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01-13-2018, 05:54 AM
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#1
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Banned
Join Date: May 2011
Posts: 54
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Low latency crackle, help needed...
Hello everyone,
I am using Reaper for more than 7 years, and for all this time it was a brilliant experience. For me, Reaper is synonym for stability, performance, low latency, and power.
I am so delighted with this piece of software so I converted several of my friends to it, and all of them have the same experience, they work and do not think about performance, buffer, CPU, memory, and anything other than music creation.
However, few days a go another friend wanted to try Reaper and for him things look different. He has mid 2014. MacBook retina with I7 processor, and 16 gigs of RAM, Apollo Twin Thunderbolt, SSD inside, and one USB 3.0 HD for samples and projects.
The problem is crackling at low latencies, actually for anything lower than 256 samples. No matter how many channels he use, Reaper crackles while just playing few audio channels at 64 samples without any plugin and virtual instrument, while 32 samples is unusable.
Yes, I know you will say that this is too low, but actually it is not. I am using Reaper and 32 samples latency all the time with my I5 16 gigs of ram Hackintosh, and the same with my old Core2Duo I3, 4gigs of RAM laptop, and it works flawlessly. It is maybe limited to 20 or 30 plugins until it starts crackling, but at 32 samples it MUST play audio tracks without problems, which is somehow not the case here.
My Hackintosh is connected to Focusrite Saffire Pro 40 via FW, and laptop via USB 2.0 to Focusrite Scarlett 2i2, and again, everything works perfectly at 32 samples latency.
I must say, he does not want to work at 32 samples latency, we just use those figures to find out what is wrong with his setup. With this problem even 128 is to low, and just at 256 it works relatively good, but with just few channels. What would happen if he uses the full project, we do not know.
I forgot to mention that CPU usage is always at 15%, at most 25%, so it has nothing to do with computer being too slow.
We also tried with built-in audio card, and it acts the same. Then we used Logic, and at 32 samples Logic works without any problem, even with some projects with more than 30 channels, around 25 plugins and 10 virtual instruments Logic plays the projects without any crackle or click, but Reaper simply can not.
We tried to edit buffer settings in preferences, but still nothing, it crackles all the time. Then we tried to copy everything to the SSD drive, maybe it was something to do with that slower external drive, but no. It simply does not work well.
I know it is very simple, and it should work well after installing, but is there something we are doing wrong?
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01-13-2018, 08:17 AM
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#2
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Australia
Posts: 3,738
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What happens if you connect your audio interface to his computer?
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01-13-2018, 08:18 AM
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#3
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Banned
Join Date: May 2011
Posts: 54
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Well, we did not try that. But, I do not believe it is because of his interface, it has the same problem with Built-In soundcard.
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01-13-2018, 08:44 AM
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#4
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Banned
Join Date: May 2011
Posts: 54
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01-13-2018, 09:44 AM
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#5
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Sep 2010
Posts: 12,632
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First for background, the goal here is playing live through a virtual instrument plugin and thus the need for low latency operation right?
Are you saying that on your system you need a block size of 32 samples to achieve the low latency you need for performing with the virtual instrument plugin(s) you use?
If you need that low of a setting to make the latency low enough, I would make the comment that that sounds close to the edge of headroom right out of the box.* What is your round trip latency with your interface with the block size you usually run and the sample rate you usually use BTW?
So... If you're already close to the headroom of the system, now just about anything unexpected might push you over. And something unexpected has come up on your friends system. Leaving all the Apple 'call home' stuff (alerts, location services, etc) on could eat up system headroom for example. That's what I would look for first. Obviously that computer should be quite powerful for live sound work!
Where are you at with block size vs. round trip latency at the sample rate you are running right now?
* For live work, if you get an interface that comes in at < 11ms round trip latency with a block size of 128 samples for example, you will have decent headroom for all kinds of plugins. Start with an interface that needs a block size of 32 samples just to get below 11ms RTL and you have almost zero headroom left right out of the box.
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01-14-2018, 02:35 AM
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#6
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Banned
Join Date: May 2011
Posts: 54
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Quote:
Originally Posted by serr
First for background.....
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The goal here is to find out what is making his system so unstable and basically unusable. If he decide to listen to my advice and make the change, he wants to be sure that Reaper will work well with heavy project with 50 tracks, 70 plugins, and 10 virtual instruments, all that at 128 or 256 samples.
As I said, it is not about using 32 samples latency all the time, it is about Reaper and his computer that crackles when just playing audio at 32 samples, without any processing, and this is not normal.
If you look at my video, you will see that I am working with 13 audio channels, and more than 50 plugins in real time, all that without problems at 16 samples. This is not what I usually do because there is no need to go lower than 64, but it was a test just to show him how stable is Reaper and what he can expect from it.
Still, his problem persist. Any other DAW on his computer is working well with low latency, Logic, Studio One, even Pro Tools (!), but something is wrong with Reaper.
We tried many things, create new user account, Apollo and built-in sound card, with external disk on, off, without any peripherals, but it simply does not work.
I will bring him my USB Focusrite, but even if it works with my cheap USB interface, which I doubt, this does not solve the problem why it does not work with integrated audio, or UA Apollo.
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01-13-2018, 05:50 PM
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#7
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Australia
Posts: 3,738
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Quote:
Originally Posted by quadrifoglio
Well, we did not try that. But, I do not believe it is because of his interface, it has the same problem with Built-In soundcard.
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Yep, but it's still an easy test to confirm that again.
Last edited by drumphil; 01-13-2018 at 06:16 PM.
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