Clicks and pops with Cubase 8.5

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medway
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Clicks and pops with Cubase 8.5

Post by medway »

Anyone successfully using 5.1 Win 7 64bit drivers and Cubase 8.5?

8.0.3 is fine, but 8.5 (including the new 8.5.10) gives me crackles and stutters even with playing just a few audio tracks and low cpu (10%).

Have tried messing with the buffers etc... but to no avail. Just wondering if this is a global Scope driver thing or just my system.
Nebukadneser
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Re: Clicks and pops with Cubase 8.5

Post by Nebukadneser »

Did you try to switch on the ASIO guard? I experienced sudden CPU spikes when playing just a few tracks of audio and a few VSTs the other day. The ASIO guard solved the issue.

My set up was Cubase Elements 8 64 bit, Win 7 64 bit, Scope 5.1.

Neb
fidox
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Re: Clicks and pops with Cubase 8.5

Post by fidox »

Not sure if this is any help,
but i can confirm Cubase Artist 8.5 works nice (upgraded from 8.0.20 version)
on Windows 10 64bit with Scope 5.1 driver.
I never had any pops and click on my machine with any Cubase version.

In cubase i don't have any special settings enabled, no asio guard, just asio scope with 25ms latency.
I didn't tried lower latency settings, maybe to 7ms/13ms, not lower.

In general it's hard to say, there can me a lot of other things involved, every computer is different.
I have seen a lot of configurations, but mostly, problems were with systems, installations, drivers, bios settings,
like i said tons of stuff.
I have manage to run very stable system over years, but i have my main computer dedicated just to music production,
so, no internet connection, antivirus programs, very clean system, no single application running at startup and so on .... :)
medway
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Re: Clicks and pops with Cubase 8.5

Post by medway »

Nebukadneser wrote:Did you try to switch on the ASIO guard? I experienced sudden CPU spikes when playing just a few tracks of audio and a few VSTs the other day. The ASIO guard solved the issue.

My set up was Cubase Elements 8 64 bit, Win 7 64 bit, Scope 5.1.

Neb
Hi thanks, yes I tried a few settings off/low/med/high and all seems to do the same. Also I should have mentioned that the cpu meter itself is fine when these happen, there's no overload showing there.
medway
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Re: Clicks and pops with Cubase 8.5

Post by medway »

fidox wrote:Not sure if this is any help,
but i can confirm Cubase Artist 8.5 works nice (upgraded from 8.0.20 version)
on Windows 10 64bit with Scope 5.1 driver.
I never had any pops and click on my machine with any Cubase version.

In cubase i don't have any special settings enabled, no asio guard, just asio scope with 25ms latency.
I didn't tried lower latency settings, maybe to 7ms/13ms, not lower.

In general it's hard to say, there can me a lot of other things involved, every computer is different.
I have seen a lot of configurations, but mostly, problems were with systems, installations, drivers, bios settings,
like i said tons of stuff.
I have manage to run very stable system over years, but i have my main computer dedicated just to music production,
so, no internet connection, antivirus programs, very clean system, no single application running at startup and so on .... :)
Thanks. This computer is fairly new, I built it about a year ago but only got back to using Cubase a few months ago. 8.0.3 is very solid though. Was hoping the latest update to 8.5 would fix this but unfortunately not.
JoPo
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Re: Clicks and pops with Cubase 8.5

Post by JoPo »

medway wrote:8.0.3 is fine, but 8.5 (including the new 8.5.10)
8.5.1 ? Where did you find a 8.5.1 ? I just see a 8.5... :-?
> > > > > > > > > > > > --- Musica --> here ! ---< < < < < < < < < < < <
fidox
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Re: Clicks and pops with Cubase 8.5

Post by fidox »

There was an update to 8.5.10 version few days ago

http://www.steinberg.net/en/newsandeven ... -3570.html
JoPo
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Re: Clicks and pops with Cubase 8.5

Post by JoPo »

Thanks a lot !

