Bizarre latency and Asio driver issue

[BenJHayes]

I have had ongoing issues with Bandlab on PC which I don't get in other DAWs or never had with a Sonar.

I have to record with a pretty high Latency (512) and mix with even higher rates to avoid pops, crackles and stutters.

In fact I cant even really use plugins like ToneX because its too unstable.

Accidently I set the Asio buffer size to the minimum and everything is super smooth and even plugins are workable! WTF!

Any ideas?

 

[User 905133]

4 hours ago, BenJHayes said:

I have had ongoing issues with Bandlab on PC which I don't get in other DAWs or never had with a Sonar.

I have to record with a pretty high Latency (512) and mix with even higher rates to avoid pops, crackles and stutters.

In fact I cant even really use plugins like ToneX because its too unstable.

Accidently I set the Asio buffer size to the minimum and everything is super smooth and even plugins are workable! WTF!

Any ideas?

I am confused by what you have written. If you set your asio buffer size to the minimum and everything is smooth and plug-ins are working, it that a problem? 

 

[BenJHayes]

Its not a problem now however if I move the slider and set anything above minimum then the latency and quality is dreadful. I'm assuming that for some reason the driver isn't working correctly. If I even set the buffer size to 128 its unusable but at 16 its fine which is not what should happen.

I wonder if the Focusrite drivers or something is corrupted and its actually using something else or another setting?

Very weird!

[John Vere]

Check you sync and caching page under audio settings and make sure the Focusrite is the driver  for the Recording and Latency adjustment. Often a generic driver, ASIO4all , Magix can take over this setting and they will need to be removed in the Reg Edit app. 

[BenJHayes]

This is what I can see - how do I set the Focusrite as default?

[User 905133]

4 hours ago, BenJHayes said:

Its not a problem now however if I move the slider and set anything above minimum then the latency and quality is dreadful. I'm assuming that for some reason the driver isn't working correctly. If I even set the buffer size to 128 its unusable but at 16 its fine which is not what should happen.

I wonder if the Focusrite drivers or something is corrupted and its actually using something else or another setting?

Very weird!

Thanks for the clarification.  I am not an expert on audio drivers and I don't have a Focusrite; however, I used to intuitively think that larger buffers meant more latency but fewer audio issues (crackles, etc.).  Then I got into fine tuning my PC's audio and I found out for my system, a buffer size that was either too small or too large was an issue and I had to find the "sweet spot" for my system (MOBO/PC Resources, Audio Devices, Drivers, etc.).

Yes, its somewhat counter intuitive (or "weird") and I don't know enough PC/Audio Electronics to understand or to explain all the interactions, the complex timings, function calls, or whatever they are that make a particular system "in tune," but based on my limited experience larger is not smoother.  If I had super smooth audio and no plugin issues with a small buffer size like you have, I'm not sure I would try to fine tune it further and risk upsetting the balance.

Of course, I will defer to others here if they know more of the deep workings than I do. 

[Jeremy Oakes]

3 hours ago, BenJHayes said:

This is what I can see - how do I set the Focusrite as default?

In Preferences - Audio make sure the Realtek Asio is de-selected (ie not ticked) and that only the Focusrite is selected (ticked)

J