Autotune Causing Cracks/Pops Maybe?

[Allan Love]

learned how to bus not too long ago. thought it would help with the crack/pop sounds im hearing. it did but it didn't completely fix it. i still hear it in the song every once in a while. the guy wants me to put a controlled amount of autotune to boost the harmony, so i did. he likes the sound but obviously he doesn't like the pops and crackles, nor do i. thought it could be me overloading the channel but its not. its gotta be the autotune plugin itself. how do i go about fixing the cracks and pops in this song? is there a special way of gain staging when it comes to plugins outside of Reaper?

[ivansc]

1. Computer spec & exact OS version would help.
2. What autotune program are you using? Antares? Reaper's? Melodyne???

and of course have you downloaded and run resplendence.com's latency checker?

[Allan Love]

my bad. meant to include that info. I'm using an HP Laptop (64 bit) - Windows 10. I purchased REAPER v5.40/x64. VST3 Auto-Tune 8.1 (Antares)is the specific plugin I'm using.

[ivansc]

(grin) this is like pulling teeth!

DID YOU download resplendence dot com's latency checker like I suggested?

"a HP laptop" doesn't tell us how much memory you have or how fast a cpu, in fact it tells us bugger all.

And finally, maybe this is a good time to suggest that you download the User guide & read the part about setting your computer up for multitrack recording.
Wouldn't hurt to give some of the excellent free tutorial videos a once-over too. All freely available under "downloads" a the top of this page.

Your issue is almost certainly down to incorrect ASIO buffer settings or lack of resources, assuming you actually have an audio interface with its own ASIO drivers.
If you are trying to do this just on an internal laptop sound card, you are going to struggle. All the popular autotune-type plugins are fairly cpu intensive.

[Allan Love]

first, chill.

second, idk who you're confusing me with. this is the first convo i've ever had with you lol; therefore no I DIDN'T download resplendence dot com's latency checker because you never suggested it and neither did anyone else.

i'll download the user guide and look into resplendence


i have an ASIO driver (scarlet solo second generation). i messed around with the buffer size a while back and it helped but didn't fix the problem entirely.

as far as cpu goes,
max speed: 1.50 GHz, sockets: 1, cores: 4, logical processors: 4, virtualization: disabled, hyper-v support: yes, L1 cache: 512 kb, L2 cache: 4.0 mb. the utilization, speed, processes, threads, handles fluctuate.
not sure if this is the info you need, but im sure if it's not, you'll be extremely patient with me lol

good to know about auto-tune plugins. might have to find somewhere else to do all that.

[ivansc]

Whilst I am chilling, try reading ALL of my first response to you, especially the part about resplendence...

Sitting here having a giggle to myself as the Internet Strikes Again!

(N.B. This too is intended to be taken as a light-hearted comment, as have all my others)

As far as auto-tune, by sheer coincidence I test for Antares.

Even with a quad 1.50 you should be able to run a fair amount of stuff before crapping out if you have your computer and interface set right.
OOPS! Forgot to ask how much memory you have! If the laptop is running out of ram, it WILL start using virtual ram which means you are suddenly running a piece of your had disk as memory. Not good!

First off, (assuming this is happening in just this project) how many tracks are you running and what & how many other plugins?

My own experience with Focusrites USB interfaces was pretty bad - saffire 6 and first gen Scarlett 2i2 and 2i4 all gave me lots of latency and often the rice crispies like you are experiencing. In the end I gave up and bought an RME Babyface. Expensive a hell but so reliable.

From having a quick read around the net it looks like your version of the solo should be fine, though.

And once again, DO please download and run that latency checker. This could be as simple as another piece of hardware/software in your laptop fighting for control of resources enough that Autotune doesnt have enough to work properly. Wireless interfaces and rogue graphics cards are common culprits.

Let us know what you find.

