Perhaps that’s not the most accurate subject line. When using Arturia Piano and Arturia OP-Xa, specifically a user-created patch within each one, the audio randomly glitches or cuts out, almost sounding like static. CPU is not anywhere near 100%. I’m running GP 4.7 and everything is updated.
This seems to be related to a thread from 2022 found here: GP 4.1.5 Glitching at 96K - #50 by Funky40. I’ve tried changing the sample rate, which causes GP to crash just like this other thread mentions. Reopening GP has the new sample rate setting applied, though.
I’ll continue to troubleshoot and try different combinations of settings, but I’m wondering if anyone else has experienced this recently in 2023 or 2024 and found an obvious solution.
Sorry, shouldn’t have said that earlier. I was thinking of Windows at the time I wrote that. The GP app is NOT current. I know, that’s the most critical. I ran into issues attempting to update to 4.8.2 so I left it alone on 4.7, figuring I’d troubleshoot later, but never got around to it. I would like to try uninstalling/reinstalling, but I’m afraid of losing presets and other configs. Can everything in GP be backed up simply by saving a copy of the “Documents > Gig Performer” folder (Windows, obviously)?
I’m puzzled as well. I’m fine just taking the approach I often do in such cases and reinstall. Hopefully, I won’t have this issue again. So if i back up the Gig Performer folder, I should be safe to uninstall and reinstall without losing anything?
Getting back to this thread in hopes for a solution. I am using GP 4.8.2 on an HP ZBook 17 G5 (Intel i7-8850H CPU @ 2.60GHz, 2592 Mhz, 6 Core(s), 12 Logical Processor(s)) and 32GB RAM. I’ve waited a while to post an update so I could pay more attention to when this is occuring. After a fresh reboot, I don’t hear any issues. But after using GP for an hour or so, certain plugins (actually certain patches within certain plugins) will glitch or crackle while holding down notes or chords. The effect is difficult to explain. It sounds like random audio drops that last just milliseconds. I’m monitoring the CPU and it never spikes above 50%. Mostly it’s Arturia patches but recently I noticed the same thing happening with a Roland Cloud patch. I can’t believe my ZBook doesn’t have enough resources to keep up with Arturia and Roland. I’m purposely running GP on this ZBook because of its beefy specs. Any help would be much appreciated.
It may have nothing to do with your version of Windows or any software installed therein.
You say it’s an HP? That very well may be the culprit.
For the record…I have experienced these issues.
I have since run many tests and comparisons across laptops and found both my HPs (with “beefier” specs than yours) to be problematic when running GP and VSTs along with the audio interface. It’s no fault of the software…it’s the BIOS of the motherboard and unfortunately there’s nothing you can do about it, save getting another laptop.
I’m not saying this is absolutely the case here with you…I’m just saying that (in my experience/experimenting) all things being equal between two PCs with the identical software installed, and one works perfectly and the other does not, it’s probably not the software.
Could very well be the laptop, then. As for the second reply, I’ve tried multiple buffer and sample rate settings. The interface is a Universal Audio Volt 276. No, I have not tried the optimization thing. Don’t recall where to find that, either. I might be able to try another HP laptop (got lots of them from work).
I wouldn’t…if in fact it is a BIOS related issue, you would need a computer with a different BIOS chip. That’s why I stick with ASUS…any ASUS computer I have used, be it a laptop or a desktop, has worked seamlessly with everythng in my rig. Computers I have come across with either MSI or Gigabyte motherboards have all had problems of some kind.
You should start by optimising your PC: whether it’s an Asus, HP, Dell, MSI, etc., it will experience fewer problems, if any at all.
Then, if the problem persists, you can consider trying another machine.
But don’t do the opposite, it’s neither logical nor economical.
I’ve had several computers as an Asus, a Dell, I have an old 2012 Lenovo spare for GP, and I currently have a MSI that I picked up for price opportunity, I’ve never had a problem with any of these computers.
But I’ve always chosen models with a processor dedicated to performance and a motherboard and bios with unlocked power management. And of course optimised.
As did I. Of course, we all should look for those things. Unfortunately someone new to this process may not be privy to that at the onset of his/her journey. But I am glad you didn’t have to go through what I did!
I am not a programmer or designer of computers…but I can only surmise that the issues I have encountered regarding these bizarre anomalies has something to do with the way the motherboard handles the USB. Whether it’s a chip or some type of architectural thing with how the USB communicates between the BIOS and Windows I can only guess.
Clean install of Windows (same version) > same versions of installed software > same audio drivers > same optimization of the OS = some PCs glitch and some don’t? Gotta be the motherboard. What else could it be?
I have noticed that Windows has started to randomly change my power plan back to ‘Balanced’ behind my back whenever it feels like it nowadays, which results in the same sort of thing at less than 50% CPU… I have a shortcut to it on my desktop and is one of a number of optimisation checks I do on every boot (if I’m using GP) now. If you thought you’d already done this, its worth a check every now and again!
In the past, Dell had an xps series that had bios problems. These found their way to Windows’ dpc processing via the acpi driver, which interacts with the bios. Dell never fixed that. I think I remember that in Windows 7, there was still a way to run without the acpi driver. That crippled all power management and sleep functions, but at least the latency problem was worked around. To my knowledge later versions of Windows cannot function without this driver.
Gist of this: 1. Some problems cannot be fixed by the user. 2. Cpu speed is not the only thing of importance when it comes to latency.
Not that this is really helpful.
Maybe this is: I’ve used Asus and Lenovo laptops without too many problems.
HP, Dell and MSI I avoid, but that is mainly because I have bad experiences with these brands when it comes to the sturdiness of the laptops: HP and Dell: the hinges of the display break out their sockets in the casing, sometimes already after less than 2years! I repaired this using bolds and nuts, but it looked like s***. The Asus also had this problem, but ‘only’ after 4 years. MSI: the casing was severely damaged in a few years, and the displays itself were malfunctioning big time. In one case one week after buying, in other case within a few months. MSI did not care to repair the second case.
Of course from a statistical point of view you cannot draw any conclusions, because the number of instances is much too small.
