Suggestions for those VST pops/clicks

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groggy1
Posts: 466
Joined: 10 Jun 2015

04 Oct 2017

When 9.5 first came out, I had a problem: Clicks and Pops when I used VSTs!

I had audio-buffer-size set to 128 samples (44k), and for the last couple years that had worked JUST FINE in Sonar. But in Reason, I got the occasional pop or click. And there's nothing that ruins the mood when you're playing a soft balad than a pop (or a click).

FYI, my machine (HP) is about 2 years old (2015), so really not that bad. Decent specs, SSD. So I was really surprised that I was getting those audio glitches.

I spent the past few months trying to figure out how to make things better, and I thought I'd share my learnings:

1) You'll hear this often: Install the latest audio drivers, no surprise there
2) You also need to make sure you have the latest VIDEO driver. Yup, this one's important (remember, reason has a UI and those VSTs can have fancy graphics)

3) The change that had the BIGGEST positive impact for me: GO UPDATE ALL YOUR DRIVERS! AS SOON AS I UPDATED THE DRIVER FOR MY *WIFI* CARD, my audio clicks/pops nearly all stopped. Unbelievable.

I highly suggest you open up Computer Management, and go to the Devices section. Then, go through each and every item on that list, click "Properties", and select "Update Driver..." I never thought it mattered THAT much, until I figured out that my wifi card was the big problem

4) Next, turn off POWER MANAGEMENT FEATURES. On my HP, that meant going into the Bios, and there was a section for "OS PowerManagement" (turned it all off), and "Hardware PowerManagement" (turned it all off). Don't turn off stuff that'll break your computer, so use common sense here. But seriously, the power-management stuff is designed to let your machine scale-down power usage when it thinks it's "idle". And for me, this actually made a difference to turn it off.

5) Update your BIOS. I had a 2 year old BIOS. I didn't think it would matter much. But after updating it, the last of my clicks and pops went away


So honestly for me, #3 #4 and #5 were surprisingly helpful in reducing pops/clicks.


Anyway, good luck to you too if you have pops/clicks with VSTs. I hope my list above can give you some ideas on how to tackle it.

User avatar
AttenuationHz
Posts: 2048
Joined: 20 Mar 2015
Location: Back of the Rack-1

04 Oct 2017

groggy1 wrote:
04 Oct 2017
When 9.5 first came out, I had a problem: Clicks and Pops when I used VSTs!

I had audio-buffer-size set to 128 samples (44k), and for the last couple years that had worked JUST FINE in Sonar. But in Reason, I got the occasional pop or click. And there's nothing that ruins the mood when you're playing a soft balad than a pop (or a click).

FYI, my machine (HP) is about 2 years old (2015), so really not that bad. Decent specs, SSD. So I was really surprised that I was getting those audio glitches.

I spent the past few months trying to figure out how to make things better, and I thought I'd share my learnings:

1) You'll hear this often: Install the latest audio drivers, no surprise there
2) You also need to make sure you have the latest VIDEO driver. Yup, this one's important (remember, reason has a UI and those VSTs can have fancy graphics)

3) The change that had the BIGGEST positive impact for me: GO UPDATE ALL YOUR DRIVERS! AS SOON AS I UPDATED THE DRIVER FOR MY *WIFI* CARD, my audio clicks/pops nearly all stopped. Unbelievable.

I highly suggest you open up Computer Management, and go to the Devices section. Then, go through each and every item on that list, click "Properties", and select "Update Driver..." I never thought it mattered THAT much, until I figured out that my wifi card was the big problem

4) Next, turn off POWER MANAGEMENT FEATURES. On my HP, that meant going into the Bios, and there was a section for "OS PowerManagement" (turned it all off), and "Hardware PowerManagement" (turned it all off). Don't turn off stuff that'll break your computer, so use common sense here. But seriously, the power-management stuff is designed to let your machine scale-down power usage when it thinks it's "idle". And for me, this actually made a difference to turn it off.

5) Update your BIOS. I had a 2 year old BIOS. I didn't think it would matter much. But after updating it, the last of my clicks and pops went away


So honestly for me, #3 #4 and #5 were surprisingly helpful in reducing pops/clicks.


