Pops, clicks and crashes resolved

Hi, i had some problems with pops and clicks that i believe i have now resolved. I find the guide on latency, sample rate, buffer size etc here very informative and helpful: Gig Performer | Audio latency, buffer size and sample rate explained

I was convinced that my issues had to do with the settings in my audio device and tried to resolve the problems by trying all kinds of different combinations. This since almost all my searches for popping and clicking audio referred to audio device settings.

By coincidence, however, I reconnected the usb audio interface directly to the computer instead of through the usb hub and the popping and clicking is gone. So the issue had nothing do do with the audio device settings as it seems, but rather to the connection of my audio interface (I use a iRig Keys I/O with built in audio interface for live use).

Is it the speed of the usb hub that is insufficient to handle the amount of data trasferred between the computer and the audio interface? Or is it the fact that other usb devices (2 keys controllers, usb mouse, keyboard) are connecterd to the same usb hub, and conflicting somehow?

Another issue i had (causing GP to crash quite frequently) seemed to be related to virtual memory. At the time i only had 8GB of ram and my gig files were much larger than that. For some reason Windows had chosen to set the paging file to be stored on my larger (but considerably slower) hdd drive instead of the main ssd drive. Changing the location for the paging file resolved the issue.

Maybe there are other guides for these kinds of problems that i did not find? If not, it would be helpful with articles about usb connection related issues as well as virtual memory settings. My knowledge about these things is limited, so i cant really do it.

In any case i wanted to share, in case others experience similar problems. In my case I purchased a new ssd seconday drive as well as 64 GB of RAM which perhaps was not entirely necessary…

Cheers,
Magnus

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Really a gig file larger than 8 GB?
You mean memory usage more then 8GB ?

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I can’t speak to having a mouse and keyboard attached, but in my live rig, I have four keyboard controllers, a MIDI pedalboard, my audio interface (RME), occasionally a control surface, all connected to my laptop via a powered USB hub. Never had an issue.

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Yes, memory usage. Loading the entire gig file took a long time (several minutes) often with a crash during the process. When using predictive loading I had frequent crashes when cwitching from one rackspace to another. Log files indicated some specific plugins caused the crashes (although not the same each time). I suppose due to problems reading from virtual memory, since changing the location of the swap file to the ssd removed the crashes. A bit hard to know exactly, since I also swapped the hdd for another ssd and increased the RAM. With the page file on the ssd made a huge difference in both loading time and stability

Mine is also usb2 i guess, which may be a big difference compared with usb c

There should be no coincidence, we recommend that in our troubleshooting tips! :slight_smile:
Link: [blog] Tips to troubleshoot your computer based setup

We have a guide for that as well: Page file settings

Yes, here is our free e-book! :slight_smile:
Link: FREE e-book by Deskew - Optimize your Windows PC for the stage!

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Thanks Nemanja,
cant say im surprised you already had a guide on these issues!

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No difference between one or the other for the use of controllers.
However, the most important thing about the hub is its power supply, which must be greater than the sum of the currents of all the connected devices.

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But for the usb audio interface? Should be plenty more data to transfer… At least for me, the usb hub seemed to be a bottleneck or at least causing the dropouts. And it has its own power source.

An audio interfca does not transfer data, it converts analog to digital signals and vice versa.

Have you checked its power rating? i.e. mine are 5 VA.
And have you tried another hub to see if the problem was there ?

I have not checked the power rating on the hub, i know that it is a cheap one though. Also have not tested a second hub, but connecting the audio interface directly to the computer instead of through the hub solved the problem, so I’m pretty sure that the hub has something to do with the issue.

What i mean is that there should be plenty of digital information sent between the computer and the audio interface through usb (sound generated in the computer must be sent as digital information to yhe interface through usb). This audio nformation should be lots more than the midi signals from the controllers.

USB 2.0 is specified to transport data at a maximal bandwidth of 480Mbit/s (USB 3.0 = 5Gbit/s)
USB - Wikipedia

So even if you are running a multichannel audio signal of 32 channels at 48kHz and 24 bit you only get a total of 32 x 48000 x 24 = 37Mbit/s which is less than than a 1/10th of the max. specification of a USB2.0 connection.
Understanding sample rates in digital audio - RouteNote Blog

This would imply that a simple stereo signal (or maybe some channels more) should be properly handled by any USB-Device… don’t worry too much about bandwidth issues if you are not using really extreme values.

Things to actually worry about are: the power supply of USB devices and the buffer size of the audio interface/driver

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