Major audio buffering trouble

[Soulthief]

Recently I build a new PC for better audio/video recording/editing. My old system crashed way to much and after 10 years it was time for a new system.
But, there are some major problems and getting really frustrated so hopefully someone can help me out.

I'm not a pro or something, I do it just for fun but to keep it fun, sh*t has to work!

I have a PC with windows 10 (probably a big mistake)
i5 8600k, 16gb ram ddr4 as for an audio divice I am using a Focusrite 2i4
Latest and correct driver installed, all flasy shiny thingies of win10 disabled.

Now, when I start recording in Reaper:
Guitar track 1, no problem
Guitar track 2, no problem
Load in EZ drummer, no problem
Guitar track 3, CRACKLING!! NOISE!! DELAYS!!! HORROR!!
It doesn't matter if I solo the third track or whatever I do with that track or any track after that, I simply can't do anything. So how the hell can I record my stuff???

Google-fu for trouble shooting about this gets me nowhere since apperantly no one is recording music with a similar set up.

So, if someone have any suggestion, I whould love to hear them... I'm pretty desperate

*edit: In my guitar tracks I only used freeware plugins like, OD - amp sim - IR - gate

 

[Drew]

Odd. I guess it's worth checking your buffering settings in reaper. Also, what bitrate and sampling frequency are you recording at?

Just for kicks... What happens if you START by loading EZ Drummer, and then record guitar track 1. Still crackling?

 

[Soulthief]

Odd. I guess it's worth checking your buffering settings in reaper. Also, what bitrate and sampling frequency are you recording at?

Just for kicks... What happens if you START by loading EZ Drummer, and then record guitar track 1. Still crackling?

I'm recording at 44.1khz with a buffer size of 64. If I set the buffersize at 128 my recording/output latency is at 10ms in and out and it start to get annoying.

Loading the instruments in different order doesn't make a difference. When I mute EZdrummer, the crackling/noises reduce a lot but are still there

 

[cwhitey2]

How many guitar tracks can you record without ezdrummer loaded?

 

[Drew]

I'm recording at 44.1khz with a buffer size of 64. If I set the buffersize at 128 my recording/output latency is at 10ms in and out and it start to get annoying.

Loading the instruments in different order doesn't make a difference. When I mute EZdrummer, the crackling/noises reduce a lot but are still there

I guess what I was asking is, is EZDrummer the source of your issue? Like, can you have three guitar tracks without EZDrummer (not merely muted, but not even loaded or opened in the program) and you're fine, or if you start by loading EZDrummer, do you immediately start getting crackling and dropouts?

The fact that the crackling improves when you mute EZDrummer makes me wonder if that's the root of your issue.

 

[Soulthief]

How many guitar tracks can you record without ezdrummer loaded?

About 5 tracks

@Drew If I remove the EZdrummer track, the cracklings stops

 

[Drew]

About 5 tracks

@Drew If I remove the EZdrummer track, the cracklings stops

Hmm. This suggests two things, I guess - I haven't worked with EZ Drummer in a LONG time, but it's possible there's some sort of mismatch between the EZ Drummer sampling rate, and your project sampling rate...? Also, does EzDrummer let you control thing like sample depth and prebuffering and loaded parts of the kit, like Superior does? If so, switching to a lower size of the data that needs to be loaded for EzDrummer to work will probably help.

But, your buffering settings also seem rather low to me. I meant to check mine last night and forgot to, but I want to say the Reaper default is something like 512ms, and, well, you're running at about a tenth of that. Try raising it pretty substantially, and see if you still have crackkling issues.

You mention latency - are you using hardware monitoring (which should be latency free or very nearly so), or software monitoring, having Reaper play back the audio through the track and any loaded effects? I'm guessing, if you mention sims and IR, you're probably using software monitoring. See if you can do hardware monitoring instead - you'll just hear the DI, not the amp, but it'll be latency free and stable, and that's more important here.

I'll turn on software monitoring while dialing in mic positioning and preamp/EQ settings and the like, but when I've got a tone going that I like, I'll shut it off and just either count on enough of the guitar bleeding through my phones to be audible, or just play back through the mains and count on the fact that because my amp and mic are behind the monitors, bleed will be fairly minimal.

 

[Soulthief]

Hmm. This suggests two things, I guess - I haven't worked with EZ Drummer in a LONG time, but it's possible there's some sort of mismatch between the EZ Drummer sampling rate, and your project sampling rate...? Also, does EzDrummer let you control thing like sample depth and prebuffering and loaded parts of the kit, like Superior does? If so, switching to a lower size of the data that needs to be loaded for EzDrummer to work will probably help.

