DAW? Crunchy or Creamy?

[Elwood]

Stand back, here comes another dumb one...(I don't remember this happening in Reaper, not really relevant, just an observation.)

I am working on one of those "nut soup" deals in S1.
I have drum track thanks to EZ (I have the track as an audio track now with the instrument unloaded)
I have one tele track so far
I have one bass track
I have one vocal track
I sure would like another guitar track BUT here's the deal...

In S1 my recording sounds crunchy, Crackles, random noise, you can still hear the playing but it is way compromised.
If I export it and listen to the MP3 it sounds "creamy", OK.

I know this opens the possibilities, clipping? FM? Effect overload (same as clipping?)
I tough I'd best ask while I ponder this.

I think my machine is OK an i7 4790 running @ 4Ghz with 16GB ram, win10.

This made me think of a thread a while back about standing while playing. I talked about "forced adaptation'. Well, I plan to make S1 work. There may be more dumb questions. I can't make it work by going back to Reaper.

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Edit /// Maybe my plug in zeal drove my gain into clipping. I went in and did some surgical volume control on some high spots and now the comp seems to do better and the "crunchy" seems to be on the run.

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Edit Edit //// its back. As soon as I add a second tele track. Maybe I'll render what I have to MP3 and then try to add tracks to that. Works in the VJR right? Right!

 

[CaptainMoto]

Hmmm,
This is one of those situations where It might become apparent if I could be in your DAW.

Bad News Good News:
-I can't help without more info
-I'm sure it's easy


When you say you want to add a second tele track, are you duplicating the one that's there or creating a new track and playing new stuff?

 

[PapaRaptor]

Is it there on playback or only on renders?
I have no idea what you have for plug-ins or effects, but you can see how your CPU is handling it by keeping and eye on this portion of your screen.

With an i7 and 16 gigs of RAM, you shouldn't have an issue.
If you have done any extensive editing of your tracks, you might save the .song file and then Bounce any tracks that are heavily modified. (Highlight any and all events within a single track and press CTRL + B. It will render that individual track into a "finished product" and greatly reduce any CPU loading you might encounter.

Do a WAV render and a MP3 render and upload them both to Dropbox. We might get a clue from that.

 

[dvs]

What's your buffer setting? I can get sounds like you described if I let the buffer (aka block size?) be too small. Easy for me to do since my computer is powered by rubber bands and has about 7 transistors, but even with an i7 I think it's possible to set it too small.

 

[Elwood]

Fried brain guys. I will take a look at all your suggestions at length tomorrow. for now,
Moto, I'm working on another chapel ceiling, a whole new tele track and there could be more. That's all I have for e-guitars.
Papa, Here is one key. It is only occurring when the session is "live". As far as I can tell if I "export" the result is OK. I stumbled onto bouncing, it looks way better, nice to know it unloads the processor too!
DVS, my buffer setting is unknown at this time. I have been messing with it. Another phenomenon is when I add my second tele track I get major latency. So I diddle with the buffer trying to tame the latency with marginal success. This was not a problem with the previous three tracks. I guess this means I have two indicators that point to buffer size but no joy so far. And, I hadn't messed with it before this came up.

If I don't lick this I will post up some files tomorrow. Thanks!!!!!!!!!

So Steve, let's talk about what you did between making those tracks.....

 

[CaptainMoto]

I'm still perplexed by your problem.
Perhaps these steps will either solve the problem or at least, help identify the problem track.

Try this:
-Mute all tracks
-Unmute the new guitar track that is causing the problem (you should now hear only that track)

A. If you hear the problem with that track
-Closely examine the track settings compared to the original track that works.
-Look at the input, plugins gain...etc.
-If you can identify something that's different, make it the same as the original track
-Alternately, delete the new track
-Go to the original track, right click and select Duplicate Track (do not select duplicate complete)
-Now you have a duplicate track with all the same settings but no content.
-Try recording new content

B. If you don't hear the problem with the new track playing by itself.
-Start unmuting each of the other tracks to see if there is some sort of conflict.
-Begin by playing the new track and unmuting the original guitar track first, then continue unmuting the other tracks until the problem occurs

Perhaps this will help narrow the problem down.

