Questions & Answers

How to solve crackling noises pops and clics ?

0 votes
3,498 views
asked Jan 27, 2021 in Classic Mixers by Sky3RN (290 points)
recategorized Jan 27, 2021 by Sky3RN

Hi !

I'm facing an issue that really annoys me a lot.

I've bought a new console, StudioLive 16.0.2 USB from PreSonus, it's a wonderful gear for studio recording or live / concerts, but mixing is not an easy thing with it.. !

Before that I used to have a Focusrite Scarlett 8i6 3rd Gen.

Let me explain what the problem is.

In ASIO : As you can see and hear on the video I recorded, it looks like the time is de-syncing so I get a lot of crackling noises, clics and pops.

I mean, I playback my song and when a huge part is coming (I know I use a lot of tracks full of plugins..) it slows down, on and on. When I playback a part before the part just playbacked, the sound goes crazy like playing it too fast until it comes back to the previous part played !

I think the problem might come from the buffer size of the PreSonus, can't go higher than 2048 (42.7 ms for 48 kHz - 46.4ms for 44.1 kHz and the problem is the same); Is there any way to tweak it up ?

I've tried ASIO4ALL but it's worst..

I remember having the same issue with my Focusrite Scarlett (I still have the gear, I tried, same thing) and I've always wanted to fix this. I still not found how !

When I used to use the Focusrite, I used to playback in WaveRT instead of ASIO. Was a pretty good thing for playback but when the computer (or sound card ?) reached its limit, it was impossible to stop the playback until the end of the song..

02:33 Here's an example with WaveRT on PreSonus. In my opinion, it's unusable !

If anyone has any idea, please, I would love to solve this !!

Using an Intel Core i9-9900KF CPU on Windows 10 Pro (3.60 GHz overclocked to 4.70 GHz), 48 GB of RAM, nVidia RTX 2060 GPU.

Let me know if you need more informations.

I already tried to :
-"Force Single CPU" with and without;
-"Use High Priority Threads For Audio Engine" with and without;
-Update all my drivers (computer, BIOS, soundcards, ..);
-Mixcraft is up-to-date;
-Freeze tracks in Mixcraft, might be a good thing but sometimes it can't play the Send Tracks or other stuff..;
-Printing audio ("Mix To New Audio Track") was the more efficient thing to me back in the days but I don't always have the time to do it, we all know it's a long thing to do when you have a 60-track project and sometimes Mixcraft closes itself while processing a print;
-With and without overclocking;
-Running "Compatibility mode" to Win7, 8 and 10;
-Running as Administrator;
-Use the "Exclusive mode" on the sound card;

It's 2021, I'm sure there's a way to avoid these crackling popping clicky noises !

I know I'm not the only one in that situation, I've seen a lot of people on many forums having the same behaviour on many different DAWs.

I'm aware that I'm asking too much to my DAW with all my instances of plugins / VSTs and that's 80% of the problem, but I hope there's a miracle solution for this !

In this topic, someone seems to have fixed the problem with ThrottleStop, but it's a complicated software and he's not explaining as well he's way to solve it : https://answers.presonus.com/57055/what-do-i-check-to-get-rid-of-pops-and-clicks?show=57055#q57055


Kind regards,
Julien / Skyërn Aklea

2 Answers

0 votes
answered Feb 4, 2021 by mackjohnson1 (78,440 points)

Create a support ticket, tech support should be able to help you out.

https://support.presonus.com/hc/en-us/articles/210050813-How-to-create-a-new-Support-Request-

0 votes
answered Nov 8, 2023 by niknan (290 points)
Hi. I'm just giving my experience with this issue, in case it could be useful to some other presonus user...
I'm also seeing that most questions are a little older and or not solved.
The issue: crackling while playback (on any DAW soft or windows sounds)

2023-nov-08
Laptop Acer Nitro 16 (AN16-51). i7-13700H, 16GB RAM DDR5, 1 TB NVME, NVIDIA RTX 4050 laptop GPU / Windows 11 23H2
Presonus StudioLive Series III 24 & 24R (both)
My laptop is brandnew. Presonus equipment were older and in use with others PC flawlessly

Obviously my problem was with my new laptop (is a nice laptop, so there had to be "something" to do)

I tried several settings with mixers (44.1/48 - 16bit/24bit - buffer size - compatibility mode - updates). > Nothing

Then tried other optimizations at the laptop. Almost everything (except some functions that couldn't be -dropbox, drive, etc.-) > Nothing

BUT WHAT WORKED for me, was going to: System properties > advanced system settings > Performance Settings > Advanced > Adjust best performance for background Services.
After this, no more crackling while playback.

Hope this could help any one before loosing too much time!
...