Always random Pops n Crackles

An area for people to discuss Scope related problems, issues, etc.

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ARCADIOS
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Re: Always random Pops n Crackles

Post by ARCADIOS »

what about compatibility mode in scope and in sequencers?
what about run as administrator?
does that have rules in windwos 10?

ps... god I hate 10.... The method of waiting 10 minutes in order for the system to calm... is Non Professional... Time Comsuming..

Isn't there an asio pop filter or something to eliminate these random glitches??

Also.... If this is PCI bandwith related....
Can anyone confirm that more masterverbs in testing... goes to less pops n crackles???
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garyb
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Re: Always random Pops n Crackles

Post by garyb »

pops and crackles are almost always cpu overruns. pops are missing data.

when needed, use compatibility mode. if it's not needed, don't. it has little to nothing to do with pops. ditto for "run as administrator".
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Re: Always random Pops n Crackles

Post by ARCADIOS »

Are these pops existent in xite?
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t_tangent
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Re: Always random Pops n Crackles

Post by t_tangent »

ARCADIOS wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 7:36 am Are these pops existent in xite?
They can be with the wrong setup or hardware. When I first bought my Xite-1 I had it connected via PCI Expresscard slot on my then top of the range Dell Precision M6500 workstation, and had terrible problems with pops and crackles running scope for XITE, no matter what I tried. After some time my brother in law gave me his old Dell Vostro laptopwith was dead. I was able yo repair it (a dead surface mount cap on the psu input), and what I tried using Xite connected to the Vostro's PCI expresscard slot it was otaku pop and crackle free, and works perfectly. I seem to recall at the time finding out thae issue with the Precision M6500 was the way the PCI expresscard slot was handled by the system on that machine, whereas on the Vostro it was handled more directly. On the Vostro I didn't really need to do anything for it to play well, although I think I optimised the laptop later with the basic recommended tweaks.

At the moment I have both my xite on the internal PCIE card slot and 3 Scooe PCI cards running on my DAW Desktop system, a gigabyte mobo, and both Scope for Xite and Scope for PCI work pop and crackle free. The Xite is connected to one of the PCI cards ADAT ports which bus from one platform to the other if needed.
Last edited by t_tangent on Tue Jan 18, 2022 9:12 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Always random Pops n Crackles

Post by djmicron »

ARCADIOS wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 7:36 am Are these pops existent in xite?
It's a problem with the Scope driver and 64 bit OS, with my Xite-1 I had to disable virtualization on the Ryzen based system to avoid random clicks on windows 10, after that it worked fine. On the older Xeon based system it worked ok even with virtualization enabled.

At the moment I'm doing some audio job on Linux and I temporarily installed the Xite-1 on a very old Pentium 4 with 2 GB of RAM and it works flawlessly and on my Ryzen i'm using an old RME HDSP 9652 PCI using PCI-e adapter and it can work @1ms and it's connected via ADAT to the Xite-1, RME driver is also great on windows 10 and never produces clicks even with such an old card at 1 ms latency.
Last edited by djmicron on Tue Jan 18, 2022 9:08 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Always random Pops n Crackles

Post by ARCADIOS »

Looks like Russian roulette...
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Re: Always random Pops n Crackles

Post by ARCADIOS »

I understand that it is a matter of luck also to achieve a crack free daw .....
The communication problem between the cards and the pc is probably bigger than the hardware itself, cards or pc.

Perhaps Soniccore could make some deeper upgrades, driver or even upgraded hardware with special focus on crackle free systems.....
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Re: Always random Pops n Crackles

Post by t_tangent »

No I don't think it's luck or Russian roulette, although it does seem that Scope works better in some systems than others. Unfortunately due to the large variation in different systems, motherboards, graphics cards, Ŵindows OS with or without certain tweaks and software, versions of drivers etc etc, I don't really think it's feasible for Sonic Core to try every variation out there. Scope obviously works for the majority of users or there would be a lot more people experiencing this issue. There is an entire thread in this forum with tried and tested setups that work' and really the best thing would be to look at these and see if you can find something suitable. Perhaps you can find a shop that will allow you to buy parts and return within a certain amount of time if they don't work. I understand this can be really frustrating at times especially after you have spent so much time trying to get it working without crackles, but unfortunately the only way to resolve this is to figure it out on your own, with some help from this forum. Wishing you best of luck for a trouble free setup.
Last edited by t_tangent on Wed Jan 19, 2022 3:34 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Always random Pops n Crackles

Post by dante »

Over at UA forum they are using a thang called ASIO Link Pro to work around these type of issue on there Apollos :

https://give.academy/downloads/2018/03/ ... IOLinkPro/

Dunno if that might help.
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Re: Always random Pops n Crackles

Post by valis »

It's been touted here (for reaper I think?)