Anyway, good luck to you too if you have pops/clicks with VSTs. I hope my list above can give you some ideas on how to tackle it.
Did you try increasing your buffer size in all that time?
It is not too much of an ask for people or things to be the best version of itself!

groggy1
Posts: 466
Joined: 10 Jun 2015

04 Oct 2017

AttenuationHz wrote:
04 Oct 2017
groggy1 wrote:
04 Oct 2017
When 9.5 first came out, I had a problem: Clicks and Pops when I used VSTs!

I had audio-buffer-size set to 128 samples (44k), and for the last couple years that had worked JUST FINE in Sonar. But in Reason, I got the occasional pop or click. And there's nothing that ruins the mood when you're playing a soft balad than a pop (or a click).

FYI, my machine (HP) is about 2 years old (2015), so really not that bad. Decent specs, SSD. So I was really surprised that I was getting those audio glitches.

I spent the past few months trying to figure out how to make things better, and I thought I'd share my learnings:

1) You'll hear this often: Install the latest audio drivers, no surprise there
2) You also need to make sure you have the latest VIDEO driver. Yup, this one's important (remember, reason has a UI and those VSTs can have fancy graphics)

3) The change that had the BIGGEST positive impact for me: GO UPDATE ALL YOUR DRIVERS! AS SOON AS I UPDATED THE DRIVER FOR MY *WIFI* CARD, my audio clicks/pops nearly all stopped. Unbelievable.

I highly suggest you open up Computer Management, and go to the Devices section. Then, go through each and every item on that list, click "Properties", and select "Update Driver..." I never thought it mattered THAT much, until I figured out that my wifi card was the big problem

4) Next, turn off POWER MANAGEMENT FEATURES. On my HP, that meant going into the Bios, and there was a section for "OS PowerManagement" (turned it all off), and "Hardware PowerManagement" (turned it all off). Don't turn off stuff that'll break your computer, so use common sense here. But seriously, the power-management stuff is designed to let your machine scale-down power usage when it thinks it's "idle". And for me, this actually made a difference to turn it off.

5) Update your BIOS. I had a 2 year old BIOS. I didn't think it would matter much. But after updating it, the last of my clicks and pops went away


So honestly for me, #3 #4 and #5 were surprisingly helpful in reducing pops/clicks.


Anyway, good luck to you too if you have pops/clicks with VSTs. I hope my list above can give you some ideas on how to tackle it.
Did you try increasing your buffer size in all that time?

:) Yup, things were of-course much better at 256-samples. But I play live E-drums routed to Kong for my drumming, and the drums don't feel right with even the slightest latency.

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demt
Posts: 1357
Joined: 16 Sep 2016
Contact:

04 Oct 2017

On stopping the clicks and pops
Got myself couple of mixing desks/units/microphone amps
8 channel and
5 channel
To route my 3physical soundcard s and 2 software drivers through
The 1st sign of DSP problems,I press a button and switch driver\soundcard
Haypresto clean sound.Myself I reckon the more the merrier attitude suits computers
Kinda surprised at how many wires all those inputs and outputs need.
Reason 12 ,gear4 music sdp3 stage piano .nektar gxp 88,behringer umc1800 .line6 spider4 30
hear scince reason 2.5

groggy1
Posts: 466
Joined: 10 Jun 2015

04 Oct 2017

demt wrote:
04 Oct 2017
On stopping the clicks and pops
Got myself couple of mixing desks/units/microphone amps
8 channel and
5 channel
To route my 3physical soundcard s and 2 software drivers through
The 1st sign of DSP problems,I press a button and switch driver\soundcard
Haypresto clean sound.Myself I reckon the more the merrier attitude suits computers
Kinda surprised at how many wires all those inputs and outputs need.
That's a creative solution!

User avatar
bsp
Posts: 214
Joined: 18 Jan 2015

04 Oct 2017

the last time I had issues with pops'n'clicks, they were caused by the audio driver for the (mainboard) RealTek soundchip (which I don't even use!).

http://www.resplendence.com/latencymon helped me find that troublemaker

RandyEspoda
Posts: 275
Joined: 14 Mar 2017

06 Oct 2017

This made me recheck my drivers cause I did update the main ones, but yep, some of the remaining ones were quite old, including the network driver.
Made a slight difference actually. Thanks !

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