switched back from WASAPI to MME-32; added another track to the test project from yesterday; recorded another audio track; played it back with yesterday's audio tracks; Cakewalk at just under 11% CPU; Total PC bouncing between 14 and 19% CPU; Memory at 68%.

No crackling today.  Hope you can fine tune your PC to get the audio working.   

Note: Not sure why I don't have the crackling using MME-32 because LatencyMon says: 

Quote

Your system seems to have difficulty handling real-time audio and other tasks. You may experience drop outs, clicks or pops due to buffer underruns. One or more DPC 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.  LatencyMon has been analyzing your system for  0:06:37  (h:mm:ss) on all processors.

OS version:                                           Windows 8 , 6.2, build: 9200 (x64) **    
Hardware:                                             HP Compaq Elite 8300 CMT, Hewlett-Packard, 3396
CPU:                                                          GenuineIntel Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-3470 CPU @ 3.20GHz
Logical processors:                                   4
Processor groups:                                     1
RAM:                                                  8136 MB total

**Not sure where LatencyMon is getting the OS Version from.  Windows System reports Windows 10 Pro 21H2

[image deleted to reclaim allotment]

So even though LatencyMon says, "Your system seems to have difficulty handling real-time audio and other tasks. You may experience drop outs, clicks or pops due to buffer underruns." Cakewalk and MME-32 is holding its own (no crackling).  I can't explain it.

 

Edited August 5, 2022 by User 905133
2022-08-05: images deleted; added LatencyMon info; added an image to show Realtek device is in use; updated with additional details from testing

[msmcleod]

8 minutes ago, McV13 said:

theyre plugged into my computer, headphone port

Ok, so you're using the on-board audio interface on your motherboard.

WASAPI should work fine with that - if it doesn't, make you've got the most up-to-date audio drivers installed for your motherboard.