 

[Elwood]

Moto, My brain shook me from sleep this morning with this thing, aarrrggghhh! I have been watching and reading, listening, thinking, hmmmm..

I just got done with a 15 tips vid, I think #15 may have the clue. "Add plug ins after you get all the tracks down". My process flow may be the culprit. I'll run your list (always try to) along with Doug's and Papa's. There was another regarding corrupt or incompatible 3rd party plugins, hmmm....
I do believe I will just start over and go carefully, )

One thing I saw, it looks like the pro version has a low latency button on the master track. Since I now know my master track is either in my head or in Reaper I guess I'm out of luck on that.

That Master track thing, or lack of it, is THE main negative thing I see with S1 artist so far. If I ever get enough track together to try to finish up I'll worry that then.

I'll sure share what I find, when I find. I just hope it's not more FM! I like to understand, at least enough so I'm not at the mercy of the problem's whim.

I appreciate all the help!!! Keeps me aaaaarrrgggghhhhing and hmmming!

 

[PapaRaptor]

That Master track thing, or lack of it, is THE main negative thing I see with S1 artist so far. If I ever get enough track together to try to finish up I'll worry that then.

I'm not familiar with Reaper, so if you would tutor me, what is it that a Master Track does in Reaper?
Or, asked a different way, what is it that you expect a Master Track to do?

 

[dvs]

https://support.presonus.com/hc/en-...Optimizing-Your-Computer-for-Audio-Windows-10

This was very helpful to me. I made most or all EDIT: many of the suggested settings changes (but I left the firewall in place - I didn't make any major changes to system security, in fact), and it worked wonders on my system.

EDIT: Changing the process priorities (one of the first things they talk about) seemed to have a big effect.

 

[PapaRaptor]

Edit Edit //// its back. As soon as I add a second tele track. Maybe I'll render what I have to MP3 and then try to add tracks to that. Works in the VJR right? Right!

NOOOO!

What you have recorded doesn't sound like you should be having any processing power problems.
Can you do a screen snapshot of what you have going on and post it?

Also... on your first S1 screen, where you see Setup and (hopefully) your 68c audio device, click on the Device Name. It should take you to an Options screen with the Audio Setup section highlighted.
Below that are two tabs, Audio Device and Processing.
On Audio Device, what are your settings?
Device Block Size?
Sample Rate?
Input Latency?
Output Latency?

On the Processing tab:
Dropout Protection?
Process Block Size?
Process Precision?
and what are your Monitoring Latencies?
Audio Roundtrip?
Instrument?

 

[Elwood]

This was very helpful to me. I made most or all of the suggested settings changes, and it worked wonders on my system.

Doug, Do you run a dedicated, off line, machine for your DAW? I still share my desktop tasks with the more mundane PC stuff. After having a terrible experience with malware on my Wife's machine I goosed up my at home security to "work" levels. I will go through this list and try to embrace what I can and still have a flexible work platform.
Thanks! You guys are great!

 

[Elwood]

Papa I love the loud clear NOOOO!

I am going to run my daily drills before I lose all day to this again. Just quickly
I have the right picture of my interface
Audio Dev tab/ the DevBlk size drive the Latency values all over town.
Ex: D=16 L= 1.81ms if D=256 L= 5.33 and @ D=2048 L= 43

The processing tab was encouraging. When I diddled with the dropout protection (was set to min) and set it to medium, my low latency option came active!!! YES! You asked why I was fixated on a Master track. Hell I don't know. What brought it up this time is that low latency Z showed up on the master track in the tutorial I was watching. It was not to be found on my screen. Now that I have LOw latency going in the processing tab it shows up on my screen, not in the master track but over by the channel mixers.

