Crackles and Sizzle! Anyone using a DAW will at some time or another experience a particular glitching noise when playing back and/or recording. It sounds like a low volume intermittent crackling or sizzling. Some describe it as a kind of ‘static’. If you’ve not experienced it, congratulations, you can ignore what follows! (Check back later if you ever fall victim to it though!)
Yes, I’ve experienced it and that’s why I’ve written this section in case it can give you any clues as to how you might go about resolving it.
Tracking down the source of a noise like this can be incredibly difficult and extremely frustrating. The first places to look are the obvious ones: power supply issues, and faulty cables, dry joints, plugs, etc. in the connections between all your equipment components. If you’ve done that and still have crackles then it’s highly likely it’s digital in nature and I’m afraid you’ve got a challenge on your hands.
Caveats:
- I use a PC with Windows 7 and not a Mac, so the checklist reflects this.
- I’m not a techy when it comes to computers so I can’t add a lot of why’s and wherefore’s to what follows, so treat it as a check list to help your own research into possible solutions.
- As there are numerous possible causes for the same noise, a lot of the following will not be applicable to all setups, so the way to proceed is to try some of the steps, (making a note of what you did so you can reverse it if necessary as there’s a slight possibility some of the steps below could make things worse depending on your particular equipment and configurations).
Things to Check:
- DAW software buffers: try setting lower and then higher audio buffer sizes. Low=low latency, too low=audio problems.
- DAW software drivers: In Sonar there’s a choice between WDM and ASIO. I used to get better results with the WDM driver when I used M-Audio interfaces, but I now use ASIO because that’s what me Saffire Pro 14 interface stipulates. If you’ve got crackles, try a different driver from the one you currently use, if your DAW software has a choice. Important: do a cold boot afterwards, not just an exit and reload of your DAW software.
- DAW software hard disk I/O settings: - experiment with higher or lower ones (don’t forget to keep a note or screen dump of your original settings).
- Internet: try disconnecting the Internet from your DAW computer if you have it connected. Don’t just pull out the plug: you must disable the network adapter by right clicking on it in Control Panel/Hardware/Devices and choosing Properties.
- USB ports: if you have a large number of USB ports in use try disconnecting as many as you’re able to, i.e. the non-music related ones.
- Interface Drivers: make sure you have the latest drivers installed for your audio interface.
- Defragmenting: defrag your hard disks often, especially with Windows XP. It may be ok to have a Word file spread across your hard disk but audio files benefit from being more ordered.
- BIOS version: make sure you have the latest motherboard BIOS version installed.
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