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Asked before. But Problem still here.

Posted

Hi  there,

 

I have asked about this problem before, but it is still occuring.

 

The problem is that I am getting crackling/distortion noise on play back on my Synfire projects.

 

I have tried the suggestions that I got in the previous thread but the problems are still there. I reduced the buffer size in synfire to very high amounts and set the latency settings wih in my Safire Pro 24 dsp to high.

 

Is there any more help or trouble shoting advice that you can give me please?

 

As it stands I am finding it very difficult to work or complete any projcts using Synfire pro. Thanks for your help.

 

PS

 

Average project consists of around 10-14 tracks. Mainly using Omnisphere 2 and Stylus RMX.

 

My audio interface is conected via Thunderbolt 1 using a fire wire adaptor.


Sun, 2015-06-21 - 19:35 Permalink

have you tried selecting each track in turn and using the solo feature in synfire. Then if all tracks play ok on thier own, select the first 2 and solo play those, then the first 3...etc

It sounds to me like you are either clipping or overloading your cpu. 

 

You could also drag the output of the drones to the daw then set the drones to local only. You should then be able to play the tune without synfire. See if that plays ok.

 

I get crackling when my cpu is maxed. I am on a 2010 macbook pro and can get it if i use a lot of software synths, even without synfire. To get round this, I either freeze tracks in the daw or switch to my hardware synths.

Mon, 2015-06-22 - 11:57 Permalink

Hi Blacksun. Thanks for your repy.

 

I will try some of your suggestions.

 

I did try playing with drones, but it got a little bit to confussion, so I gave up.

 

To give you an Idea of my current project which consists of 12 tracks; one Stylus RMX, one Omnisphere 2 multi and one extra instance of an Omnisphere 2 multi.

 

My activity monitor reads:

 

CPU: 14.5%

RAM: 5.86%

 

So looks like I have a lot of spare head room.

Mon, 2015-06-22 - 22:05 Permalink

Are you running all plug-ins in the Audio Engine, or in the DAW via drones?

Mon, 2015-06-22 - 22:28 Permalink

Hi Andre. Thanks very much for your reply.

 

All my projects are done via the engine in Synfire. In 64 bit mode.

 

Today was the first time that I have used drones and it was for a test,  to try and help me issolate where the prolem lies.

Mon, 2015-06-22 - 22:32 Permalink

Synfire's built-in Audio Engine runs on a single CPU only. It can not compete with full-fledged DAWs like Logic Pro X. You are probably pushing it to its limits. I have successfully run 15+ plugin instances, but CPU load varies by plugin. For example, with 6 AAS physical modeling synths, the Audio Engine is at its limits already.

Running plugins in Logic X with drones will certainly help.

Mon, 2015-06-22 - 22:33 Permalink

You can check the Audio Engine's CPU load by bringin it to the front and opening its user interface from the main OS X menu.

Tue, 2015-06-23 - 12:10 Permalink

Hi Andre. I took  a quick screen shot of Synfires CPU screen, and it does look quite high in comparison with my native load.

 

Do you intend to relese a version that will work onmulti cores in the future?

 

Also I Would Like to start working on using drones, but it does not work very well for me.

 

I think that I need some extra guidence to get it going correctly.

 

Thanks for the replies and help.

Tue, 2015-06-23 - 17:37 Permalink

Thanks for the picture. Your rack should be small enough to run without problems.

Which of the plugins eats the most CPU? You can test by unloading them individually.

Tue, 2015-06-23 - 18:59 Permalink

Hi Andre, I am not sure which AU is the trouble maker, but I would hazard a guess at Omnisphere being responsible.

 

Very Power hungry.

Tue, 2015-06-23 - 19:53 Permalink

You could test by selecting a trivial patch and watch if CPU goes down.

Tue, 2015-06-23 - 20:15 Permalink

Yes I will try later and report back. Just busy on working on a remix at the mo.

 

I will update with my findings.

Fri, 2015-06-26 - 13:01 Permalink

Hi Andre, I had time to test things a bit and my findings are.

 

I loaded up eight single instances of Omnisphere (instead of a standard multi) and sequenced 8 tracks of random playing.

 

Two tracks of a 4 voice chord and the rest monophonic.

 

When I added to 8th part in Synfire which was a copy of the 4 voice chord part, the CPU display started to flicker on the red and this is when the sound began to crackle and break up.

 

Sample rate: 44khz

Buffer Size: 384

Fri, 2015-06-26 - 14:54 Permalink

Buffer size should be >= 512 in all cases. Try 1024 and you'll see less crackling.