[Allan Love]

all good things to note. thank you.

as far as memory goes, that shouldn't be a problem because im using an external i recently purchased; therefore i don't have that much stored on there yet. its a passport WD; hardly has anything on it.

the number of tracks im applying to autotune are roughly 80 (i know...) again, im bussing to a master FX track where the autotune plugin is located, along with other plugins including: ReaVerb, ReaComp, ReaEQ. i could be overloading the buss track, but idk how to fix that, if that's the case.

ive been busy so havent been able to do the latency test yet, but will very soon. is the software called LatencyMon 6.51?

[ivansc]

Oh dear..... you are talking about the size of your hard disk and its capacity, not the system ram (random access memory) which will be somewhere between 1 and 32 gigabytes. That is what we need to know.

I hope you are not actually putting those FX on the Master Bus, as this will definitely give you issues, regardless.
Hopefully you really are putting them on a FX bus that you created.
I am amazed that Autotune is coping with simultaneously processing signals from 80 tracks!

You might want to try autotuning each track one at a time, since you are mixing.
If you need to get the AT settings the same for each track, just automate the changes and save the automation to apply to each track individually.
Once you have the tracks processed rendered and printed you should be fine.
I think you will find that you could leave all the rea-plugs on your fx bus as they definitely ARE light in terms of cpu usage.

[Allan Love]

for my computer the installed memory (ram)is 8 gb (ddr3) (7.48 gb usable).

as far as putting the autotune on an FX bus, as opposed to a master bus, i believe i am doing this. i created close to 5 different FX bus tracks. these FX bus tracks are being received by the multiple tracks being autotuned.

i already tried autotuning each track individually, but it overloaded the cpu to the point where i couldn't even play the song.


is LatencyMon 6.51 the software your referring to on resplendence? if it is, i just downloaded it. i read the message it gave me, which states:

"your system seems to be having difficulty handling real-time audio and other tasks. you may experience drop outs, clicks or pops due to buffer underruns. one or more DPC routines that belong to a driver running in your system appear to be executing for too long. at least one detected problem appears to be network related. in case you are using a WLAN adapter, try disabling it to get better results. one problem may be related to power management, disable CPU throttle settings in control panel and BIOS setup. check for BIOS updates."

now idk what alot of these acronyms mean, but ill look them up. ill try to do what it says and see if that helps. i included it in this message in case it gives you a better understanding of what im dealing with. idk if it helps but hopefully it does.

[ivansc]

BINGO! This is what I suspected right from the start.

You need to do some reading up on how to set your computer up for multitrack recording. Focusrite have an excellent article on their site. Just search on focusrite audio settings Windows 10 or similar.

First CRUCIAL job is to set all the power and performance settings to maximum. Anything that throttles the cpu is going to give you exactly the problems you are experiencing.
And like I said before, (grin) RTFM - at least the early stuff that tells you most if not all the stuff you need to do.

I know this all seems like a pain in the butt, but the time you spend now learning and getting it right will be repaid in spades later.

Oh - were you running Reaper at the same time as LatencyMon? That may well give you further clues as to what is going wrong.

[Bri1]

Heyio-try airplane mode-- it may help,may not.
Located @ network options.

[Allan Love]

sorry power was out for a couple days and then i got super busy. but i just looked on the focusrite page and found a very helpful video:

https://support.focusrite.com/hc/en-...-on-Windows-10

i did everything the video told me to do. then i ran latency mon (with my external hard drive and focusrite both plugged in) and it said it was working well. i also did airplane mode and that didnt seem to make a difference probably bc of all the other stuff i did according to the focusrite video.

however, im still getting cracks and pops on the audio piece i was working on. its definitely better but its still making crack sounds.

also, its strange how when i solo the tracks i cant hear the pops. its when i play the tracks all together that i hear the pops.

pretty frustrating.

[ivansc]

Well done Alan! Now we are getting somewhere.

Would you mind letting us know what you have your ASIO buffer set to?
As we already discussed, your cpu aint the fastest on the block, so you may still be over taxing it with simultaneously processing stuff through Autotune.

