Questions & Answers

How to solve crackling noises pops and clics ?

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1,331 views
asked Jan 27, 2021 in Classic Mixers by Sky3RN (270 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

1 Answer

0 votes
answered Feb 4, 2021 by mackjohnson1 (71,500 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-

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