Scope's ASIO driver has issues with certain audio libraries (portaudio etc) but that's not related to pops & clicks. Pops & clicks with ASIO + Scope will be something stealing not just 'cpu' time, but bus time/accessing other hardware (drivers) that don't allow the bus calls to be freed up in time to service the ASIO buffer. That's been the case since XP, and we've already covered how much variety there is. Even with the same motherboard, a simple revision might change a great number of chips that don't seem immediately apparent.

You need to test until you isolate a given arena where the cause might lie (find something to correlate to the skip's moment in time) and then dig in and look at the various parts (software, hardware) that were interacting with the system when the issue occurred.

Also remember that changing CPU clock states, USB bus states, thermal states, things like CPU & GPU monitoring software etc might all poll at a rate that is too low to identify as a cause until something ELSE is also occurring. So if you have a combination of 2-3 pieces of software and/or a driver all causing the click, it might take a bit to suss that out. That being said, don't simply make half a dozen changes from things you either know or read online, and expect that to impact ANYTHING. As Gary says, if nothing was wrong with the things you're changing the most likely result is lesser, or worse.
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Re: Always random Pops n Crackles

Post by Bud Weiser »

valis wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 9:10 pm It's been touted here (for reaper I think?)
...

You need to test until you isolate a given arena where the cause might lie (find something to correlate to the skip's moment in time) and then dig in and look at the various parts (software, hardware) that were interacting with the system when the issue occurred.
...

So if you have a combination of 2-3 pieces of software and/or a driver all causing the click, it might take a bit to suss that out.
The problem is,- as a musician, arranger, producer,- when you work professional w/ deadlines, you don´t have the time to tinker w/ all that computer s##t,- and you also have to be some computer expert/geek even when you have the time.
In fact, I don´t know too much musicians being DAW builders as well.
So,- most buy a Mac with Logic, unbox and fly.
Most pros in the creative world work w/ Mac,- go to advertising agencies, publishing, print- and online media as also leading recording studios and you´ll see there are Mac computers.
It´s not because it´s more powerfull urgently,- but all these people are tired from tinkering w/ PC variations and Windows and just only want gear that works and is replacable 1:1 quickly in case of failure.
Mac doesn´t need ASIO urgently and Core Audio was better,- at least in the past.
Mac has rtp-MIDI build in and comes w/ MiDI-2 implementation possibly this year already.

Scope should run on upcoming Macs w/ M1X processors, which can run MacOS, Linux (and Windows,- if urgently necessary) w/o the need of bootcamp.
I´m also not satisfied w/ any DAW for Windows when it comes to MIDI,- not Cubendo, not Studio 1 as also not Reason and Reaper.
Logic was and still is the best in that department and especially when it comes to interactive notation in MIDI editor.
I really HATE piano-roll and NEED perfect notation.

Well, even when jumping ship, I´ll use SCOPE on a separate PC and give a s##t on ASIO then.
But it would be ice on the cake if it were possible running all on just only a Mac Mini together w/ SCOPE/XITE.

:)

Bud
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valis
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Re: Always random Pops n Crackles

Post by valis »

Most of our discussions about pops & clicks are with legacy PCI cards, at least in my observation. Xite is Scope's current iteration, and while it's true it doesn't work on a $900 M1 Macbook, neither does Kyma/Kapybera and many other boutique/niche audio products. Of course Xite trades some of the issues with tuning the system for understanding DSP allocation issues in regards to what loads on what type of a given DSP.

In any case, this discussion was (I think?) about avoiding pops & clicks with legacy PCI Scope cards. If I chose to use an audio product built 15-25 years ago, i would likely face a similar learning curve when it comes to integrating it with an iOS or M1X based device.
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Re: Always random Pops n Crackles

Post by Bud Weiser »

As I formerly mentioned (possibly in a different thread ?),- I occasionally GET random pops and clicks w/ SCOPE/XITE x64 and ASIO already w/ Win7 Pro SP1 x64 and w/ AsRock Z97.

In addition, I have SCOPE PCI system (2 Pulsar-2, 1 Pro and syncplate) running in HP server w/ Win7 Pro SP1 32Bit and don´t recognize that.

Also,- the PCI system using HDDs doesn´t load significantly slower than XITE-1 w/ PCIe card inserted in PCIe x4 slot with exclusive IRQ.
I have the old PCIe card for XITE,- the one w/ DVI connector (cable: DVI > HDMI).
At least I like the cable can be locked in place, which is impossible w/ HDMI.

