What do I need to stop the popping noises?

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caelans

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Hi,

I started producing with FL Studio last year, and my PC has slowly been struggling more and more to play back without buzzing, pops and sometimes straight up lock ups, repeating the same sound, for about a second or so.

There were about 60 mixer channels in use on my last track, and the popping sounds happened occasionally, but I could deal with it. However my most recent track has 78, and it's become almost impossible to work on, constant popping and crackling noises making it exceedingly difficult to hear subtle drum sounds and other details.

My PC is specced accordingly:
- i7 7700k
- 16GB DDR4
- Gigabyte Z170-Gaming K3-CF

I am using ASIO4All. Even with the ASIO buffer size at maximum, and latency up to an unusable 48 ms, it still pops and crackles, just not as frequently. Average load (according to FL's meter) is 80-90%

I use synths a lot, and I use effects a lot, there are a few hundred of them, and also compressors, limiters, EQs etc. There are also some recorded sounds, other than drum sounds. To give you can idea of the kind of workload.

Now, from what I've been able to find out about how sound cards work, I can't see how they can improve the performance in my situation, since all the effects I'd have thought would be CPU based. Graphics operations can use the GPU for better performance, but then they also need a low-level graphics-specific instruction set for it. But from what I know about how sound works at the low level, you just feed data into a buffer using some API provided by a driver, and the sound card converts that into an electrical signal, amplifies it and outputs it.

I've never heard of a low level Open GL equivalent for sound, with an instruction set for sound specific processing.

But I'm probably wrong and there is something like that.

Just so I'm sure, I'd like to hear a more experienced perspective, do I need more CPU power or a better sound card?

I'd be very grateful of any advice here.

Thanks in advance
 
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You may need neither. Commit to some sounds, instead of asking your computer to constantly process virtual effects. Freeze some tracks. Convert any MIDI that is already a permanent/fully-formed part to audio. In other words, make effects and MIDI into audio and stop asking your computer to process so much at once. Once you render a few tracks rather than constantly drawing CPU, I'll wager your glitching will disappear. Also, consolidate-- do you _really_ need 78 tracks, or can you manage your mix better and get the track count down some? "Technically"/Theoretically, computers can handle "unlimited virtual tracks," but in actual practice, not so much. Uncloud your computer's brain, and let us know how it goes...

GJ
 
You may need neither. Commit to some sounds, instead of asking your computer to constantly process virtual effects. Freeze some tracks. Convert any MIDI that is already a permanent/fully-formed part to audio. In other words, make effects and MIDI into audio and stop asking your computer to process so much at once. Once you render a few tracks rather than constantly drawing CPU, I'll wager your glitching will disappear.

GJ

That's an idea, and I guess I can save copies of the file in case I want to go back a make changes, could get a little awkward, but if that's really what I have to do then so be it.

Although, before I commit to that, I'm gonna wait and see if anybody else chimes in.


Also, consolidate-- do you _really_ need 78 tracks, or can you manage your mix better and get the track count down some? "Technically"/Theoretically, computers can handle "unlimited virtual tracks," but in actual practice, not so much. Uncloud your computer's brain, and let us know how it goes...

GJ

Yes, I have separate drum machines for each drum sound, so I can process each sound to get them perfect in the mix.

And I use a lot of synths, and I manipulate the sound with layers of effects, eq's and compressors to make trippy psychedelic sounds, inspired by the likes of Shpongle and Ott, if you've ever heard of them.

Some instruments need two mixer channels as 10 effects slots are not enough.

And I've also got four channels for different kinds of sounds (Drum sounds, Bassy sounds, synth sounds, and other misc weird noises which fall into no particular category) with limiters tuned for each category to get a flatter overall waveform.

I really can't see a way of merging channels together.


Though I must say, thank you very much for providing a potential solution, but as I said I'm gonna wait to see if anybody who knows their hardware can advise me in this respect. I'd like to keep the convenience of being able to edit every sound on the fly easily, if I can.
 
I can virtually guarantee that what I described is your problem. Especially after you added the additional details. You cannot have unlimited tracks and unlimited effects and processing.

But let's see if anyone brings in a different perspective..........

GJ
 
I can virtually guarantee that what I described is your problem. Especially after you added the additional details. You cannot have unlimited tracks and unlimited effects and processing.

GJ

I get that the CPU/sound-card is being overloaded. It is trying to process more than it is capable of playing in real-time, causing lags, stutters and pops etc.

And I get that I cannot have unlimited mixer channels. In fact FL seems to have a max of 103.

However, that does not mean that it is not possible to play it all in real-time. Something clearly isn't powerful enough to sustain the workload, adding more power, such that it is capable of processing more in real-time, will fix the problem. There is no fundamental, inherent limit to the number of concurrent sounds a computer can generate - performance scales linearly. It's just a matter of having enough processing power to accommodate the workload.

Have you ever a game that won't run at a playable frame rate at max settings on your PC? Upgrade it. Problem solved. The same principle applies to this.

However, the point that I am not clear on, is whether it is the CPU or the sound card that is causing the bottleneck here.

More specifically, I am not sure whether the sound processing unit on a sound card contributes to the processing of effects. Therefore, I am not sure of whether it is the CPU or the sound card that I need to upgrade.

Logic would say it would via the name of the component, however, as I said, from what I know about how sound works at the low level in software, is that you feed data representing the waveform of the audio into a buffer in memory via some API provided by the audio driver (or operating system).

From that understanding, it doesn't look like the sound card is actually helping, because you're feeding it a pre-generated waveform, implying the processing was done before being fed into the buffer. But I may be wrong.

I'm willing to upgrade my computer to play it in real-time, but I want to be sure exactly what it is in my system I need to upgrade before I commit to a purchase.
 
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Did some more searching, tried some different terms, found an answer. Can't post link apparently as I don't meet the minimum requirement of five posts.

The general consensus there is that the sound card does not contribute in any meaningful way to the computers ability to generate more concurrent sounds.

Your method, of freezing tracks was also suggested.

Looks like that's what I'm gonna have do to for now. Now to find out of a decent 10-core Xeon will improve my situation. (edit) for the price their going for, probs not for a while.
 
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How come you started producing in FL studio since last year and have 60 or 70 tracks and don't know how to use a DAW properly?? I think you are a bad liar or you just don't know what you are doing. But for all other users that have similar issues, try to lower the quality of sound in synthesizers in options menu, then go for "Store in spare state" or something similar on mixer channels, so that your channels become exported to wav and don't eat up your CPU.

Cheers,

Emedee
 
Emedee-- We have a winner! (But perhaps a little more tact is in order?)

Caelens-- You certainly are free to spend more money if you want to. Totally unnecessary if you could just live with a manageable work-flow approach.

Topic closed due to non-issue ("Why ask a question if you already know all of the answers?"... That was a rhetorical question, btw).

GJ
 
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