Click noises while hitting play and/or record (buffersize) - please help

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bbs
Posts: 29
Joined: 11 Sep 2018

15 Sep 2018

When I record midi or vox I need to decrease the buffer size in order to record with no or short delay, but then sound lags and clicks/noises appear when I hit play or/and record. (sometimes the clicks also appear on the vox recordings still after setting the buffer size to highest lvl - its like its been recorded into the audio track itself - I can't remove it.. :cry: ). 6 month ago, when I started using Reason everything worked just fine, but lately this happens when I set the buffer size below 4000 samples. Does anyone experience the same? Do you have any idea what causes this? I have checked system requirements and everything should be fine.. This is so frustrating.. Please help
Last edited by bbs on 16 Sep 2018, edited 1 time in total.

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Loque
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15 Sep 2018

I only experience clicks and pops when the computer is too slow. Could be performance settings or audio driver in most cases. Maybe you can check them and tell us about your settings.
Reason12, Win10

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ast3rix
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15 Sep 2018

Try turning off hyper threading if you have that turned on. I know on my Mac when that's on... it's a real no show kinda day. Also you may have to bounce some things down to audio. You can always disable them in the rack in the event you need to recall the sound to re-record something.

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bbs
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16 Sep 2018

I just made this new project for this purpose only. It contains a Dr. Octo Rex and a Reason midi-instrument.. no effect, no VST, nothing else but 2 tracks as you see.. And with these settings the clicks already appear right now when I hit record or play.. It only disappears when I increase the buffersize A LOT but its impossible for me to record anything with that much delay. There is no "headroom" I feel like..

I use:
- MacOS Sierra 10.12.6
- Reason version 10.1.2d1
- Audio devices: Built-in Output on Mac or Focusrite Scarlett 2i2..
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Last edited by bbs on 17 Sep 2018, edited 1 time in total.

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bbs
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17 Sep 2018

ast3rix wrote:
15 Sep 2018
Try turning off hyper threading if you have that turned on. I know on my Mac when that's on... it's a real no show kinda day. Also you may have to bounce some things down to audio. You can always disable them in the rack in the event you need to recall the sound to re-record something.
I dont know were I turn hyperthreading off/on nor what it is :)

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bbs
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17 Sep 2018

Loque wrote:
15 Sep 2018
I only experience clicks and pops when the computer is too slow. Could be performance settings or audio driver in most cases. Maybe you can check them and tell us about your settings.

Let me know if you need anymore information :) Hope you can help

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Loque
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17 Sep 2018

bbs wrote:
17 Sep 2018
Loque wrote:
15 Sep 2018
I only experience clicks and pops when the computer is too slow. Could be performance settings or audio driver in most cases. Maybe you can check them and tell us about your settings.

Let me know if you need anymore information :) Hope you can help
* Did you set your computer to highest performance? Any power saving settings for CPU?
* Do you use an ASIO driver?
* Latency/buffer settings for audio?
* When does the audio shows underruns?
Reason12, Win10

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bbs
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17 Sep 2018

Loque wrote:
17 Sep 2018
bbs wrote:
17 Sep 2018



Let me know if you need anymore information :) Hope you can help
* Did you set your computer to highest performance? Any power saving settings for CPU?
* Do you use an ASIO driver?
* Latency/buffer settings for audio?
* When does the audio shows underruns?

*yes i guess i have the settings on highest performance
* nope I'm not sure. Dont know what it is (im not familiar with technical stuff, still learning)
*Latency/buffer setting for audio is shown in the screenshot above, right? or am I missing something :D
* As written the audio shows underruns already as that setting shown above in the screenshot

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Loque
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17 Sep 2018

Ok... I am not on Mac, so I might be wrong. Use an ASIO Audio driver. On windows you can use ASIO4ALL. Increase the buffer, 1ms is impossible. I guess something around 150ms is more realistic.
Reason12, Win10

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brand
Posts: 131
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18 Sep 2018

I think I have a similar issue too (but not having to use 4000 samples?!). Still experimenting, but it looks like I have almost the same specs as the OP. I use:
- iMAC, 16GB ram, plain Sierra. SSD 512GB drive.
- Processor: 3.3 GHz quad-core Intel Core i7
- Interface: Fosusrite 2i2 2nd Gen for outside inputs.
- Reason 10 latest version.
Absolute state of the art computer? Maybe not, but still, no slouch I think. And by the way, I only use this machine for audio production essentially. Basically just music related. And I always try to quit any unused applications while using Reason, as a general practice.