Check what is happening in Reaper using the Performance Meter when you are running the problem project.
Performance meter is one of the options in Reaper's View menu

[Allan Love]

request sample rate: 4100
request block size: 512

not quite sure how to read the performance meter but from what i can tell, everything looks good. it says 0.00% for cpu use. however, the pdc's are high for all the FX bus tracks. anywhere from 500-7000. most commonly, i see 4000 pdc.

should i try changing the buffer size? if so, what numbers should i use?

[ivansc]

Ouch! If you are getting rice crispies at 512 buffer you have a problem.

I would try setting your ASIO buffer much higher - start at maybe 2048 and if it works, drop it down till the crackling starts again. Since you are not doing any live recording the latency wont matter and at least you will know if your computer is man enough to cope with all that Autotune.

But what all this is really telling you is that a 1.5 cpu isnt going to manage that weight of on-the-fly processing

[Allan Love]

still not working. i just toyed around with different numbers including the one you said (2048).

when i click ASIO configuration, and then scroll down to buffer size, the highest the number goes is 1024. it doesnt even reach 2048.

i tried manually typing in the buffer size on the place where it says request block size, but it didn't make a difference. i also messed around with the sample rate just to see.

im still getting the cracks and there always in the same exact spots on the song. like i said, whenever i solo the tracks, i dont hear the cracks anymore. its only when i play the tracks at once.

any other suggestions? or do you think i should try to return the focusrite i have and invest in something a little better? (sigh)

[ivansc]

Originally Posted by Allan Love

or do you think i should try to return the focusrite i have and invest in something a little better? (sigh)

I am the wrong person to be asking this, given MY very similar experience with focusrite low end interfaces
But you may be putting the cart before the horse if this is also tied in with your rather anaemic cpu.
Not an easy one to decide. Shame you dont have anyone nearby with a powerful computer that could try the project on their machine.
If you cn put the whole project up on dropbox or similar, I at least have the latest version of autotune, so provided you dont have any third party plugin in the project that I dont have I could run it on my quad core i7 machine and see what happens.

[Allan Love]

i dont have any third party plugins that i know of. just using autotune reacomp reaeq reaverb. that would be nice if you could test it out on your end. whats your dropbox so i can send the tracks your way?

[ivansc]

Originally Posted by Allan Love

i dont have any third party plugins that i know of. just using autotune reacomp reaeq reaverb. that would be nice if you could test it out on your end. whats your dropbox so i can send the tracks your way?

Just upload them and send me a link to the address I will put in your private messages on here.

[Stella645]

Maybe I'm missing something but on a brief skim through it sounds like you've put Autotune on an FX bus with multiple vocals routed to it??

If that's correct and these are simultaneous vocals then it simply can't work this way. The software needs to see only a single vocal track at one time.

Also you say the clicks happen at the same place each time so I'm wondering if they are not even an asio overload but are an audio overload....clipping the plugin input perhaps??

[ivansc]

Yeah - I already suggested he process individual tracks, so probably not this, unless he didnt try it that way.
Alan.....

[Allan Love]

i thought i tried using single track bus already but maybe i was confused.

won't that overload the cpu if i do that to all the tracks that need autotune.

i think what i did was this originally - i put the fx directly on the vocals. that def gave me big problems. then when i started using FX bus- the problem got better, but not totally fixed. and here we are now.

i just tested out the single track bus and it seems to be working. i only tried it on 3 vocals that are stacked so far.

does this mean i need to create an individual FX bus for all the vocals so i can send a SINGLE track to it? and do that for all the ones that need autotune?

i just feel like after a while that'll still cause problems. maybe not though. idk.

[Stella645]

"won't that overload the cpu if i do that to all the tracks that need autotune."

If your processor isn't up to it then yes....so work around it with rendering/freezing the tuning on one track before doing the next one.

Sending multitracked vocals to a processor that expects a single vocal can't possibly work well.

[ivansc]

[QUOTE=ivansc;1884200]
I am amazed that Autotune is coping with simultaneously processing signals from 80 tracks!

You might want to try autotuning each track one at a time, since you are mixing.
If you need to get the AT settings the same for each track, just automate the changes and save the automation to apply to each track individually.
Once you have the tracks processed rendered and printed you should be fine.
[QUOTE]

as I said earlier....