That's incredible ! Yesterday, before you answered to my demand, I couldn't see the 8.5.1 update at Steinberg !
> > > > > > > > > > > > --- Musica --> here ! ---< < < < < < < < < < < <
medway
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Re: Clicks and pops with Cubase 8.5

Post by medway »

I managed to disable the infamous GWX service along with a couple others and so far so good. Did a few sessions today and not one stutter during working let alone on the live mixdown.
medway
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Re: Clicks and pops with Cubase 8.5

Post by medway »

medway wrote:I managed to disable the infamous GWX service along with a couple others and so far so good. Did a few sessions today and not one stutter during working let alone on the live mixdown.
Spoke too soon. Maybe something on my system changed but now both 8.0.3 and 8.5.1 have dropouts even with no plugins. Back to the drawing board :)
medway
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Re: Clicks and pops with Cubase 8.5

Post by medway »

Small update looks like I might have got it cracked. I have a Behringer USB soundcard on my system to handle non ASIO apps like Windows Media player.

For some reason clocking Scope to that eliminated my dropouts.
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Re: Clicks and pops with Cubase 8.5

Post by JoPo »

Great news ! :)
> > > > > > > > > > > > --- Musica --> here ! ---< < < < < < < < < < < <
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garyb
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Re: Clicks and pops with Cubase 8.5

Post by garyb »

medway wrote:Small update looks like I might have got it cracked. I have a Behringer USB soundcard on my system to handle non ASIO apps like Windows Media player.

For some reason clocking Scope to that eliminated my dropouts.
sounds like the software is clocked to the USB interface. well, there's some weird clock issue anyway. whatever configuration actually works correctly is ok, though.
medway
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Re: Clicks and pops with Cubase 8.5

Post by medway »

Ha well spoke too soon again it seems.

Today loaded a mastering project, just single track and a few plugins and first 2 times I play through it stutters around 4:30 and 4:38. Thinking it must be that area I tried again and that time it recorded ok.

I then loaded my original test song which is a mixdown project about 30 tracks. Played through twice and no stutters. It's only 3:30 though.

I then loaded up some new projects with no plugins, just 8 stereo tracks. They stutter every now and then.

I'm checking with process explorer and "What's my Computer doing" apps and don't see much happening when these occur. I have also disabled Networking.

Have tried both my AMD Radeon graphics and built in Intel one. Only thing left I can think of is IRQ. Is this still an issue with Win 7? Some information suggests that sharing IRQ doesn't cause problems anymore.

Anything I should change here? Not sure if it's even possible as my BIOS didn't seem to have a place to change IRQ (Asus Z97a)

Image

Will maybe give 8.0.3 a shot again as that was fine for a while, not sure why it started to have issues too. I'd be happy just to get that stable again.
medway
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Re: Clicks and pops with Cubase 8.5

Post by medway »

Don't want to speak too soon again but so far 8.0.3 seems ok. Ran that one mastering project twice and it didn't stutter once.

Also my new fresh projects with only a few plugs are so far good. On 8.5 I was getting lots of glitches on GUI opening etc...

Fingers crossed at least 8.0.3 is usable again.
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garyb
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Re: Clicks and pops with Cubase 8.5

Post by garyb »

you have Scope cards sharing irqs with USB and the UAD. i'm not surprised that you have intermittent problems.
medway
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Re: Clicks and pops with Cubase 8.5

Post by medway »

garyb wrote:you have Scope cards sharing irqs with USB and the UAD. i'm not surprised that you have intermittent problems.

I'll have to see if I can find a way to reassign that.

For now maybe I found the actual problem. Today I ran 8.0.3 with a fresh master project and although generally it seemed ok I got a dropout right at the end of a realtime render.

I had always noticed some regular spikes on my core 0. Recently I read it might be high precision timing so I turned that off. Today I finally decided to investigate further and realised it was the same USB interface I thought fixed my issue earlier causing it.