It seems to me that I should be able to use 96 freq at 3ms/5ms with this setup. Which is I think about 64 samples. The manual tells me this. Yet I am noticing a pop here and there. Not a huge project either. Being a picky bastard, hearing even one pop is very annoying to me. Maybe I should get over it, raise the samples, and possibly lower the freq to 44.1 'til the audio is completely clear. No law against 44.1 I guess...

Maybe I will look at hyperthreading later, and turn it off (if it's on) to see what happens,
But I don't see why I should not be able to use 96 and 64 with this setup. Maybe I am missing something?

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Loque
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18 Sep 2018

brand wrote:
18 Sep 2018
I think I have a similar issue too (but not having to use 4000 samples?!). Still experimenting, but it looks like I have almost the same specs as the OP. I use:
- iMAC, 16GB ram, plain Sierra. SSD 512GB drive.
- Processor: 3.3 GHz quad-core Intel Core i7
- Interface: Fosusrite 2i2 2nd Gen for outside inputs.
- Reason 10 latest version.
Absolute state of the art computer? Maybe not, but still, no slouch I think. And by the way, I only use this machine for audio production essentially. Basically just music related. And I always try to quit any unused applications while using Reason, as a general practice.

It seems to me that I should be able to use 96 freq at 3ms/5ms with this setup. Which is I think about 64 samples. The manual tells me this. Yet I am noticing a pop here and there. Not a huge project either. Being a picky bastard, hearing even one pop is very annoying to me. Maybe I should get over it, raise the samples, and possibly lower the freq to 44.1 'til the audio is completely clear. No law against 44.1 I guess...

Maybe I will look at hyperthreading later, and turn it off (if it's on) to see what happens,
But I don't see why I should not be able to use 96 and 64 with this setup. Maybe I am missing something?
I can use 96khz on i i8086 with 5ghz with an ASIO driver in 1ms.

As i stated before, i am not sure how this is all about with audio drivers on mac. Without an ASIO (low hardware access stuff) driver it is impossible to run such low latencies. even with my specs >100ms is more realistic.

As i can see you use a Focusrite, you should check if you have dedicated audio drivers for it and they are installed and selected in Reason.
Reason12, Win10

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brand
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Location: New Jersey, US

18 Sep 2018

Loque wrote:
18 Sep 2018

As i can see you use a Focusrite, you should check if you have dedicated audio drivers for it and they are installed and selected in Reason.
Thanks. I will see, but it seems to me that wit the Mac, which uses Core Audio, not asio I should be OK, but I think you may have a point about optimizing the Focusrite for Mac. Also I want to check the difference between when actually using the interface inputs (like for a guitar/bass) vs all just Reason midi. Then maybe I can isolate whether the pops are happening only when the interface is used to create audio.

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bbs
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18 Sep 2018

brand wrote:
18 Sep 2018
Loque wrote:
18 Sep 2018

As i can see you use a Focusrite, you should check if you have dedicated audio drivers for it and they are installed and selected in Reason.
Thanks. I will see, but it seems to me that wit the Mac, which uses Core Audio, not asio I should be OK, but I think you may have a point about optimizing the Focusrite for Mac. Also I want to check the difference between when actually using the interface inputs (like for a guitar/bass) vs all just Reason midi. Then maybe I can isolate whether the pops are happening only when the interface is used to create audio.
For me, the clicks/pops are happening both with MIDI directly into USB on mac to Reason and during guitar/vocal recordings via the Focusrite input. The only difference is that the clicks get recorded into the audio from the input, so that they doesn't disappear even though I put back the buffersize to were it normally doesn't click. The midi recordings stays intact..

I also tried to export the audio with the click as a audiofile to see if clicks would disappear outside of Reason, but they didn't.

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ast3rix
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22 Sep 2018

bbs wrote:
17 Sep 2018
ast3rix wrote:
15 Sep 2018
Try turning off hyper threading if you have that turned on. I know on my Mac when that's on... it's a real no show kinda day. Also you may have to bounce some things down to audio. You can always disable them in the rack in the event you need to recall the sound to re-record something.
I dont know were I turn hyperthreading off/on nor what it is :)
Hyperthreading is located here:
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ast3rix
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22 Sep 2018

bbs wrote:
16 Sep 2018
I just made this new project for this purpose only. It contains a Dr. Octo Rex and a Reason midi-instrument.. no effect, no VST, nothing else but 2 tracks as you see.. And with these settings the clicks already appear right now when I hit record or play.. It only disappears when I increase the buffersize A LOT but its impossible for me to record anything with that much delay. There is no "headroom" I feel like..