Bud
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Re: Always random Pops n Crackles

Post by garyb »

it is not that hard to set up for no pops. you should NOT need to do anything extreme. of course, there are limits to resources, THAT is the source of pops. if the machine is used within it's reasonable limits, i NEVER have an issue. you should NOT be tinkering with working systems. however, you SHOULD need to be reasonably computer savvy, if you are going to use a computer for production and that's just as you should be hardware savvy, if you are not(or even if you are). a working system will keep working unless you break the hardware or fiddle with it.

i really liked Logic years ago, before Apple acquired it and then shut down Windows versions right after assuring people that they would not do that, and after charging people using Windows for a big upgrade. basically, it is the computer INDUSTRY itself that sucks.
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Bud Weiser
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Re: Always random Pops n Crackles

Post by Bud Weiser »

garyb wrote: Wed Jan 19, 2022 7:21 am ...

i really liked Logic years ago, before Apple acquired it and then shut down Windows versions right after assuring people that they would not do that, and after charging people using Windows for a big upgrade. basically, it is the computer INDUSTRY itself that sucks.
Well, this was exactly why I leaved the Apple route !
I was also on old MACs,- G3, G4 PPC.
Still own and can run Logic 4.8 (serial dongle), 6.4.3 (USB-dongle) and Sounddiver 3.x.
There´s a Audiowerk 8 in a G3 ( :lol:) and RME Hammerfall in G4.
Much too slow for today´s audiotracking,- but excellent for MIDI (w/ Opcode and MOTU Mdiinterfaces) still.
ATARI/ Notator .son and .seq file import urgently requires these old systems.
Sounddiver .lib files too.
Enables making standard MIDI- and SysEx- files for import in today´s applications.

And yes,- you´re right in regards of computer industry.

Anyway, I´m sure we´ll see improvements when beta test period for new SCOPE is finished and the stuff will be released.

:)

Bud
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Re: Always random Pops n Crackles

Post by sunmachine »

Bud Weiser wrote: Wed Jan 19, 2022 8:21 am Anyway, I´m sure we´ll see improvements when beta test period for new SCOPE is finished and the stuff will be released.
Does this mean that beta testing is already ongoing? I signed up for the beta program but didn't get any info about it, yet.
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Re: Always random Pops n Crackles

Post by Bud Weiser »

sunmachine wrote: Wed Jan 19, 2022 11:22 am Does this mean that beta testing is already ongoing?
No,- it doesn´t.

:)

Bud
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Re: Always random Pops n Crackles

Post by valis »

Bud Weiser wrote: Wed Jan 19, 2022 6:40 am As I formerly mentioned (possibly in a different thread ?),- I occasionally GET random pops and clicks w/ SCOPE/XITE x64 and ASIO already w/ Win7 Pro SP1 x64 and w/ AsRock Z97.

In addition, I have SCOPE PCI system (2 Pulsar-2, 1 Pro and syncplate) running in HP server w/ Win7 Pro SP1 32Bit and don´t recognize that.

Also,- the PCI system using HDDs doesn´t load significantly slower than XITE-1 w/ PCIe card inserted in PCIe x4 slot with exclusive IRQ.
I have the old PCIe card for XITE,- the one w/ DVI connector (cable: DVI > HDMI).
At least I like the cable can be locked in place, which is impossible w/ HDMI.

Bud
These are apples vs. pears vs. apple pie, imho. Each system has to be considered in and of itself. Btw I was able to run 64bit OSes even on my dual 2001 era Xeon, though it didn't do any good for Scope. Identical hardware otherwise, and no gain.

My 2008 Xeons (of which I have 3) all have different issues, and have almost IDENTICAL hardware. I have pared them down 1 one still running with spare parts, and may try moving my Scope cards into that just to see if I have more PCI bandwidth and less issues. Time permitting.

My current Scope system is that 2015 era quadcore Xeon, which works absolutely flawless if I lock the EFI/BIOS settings to a fixed multiplier and disable most power saving/thermal throttling and so on. However I see no difference in PCI performance, and only a moderate difference under load, and it doesn't solve the issues with some 64bit applications and Scope (portaudio etc). VCV Rack 2.x also has the same issues regardless.

So from my experience, once a system is functioning properly all the additional tweaks do (especially with modern computing headroom) is gain you a bit more stability at the end of the performance envelope. Any system that has 'occasional clicks and pops' has SOMETHING that 'occasionally' kicks in and causes that. My guess is that it's most likely something being polled and the system has to wait on it to wake up or respond. Prior to 2011 I would even try HPET vs. RTC as RTC can allow 'looser' timings that actually cause less issues in some cases. But again, until you know WHAT it is that is happening with the click or pop occurs, all you are doing is guesswork and that's usually worthless imho. "Luck" is nice, but it has to be repeatable for me as i will end up rebuilding at some point.

I could swear we have covered all of this before... maybe it's a slow Scope news day. :D
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Re: Always random Pops n Crackles

Post by ARCADIOS »

No matter how difficult it is to be fixed, From a soundcard that costed 1600Euros at its time, (pci), or a xite that costs 3800euros.... The fact that you cannot listen to music via scope without random pops... but you CAN from a crappy mobile phone playing YouTube with 20 apps simultaneously in the background.. that Is a problem.!
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Re: Always random Pops n Crackles

Post by garyb »

there should not be any pops via ASIO.
via wave listening to entertainment, pops are almost not noticeable.
being as Scope was never meant to be a SoundBlaster, this is minor. i agree that it should be fixed, however.
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