I go practice for a while while I digest this. I believe (with nothing to support it so far) that you guys have brought some things to light that might cause my problem to go away. I will share my success or frustration, with necessary screen shots, after I go figure out if I can get a few K of clear notes out of something.

 

[PapaRaptor]

I go practice for a while while I digest this. I believe (with nothing to support it so far) that you guys have brought some things to light that might cause my problem to go away. I will share my success or frustration, with necessary screen shots, after I go figure out if I can get a few K of clear notes out of something.

Cool!
I've spent most of the afternoon setting up to be able to quickly do videos and (HORRORS!) maybe even Livestreams. It's still relatively crude, but so am I.... so I got that going for me. I think I have found my latest rabbit hole.

 

[Elwood]

And I just realized another "new frontier" I have embarked upon. Using the DAW and headphones instead of a real amp. I just betcha this is driving, at least part, of my problem.
I don't know what I'm doing. I will though.
I assumed that with the virtual amp you just add and tweak until it sounds nice and then record. If adding effects (is a virtual amp more of an effect or an instrument, and does it matter anyway?) during recording causes problems, another hmmmmm.
Maybe I try to put the least amount of stuff on the instrument while recording, enough to hear, and then goose it up later. This will not help with the good time feeling much though.
I'm not mad at me amps or anything. It just seems these virtual gizmos might be easier to control than real amps, in the recording situation. So far, my experience does not hold this to be true.

I'm gonna jump back in.

 

[dvs]

Doug, Do you run a dedicated, off line, machine for your DAW? I still share my desktop tasks with the more mundane PC stuff. After having a terrible experience with malware on my Wife's machine I goosed up my at home security to "work" levels. I will go through this list and try to embrace what I can and still have a flexible work platform.
Thanks! You guys are great!

Actually, I didn't make changes to security levels (my post was misleading, because I am forgetful; I should have reread the article before I posted it - I edited my post a little bit to be more accurate). But I'm always on-line and not running stand-alone. I did a lot of testing once to make sure nobody could get or see past our router (we have DSL and it's firewalled) and that seemed to be ok. All the machines on our network are running Windows Defender. But within our LAN there're not many restrictions on who can do what to whom. When I'm running S1 I shut down google drive (called Backup and Restore now, I think) and instant messaging (which I only use to talk to my wife, in her office downstairs from me), but those are more for performance concerns, not security. I spent a lot of time and effort exorcising OneDrive from our machines when I set each of them up, so that was never an issue.

This article was also interesting -
https://support.presonus.com/hc/en-...-overcoming-high-CPU-problems-on-your-system-

 

[PapaRaptor]

And I just realized another "new frontier" I have embarked upon. Using the DAW and headphones instead of a real amp. I just betcha this is driving, at least part, of my problem.
I don't know what I'm doing. I will though.

Actually, it's like any other rabbit hole. The more you know, the more you'll realize how much you don't know. The idea of a learning curve is more like a never ending stairway.

I assumed that with the virtual amp you just add and tweak until it sounds nice and then record. If adding effects (is a virtual amp more of an effect or an instrument, and does it matter anyway?) during recording causes problems, another hmmmmm.

It doesn't matter.

Maybe I try to put the least amount of stuff on the instrument while recording, enough to hear, and then goose it up later. This will not help with the good time feeling much though.
I'm not mad at me amps or anything. It just seems these virtual gizmos might be easier to control than real amps, in the recording situation. So far, my experience does not hold this to be true.

I think you're dealing with some early learning pains. It will get better!

 

[Elwood]

On the Processing tab:

This may have been the key. Once I was able to invoke the low latency mode Things went well.

Tomorrow.

 

[Elwood]

One last kick to the old dead horse. These are wise words from PreSonus..

"If you want to use Native Low-Latency Monitoring, choose a Dropout Protection level that sets the Process Block Size to a value that is higher the the Device Block Size you have selected."

That is how to keep the low latency mode running, which for me cured all.