But, your buffering settings also seem rather low to me. I meant to check mine last night and forgot to, but I want to say the Reaper default is something like 512ms, and, well, you're running at about a tenth of that. Try raising it pretty substantially, and see if you still have crackkling issues.

You mention latency - are you using hardware monitoring (which should be latency free or very nearly so), or software monitoring, having Reaper play back the audio through the track and any loaded effects? I'm guessing, if you mention sims and IR, you're probably using software monitoring. See if you can do hardware monitoring instead - you'll just hear the DI, not the amp, but it'll be latency free and stable, and that's more important here.

I'll turn on software monitoring while dialing in mic positioning and preamp/EQ settings and the like, but when I've got a tone going that I like, I'll shut it off and just either count on enough of the guitar bleeding through my phones to be audible, or just play back through the mains and count on the fact that because my amp and mic are behind the monitors, bleed will be fairly minimal.

I cannot change anything like a sampling rate within EZdrummer.
But I set the buffer size at 256 which gives me a latency of 14ms I/O which is resultning in a just noticable delay when I hit the string and sound coming back, and also a chorus like effect of my strings acoutsicly and the monitor giving the sound back... but the crackling has stopt. So it is probably my buffer size which for me, totally doesn't make any sense since my setup should be able to do this easily!

The way you are describe it, I use software monitoring as long as I can remember. I have no idea how to set up the hardware monitoring then. But then again, I never had any problems like this with my previous system which again, was like 10 years old.... my current setup is way more powerfull so it should be able to do this software monitoring with ease right?

 

[Drew]

The way you are describe it, I use software monitoring as long as I can remember. I have no idea how to set up the hardware monitoring then. But then again, I never had any problems like this with my previous system which again, was like 10 years old.... my current setup is way more powerfull so it should be able to do this software monitoring with ease right?

So, direct monitoring would be that your interface passes your input signal into your DAW... but also plays it back exactly as it's coming in, along with whatever output you have coming from the DAW. If you want latency-free monitoring, this is the way to go.

Do you have both direct monitoring, and software monitoring, enabled? Or when you refer to a chorus like effect, is that the sound of the software monitoring playback plus the sound of the instrument in the room bleeding through your headphones? Either way, a buffer size of 64 would be extremely small, and I'm not surprised you were having problems.

 

[Soulthief]

So, direct monitoring would be that your interface passes your input signal into your DAW... but also plays it back exactly as it's coming in, along with whatever output you have coming from the DAW. If you want latency-free monitoring, this is the way to go.

Do you have both direct monitoring, and software monitoring, enabled? Or when you refer to a chorus like effect, is that the sound of the software monitoring playback plus the sound of the instrument in the room bleeding through your headphones? Either way, a buffer size of 64 would be extremely small, and I'm not surprised you were having problems.

Your totally right, the buffer size is way to small..... setting it on 128, It is already way better but stil some crackling here and there. Latancy of 9ms I/O.
Setting it on 256 and the problem is gone but yeah the small latency is present.

There is a knob on my 2i4, when I turn it to the left, I have direct/hardware monitoring but then I also don't hear the metronome within reaper. So probably set it in the middle then?
Besides that, I feel it is more usefull when using a mic'd up amp. Since I have two kids sleeping when playing, it's not the smartest thing to do.

Maybe I should start using my Two Notes Torpedo Reload more rather than all those freeware plugins, I only need a IR loader like WOS which propably is a bit easer for my system to work with.

 

[Drew]

Not familiar with that unit, save that it's popular here, but it sounds like maybe that's some sort of blend swithc? If so, that would give you your chorusing, if you're using a middle position that gives you some direct monitoring and some Reaper playback. Maybe check the Focusrite software and see if there's some way to disable that..?

Maybe I should start using my Two Notes Torpedo Reload more rather than all those freeware plugins, I only need a IR loader like WOS which propably is a bit easer for my system to work with.

I'm a BIG proponent of trying to commit to a tone to disc, rather than leaving yourself the flexibility to change amp settings or models down the road - for me, at least, that kind of leads to analysis paralysis and infinite tweaking, while generally if I can at least lock down a guitar sound while tracking and force myself to really dial in something I can commit to, I tend to work a lot faster.

 

[Tegara]

Kinda related question but what on Earth could cause the audio be choppy on Cubase when I solo a track and play it? Then when I changed the output channel on any track (or disable and enable it, to "No output" back to say "Stereo Out"), the choppiness disappeared. It would always happen again when I unsolo and solo it. This problem persisted for like three days.