Image

So I disabled that and now my CPU meter looks fine. Just did a realtime bounce of this mastering project in 8.5 and there was no problems. Should have figured out this spiking earlier but I had assumed it was something normal with Windows 7 needing to poll the hardware but now see it's not normal when I did a search for it.

Too soon to tell, will need more testing as this problem seems to be fixed only to come back quickly after. I guess if I can go a week without any dropouts on render then it's hopefully finally fixed.
medway
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Re: Clicks and pops with Cubase 8.5

Post by medway »

Well I finally fixed this for good. Have gone a week now with no issues.

It seems even know I had disabled my network card there were still some services running. I noticed svchost.exe popping up in the top processes when the clicks happened. Followed those services and disabled a couple of network ones running.

I also moved my Waves licenses over to my harddrive instead of a USB stick, might have helped as well.

To be safe have also made a power profile with no cpu parking.
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vascomusic
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Re: Clicks and pops with Cubase 8.5

Post by vascomusic »

Well, I'm glad you managed to fix the problem.

I've spent 2 weeks tweaking Windows to 'fix' my clicks-n-pops problem.
In the end, it was not the Windows configuration and also not the shared USB IRQ's (which I cannot avoid in a HP XW4600 workstation), but it was the AMD ATI Radeon video card which caused the real problems. I've replaced the ATI/AMD videocard with a Nvidia GeForce FX3500 and instantly all the clicks-n-pops problems were gone. It was not a software issue, but a hardware issue.


So, my advise: if you run into troubles regarding clicks-n-pops...
Stay away from AMD/ATI video cards !
pdistefano
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Re: Clicks and pops with Cubase 8.5

Post by pdistefano »

Similar problem here & I'm now going nutty ..... :x
Have battled intermittent audio crackles & pops for years, always thought it was just me pushing an old machine or potential conflicts/bottlenecks with UAD1 & scope..

Finally bit the bullet about a year ago an upgraded PC (i7 3.2gh, 16GIG ram) running windows 7, 3x scope pci cards, DAW Cubase 10 Pro, UAD Satellite USB3. In the scope environment I'm running 32x ASIO output channels to an outboard mixer via A16 Ultras. ULLI set at middle (7ms @ 44.1) or 2nd lowest 13ms

The windows system is tweaked as expected with windows power settings, non-essential services disabled etc, hyperthreading disabled etc..

Not really running that many audio tracks -10-20 tracks max, or doing major complex in DAW routing, but separating the outputs to feed the outboard mixer.....

After trawling the net for answers found a suggestion for "Latencymon" as a test to identify the system issue. Did this, clearly a problem. The system reads fine with just Scope loaded up, but the troubles start when then the DAW Cubase is loaded. The issues (accordingly to LatencyMon) appear to be the Cubase program itself as a massive process causing page faults etc and then also the " synsopos.exe" which is the (unavoidable) USB protection for Cubase. The USB 1.1 & 2.0 host controllers seem to be identified as a culprit, but NOT the USB 3 (which is the UAD satellite).

Anyway what I'm trying to work out is what can I do to solve this...(surely if they put a man on the moon over 50 years ago, there has to be way to get this running smoothly :roll: )

- is it potentially and IRQ sharing issue.......the motherboard(Gigabye GA-Z87P_D3) architecture handles the graphics, USB and the legacy pci (via a pci-e bridge) all completely separately so would expect these to be separated - how could you change this anyway if it was an issue?
- is it the Scope ASIO driver outputting 32 channels? Would have expected if scope dsp can handle it in it's own environment then it's OK
- ULLI settings?
- the audio file data are run from a removable USB hard drive - is this a potentially a problem? I did a test loading a project from the system drive and no different....
- is it Cubase? After 20 years do I conceded defeat and change DAW's - surely not!
- Could a Waves licence on a separate USB stick really be an issue?

Anyone? Would be grateful for any ideas!
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