I use:
- MacOS Sierra 10.12.6
- Reason version 10.1.2d1
- Audio devices: Built-in Output on Mac or Focusrite Scarlett 2i2..
I've never been able to do anything at that buffer rate. I can't relate.... I just recently found that I could bump down to 512 at best. I normally have my artist not have a mix of there voice in the headphones only the music and record that way. Otherwise it's really ruff trying to stay on beat with all that latency. I'm really hoping a new computer upgrade with a big bump in CPU and Ram will fix my resource issue so I can have a normal recording session with my artists. Also the performance items that Propellerhead is working on to improve performance... I'm hoping will ultimately make Reason perform more in line with the other popular DAWS.

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bbs
Posts: 29
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22 Sep 2018

ast3rix wrote:
22 Sep 2018
bbs wrote:
17 Sep 2018


I dont know were I turn hyperthreading off/on nor what it is :)
Hyperthreading is located here:
Thanks. I just checked it now and it is set to "off" by default it seems. What about the CPU Usage Limit? It caught my attention yours is set to "none". Mine is "80%". Is this something I should pay attention to?

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guitfnky
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22 Sep 2018

bbs wrote:
22 Sep 2018
ast3rix wrote:
22 Sep 2018


Hyperthreading is located here:
Thanks. I just checked it now and it is set to "off" by default it seems. What about the CPU Usage Limit? It caught my attention yours is set to "none". Mine is "80%". Is this something I should pay attention to?
yeah, you’ll want to crank that up to 95% or 100% (no limit). my understanding is that’s basically the maximum percentage of CPU you’re allowing Reason to use (e.g. if your song needs 90% of your CPU’s processing power to play something back, but you have a CPU usage limit of 80%, you’re going to get clicks and pops, because Reason is trying to play it back with less processing power than it needs).

it’s sort of like the nozzle on a hose. if you open the nozzle all the way, you’ll get the most water flow possible, but if you open it only 80% of the way...less water.
I write good music for good people

https://slowrobot.bandcamp.com/

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guitfnky
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22 Sep 2018

also, it looks like in your screenshot you’re using the built in output. you should always be using the inputs and outputs on your sound card (I think you said it’s a Focusrite?). in my experience, using the internal speakers is, counterintuitively, very inefficient in terms of low latency monitoring.
I write good music for good people

https://slowrobot.bandcamp.com/

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Marco Raaphorst
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23 Sep 2018

maybe Reason is using the integrated graphics chip instead of the discreet one. You can easily switch between those using a free open source app, see my old blogpost for this:

https://melodiefabriek.com/blog/audio-g ... eason-fix/

S1GNL
Posts: 83
Joined: 31 Jan 2018

23 Sep 2018

You said that this performance reduction happened recently. Have you changed anything about your configuration? Did you install something recently? Did you do a macOS update/upgrade? Did you update your audio interface drivers?

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Wobbleburger
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03 Oct 2018

I installed Mojave yesterday (MBP early 2015) and Reason feels more responsive. Also, turn off cable animations and hyperthreading. That helped me... Any other songs open in the background need to be closed. Bounce what you can once you're happy... Keep the midi around just in case.
In the 90s, my midi music was on the Baulder's Gate site. That was my life peak.
Reasonite since 2000. My music (and my old midi) can be found here:
https://futurewizard.org

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ast3rix
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03 Oct 2018

bbs wrote:
22 Sep 2018
ast3rix wrote:
22 Sep 2018


Hyperthreading is located here:
Thanks. I just checked it now and it is set to "off" by default it seems. What about the CPU Usage Limit? It caught my attention yours is set to "none". Mine is "80%". Is this something I should pay attention to?
I hate the messages regarding cpu limit. I normally don't have other apps running while I'm in a reason session. It will use whatever CPU resources are available if you set it to none. I just upgraded to a Mac Pro 2013 and maxed out the cpu to a 12 core and have 32gb of ram. I also changed out the standard pcie 2.0 ssd for a new Samsung EVO 970 NVME M.2 with an adapter that converts it to the Mac pro's ssd slot. I'm seeing a major performance boost with this new combo and I actually have my buffer set to 64. I am able to play some of my songs that have a ton of vst's and re's without a hiccup. I'm still testing thou and running through a burn in period with the new processor to make sure it's good, I purchased it on eBay. So far I'm loving being able to just open Reason and load up a ton of RE's and Vst's and not have all that glitching and popping.

As for your continued issues you may want to also check your activity monitor and make sure that you don't have some background processes running. This includes networking items... i.e. little snitch if you use it. I had to buy a time machine scheduler from the App Store to control when my backups are kicking off. The native time machine app does not allow you to select when you want it to run. It runs natively every hour on the hour and It was driving me to drink. In the middle of a session all of a sudden my machine would start performing poorly. I finally figured out it was the backups running....

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