[Allan Love]

there seems to be a misunderstanding.

by "individually," do you mean creating a new project file with a single track that i copied from my original project file, and pasting it to the new file, so that i can autotune away?

if this is what you mean, i wouldn't have a clue on how to do this. i wouldn't know what specific key words to look up in the User Guide if this is what your referring to. i definitely wouldn't know how to keep everything organized once finished adjusting tracks individually and reintroducing them back to the original file (as a wav file im guessing?)

when i first read your message, touching on the "individual" strategy, i thought you were referring to adding autotune to each track (individually), BUT all on the same project. guess i was wrong; as opposed to setting up an FX bus for the tracks.

[Stella645]

Originally Posted by Allan Love

there seems to be a misunderstanding.

when i first read your message, touching on the "individual" strategy, i thought you were referring to adding autotune to each track (individually), BUT all on the same project. guess i was wrong; as opposed to setting up an FX bus for the tracks.

Your first read was the correct one. One project AT added direct to audio channel. Tune, freeze the effect to audio. Add AT to next channel, tune, freeze, etc etc.

[Allan Love]

ok i get it. thanks. so here's another question. im messing around with it now. why is it that when i take tracks off bus and implement their own FX, the tracks get louder?

[Stella645]

Hard to say....how are you creating the bus and sending the channels to it?

[Allan Love]

FX TRACK 1 (receives VOCAL 1,2,3,4)
^
|
VOCAL 1 (sends to FX TRACK 1)
VOCAL 2 (sends to FX TRACK 1)
VOCAL 3 (sends to FX TRACK 1)
VOCAL 4 (sends to FX TRACK 1)

(continued throughout project)

so when i add FX to the tracks individually, the volume of the track increases. its almost as if the FX have a stronger impact on the tracks when i add FX individually. any ideas why that is?

[Allan Love]

also, when i freeze tracks, is there a way to go back and edit the original track if i change my mind while mixing?

[Stella645]

I would check audio levels with no plugins first. Should be the same on bus or direct from channel. Then try a single FX and see what happens.

Yes you can freeze all FX or just up to a specific FX and you can unfreeze again.
Check in the FX chain window/Edit menu.

So you could only freeze the autotuning and leave any other channel FX live plus still bus the tuned audio on to another channel for group compression etc.

[Allan Love]

but what if i saved everything already and then exited, to work on for another day?

[drumphil]

What buffer size does it show when you hit the "asio control panel" button in audio preferences?

I see you are referring to the block size, but this usually isn't ticked, and buffer size is usually set from the asio control panel for your audio interface.

So, I don't think you've actually tested with different sized asio buffers yet.

So, make sure you have ASIO selected under Audio System.

Untick block size, so that reaper will control that setting.

Click the Asio Control Panel button.

Then see what buffer size you are actually using.

[Stella645]

Originally Posted by Allan Love

but what if i saved everything already and then exited, to work on for another day?

Nothing changes because you save and exit.

[Allan Love]

drumphil, it showed the same buffer size (512) when i hit the "asio control panel" button in audio preferences. its cool. freezing works fine. that's not the issue at this point.

Stella645, not sure if you understand what im asking you. my fault for not being thorough. this is what i mean:

say i...

-add FX to several vocal tracks in a project.

-then freeze the vocal tracks (and see a lock symbol on the top left part of the tracks)

-then i save the project

-then i exit

-then i open the project later, and decide to completely eliminate or adjust some FX on the vocal tracks...

* can i re-edit (undo) what i've already edited on those particular vocals, and make them into the raw (original) tracks that i started with?

-if so, how?

[Stella645]

Originally Posted by Allan Love

Stella645, not sure if you understand what im asking you. my fault for not being thorough. this is what i mean:

* can i re-edit (undo) what i've already edited on those particular vocals, and make them into the raw (original) tracks that i started with?

-if so, how?

Yes. just use unfreeze of course.

[Allan Love]

great thanks. i appreciate everyones help with all this.