Help...Crackles and clicks when recording midi in cubase

orbita · Post by **orbita** » Sun May 25, 2003 12:51 pm

Gawd Ive tried everything and I dunno how to solve this one.

I am able to play back a number of audio and VSTi tracks through cubase-scope ASIO interface smoothly at all latencies from 3ms through to 25ms. However, as soon as I start recording (either midi or audio) then playback starts to generate clicks and crackles. It can be very bad at 3ms but I also get it at 16 and 25ms latency.

It doesnt seem to matter whether I use my Emagic Unitor 8 midi interface or the creamware midi.

I am using Windows XP, SPF3.1c, Cubase SX 1.0561.

I have tried all these things:
Installed in Standard mode/ACPI
Moved cards to different slots.
Made sure they are using their own IRQ
Disabled Network
Turned off All options in Matrox Card
Optimise for background processes
Removed all unnessecary services

I noticed that with more complicated projects the symptoms get worse.

I have 3 cards, Scope Sp, Scope SRB and Luna II and have tried all combinations including just the Luna on its own.

Do you think this a Cubase SX problem?

Also, I frequently get DSP overload messages even when at 60% usage? What is this due to?

TIA, Tom

stw · Post by **stw** » Mon May 26, 2003 3:08 am

just to let u know,
i experience exact the same problems here. Dunno if the CW card is the prob though i can't remember any probs with the RME card i used before. At least the audio crackles seem to decrease by increasing the latency but nothing helps with the midi recording stuttering. I guess it's a kind of faulty "clock communication" between Cubase and SFP.

Regards, Stefan

orbita · Post by **orbita** » Mon May 26, 2003 6:25 am

oh finally someone else has this problem?
does anyone else? is it common/normal?

at0m · Post by **at0m** » Mon May 26, 2003 6:30 am

Using Intel Application Accelerator, I found I could set the Accoustic Management of each harddisk. Have you tried disabling that or setting it to max performance? 'Minimal accoustic output' caused me crackles...

orbita · Post by **orbita** » Mon May 26, 2003 9:28 am

But surely that will only effect audio streamed directly of the harddisk?
My problem is mostly glitchy VSTis.

Here is the situation.
I have 4 VSTs running simple 2 bar loops, pretty much monophonically.
The VST performance is at about 30 - 40%
It sounds fine.
Now I add another VST instrument
and set a new track for it. While I play the new VST instrument live alongside the others it sound fine. No glitches or anything.

Now.. As soon as I hit * to record I start to get glitches. As I play the glitches can get worse.

Ive just reverted to cubase 1.03 from 1.0561 to see if there is any improvement and it doesn't seem to be.

Ive tried with different VSTis and I get the same results, although with some I need to load more to reach the same kind of CPU load.

Why would putting it into record mode have this effect?

orbita · Post by **orbita** » Mon May 26, 2003 9:31 am

Should the different ASIO sources have any effect on performance? Ive been using the ASIO2 Flt source for cubase. Ive tried ASIO2 24 and ASIO2 32 but havent noticed any difference myself.

orbita · Post by **orbita** » Mon May 26, 2003 9:35 am

Just been trying it with even less VST load and its still occuring at about 15%.

I'm using the middle latency of 7ms btw which you would think should be fine.

orbita · Post by **orbita** » Mon May 26, 2003 9:42 am

also, is there a way to permantly set Cubase SX to High priority or do you have to set it in the task manager everytime?

dbmac · Post by **dbmac** » Mon May 26, 2003 10:18 am

Try running SFP in low priority and SX in high. To have SX start in high priority, set SX Audio Priority to Very High in /Device SetupVST Multitrack/Expert settings.
There's a way to edit the shortcut target to get SFP to launch in lower priority - check this thread:
http://www.planetz.com/forums/viewtopic ... 03&forum=3

/dave

orbita · Post by **orbita** » Mon May 26, 2003 12:38 pm

Hi
Thanks for the tip on lowering the SFP priority, it certainly improved matters.
However I have also discovered that removing the low latency option (in expect asio options) in Cubase makes a much bigger improvement and doesnt appear to affect the latency much. I can now run SFP at 4ms and am only getting the glitches when my cpu is getting to the 90% mark which is more than reasonable.

dbmac · Post by **dbmac** » Mon May 26, 2003 10:34 pm

On 2003-05-26 13:38, orbita wrote:
I have also discovered that removing the low latency option (in expect asio options) in Cubase makes a much bigger improvement and doesnt appear to affect the latency much.

Thanks back atya. I hadn't tried that, it's a good tip.

/dave

Yahweh · Post by **Yahweh** » Wed May 28, 2003 6:35 am

Some points in here may help

About a year ago I started using pulsar2 with TDM to Pulsar1 in 256DDR 1.4Ghz AMD 7200 HD nothing as flashy as a baracuda)Athlon and dreaded VIA chipset, I say dreaded because that's how everyone else referred to them on this forum - please read on as this may be useful to you all:-

After ::---
1) installing Windows98se and Mcaffee virus scan WITHOUT ANY PULSAR CARDS PHYSICALLY INSTALLED,
2) then installing the pulsar2 card PCI slot 2 with SFP (now SFP 3.1c),
3) then installing the pulsar1 card PCI slot 3 with TDM link,
4) then installing the pulsar1 card driver from windows controlpanel system devices menu
5) and then installing cubase v5.1r1,
(never used 1st or last pci slots for creamware gear)
6) searched the pc in explorer for the csnet.ini file and edited the 'blk size'to reflect how much ram I had. plus the min and max cache values
7) AND turned off the virus scanner at bootup by excluding as many startup programs as possible - (just type msconfig in RUN on windows start menu)
Making sure DMA was ticked in HD section of CntrolPanel/Device manager.

AFTER I had done all that and not installed any more programs on the PC - (I have a dual boot setup using two separate hardrives and bootmagic), I have never experienced one pop or crackle, the PC did power itself off and reboot a couple of times but I found out very quickly that this was a power supply that lacked enough gumption to drive all the hardware. After changing it for a 400W - I have had 1 year of completely blue screen, crackle and pop free recording and my pulsar routing windows have been far from simple, with muliple midi and audio tracks being recorded in cubase and taking the 10 DSPs to the limit. Hope this helps some poor unfortunate souls.

orbita · Post by **orbita** » Wed May 28, 2003 7:23 am

Well now having done the setup below I seem to have managed a glitch free system at 3ms!
The only time it gets glitchy is when the cpu gets pushed too hard which is reasonable

Upgraded my motherboard BIOS to make sure it supports APIC ( I think it did already)

Turned off unnessecary ports in Bios

Installed Windows XP in ACPI mode.

Performed all the tweaks here..
http://www.synsongs.de/tweaks.htm

Unchecked everything in the options for my matrox card

Installed MidiYoke (cos i need it)
Installed my Unitor8 drivers

Installed SFP3.1a and then upgraded to 3.1c
Running at normal priority mode.

Installed Cubase SX 1.02 and upgraded to 1.03
Set Cubase to highest Audio priority in expert settings and

Most importantly.. disabled the Low Latency option, also in expert settings. I think this is the single biggest improvement you can make!

I also disabled CTFMON and POWERDESK(matrox) so they dont start up at boot time.

I am also running my matrox card in multimonitor mode but with 1 resolution (not separate resolutions..I think it improves things a bit)