Crackling. . .lots of it!

[Alison]

There is a whole lot of crackling going on in my headphones!! I've gone to YouTube videos to try and sort it out but nothing is working. Wondering if maybe @Tadpui can help me out!? I've tried increasing the buffer size as well as anticipative FX processing (as recommended in one video) but that's not helping. I'm hoping there is an easy solution to this!!

[Armistice]

Is it just in your headphones? Or is it in your monitors as well?

[Alison]

Is it just in your headphones? Or is it in your monitors as well?

Not too sure it's my headphones cause I tried recording over it and it's in the playback. It started to occur when I was trying to fix some latency problems (again!). I did manage to get rid of the crackles (don't ask me how!) but now I still have latency problems. . .I have the block size up to 220 and it is better but not quite there! Yet another pull-out my hair moment!

[Armistice]

One thing that I do all the time - probably not what you're having problems with, but file it under "Useful in future" - is when I record a track, put a plug in or two on it, in particular reverb, then later decide I don't like this or that bit of the track and erase the bit that annoys me, and then try to rerecord it in place with the plug ins on, and crackling crackling crackling - WTF is that? Gets me every time. Oh yeah, don't DO that...record on another track and move it into place

[Alison]

One thing that I do all the time - probably not what you're having problems with, but file it under "Useful in future" - is when I record a track, put a plug in or two on it, in particular reverb, then later decide I don't like this or that bit of the track and erase the bit that annoys me, and then try to rerecord it in place with the plug ins on, and crackling crackling crackling - WTF is that? Gets me every time. Oh yeah, don't DO that...record on another track and move it into place

Ah, very useful information! Thank you!

[Tadpui]

It can be a little tough to track down the cause of audio crackling sometimes. It sounds like your buffer size is at a good size, although it should be able to handle down to 128 or 64 samples in the buffer depending on how beefy your computer is. But 220 should still be acceptable performance vs. latency. You might want to keep it at a power of 2 (like 256 instead of 220) and see if that helps.

First thing I'd try is a reboot. I've had a couple of Windows updates come through on my machine this week, and the only time that Windows gets weird on me is after it has downloaded a new update but is pending a reboot before it can complete the installation. Usually I'm free from crackling, but if it ever happens, that's when it does.

If you've got a lot of plugins going (like a reverb on every track or something like that) then that can put undue strain on your CPU and cause crackling issues. You can try to render/freeze a few tracks to see if the crackling goes away. Or even just try muting tracks one by one to see if it's a resource issue.

It could be an application or some other process running on the computer that's causing issues. Double check that everything other than Reaper is shut down, and take a look at the notification area (lower right corner next to the clock) and hover over each one of those icons to decide if any of those background processes can be shut down.

You can watch Task Manager to see if the CPU, memory, or disk are under a heavy load for some reason. And if nothing obvious is burdening the computer, you can try running LatencyMon (a freebie download) for a few minutes as you record/playback and see if it points to any particular drivers that are causing the issues.

[Tadpui]

One thing that I do all the time - probably not what you're having problems with, but file it under "Useful in future" - is when I record a track, put a plug in or two on it, in particular reverb, then later decide I don't like this or that bit of the track and erase the bit that annoys me, and then try to rerecord it in place with the plug ins on, and crackling crackling crackling - WTF is that? Gets me every time. Oh yeah, don't DO that...record on another track and move it into place

That doesn't sound right. Didn't you get a new machine not too long ago? Or are you still on that older server machine? I've never had issues punching in/out on a track with plugins on it, I do it all the time. That makes me raise an eyebrow that you'd get crackling when punching in on a track that's running a reverb.

I guess I never (or rarely) run a reverb directly on a track though. I've usually got it on its own track and use a send from an audio track. Maybe I've never had to punch in on a track that's running a reverb as an insert...I'll have to play with it and see.

[rayc]

I'd suggest, (amongst all the very good stuff mentioned), turning off all VSTs while tracking. Reaper often suggests using a different latency settings for play back and recording. Additionally, try tracking with only the essentials playing. I often track with just bass & drums so I can focus on timing and that sort of thing uses precious little CPU.
Finally - you could render the entire track, pop it into a new project and do your new parts along with that and then drag them into the original project.
Bon Chance.

[Armistice]

One thing that I do all the time - probably not what you're having problems with, but file it under "Useful in future" - is when I record a track, put a plug in or two on it, in particular reverb, then later decide I don't like this or that bit of the track and erase the bit that annoys me, and then try to rerecord it in place with the plug ins on, and crackling crackling crackling - WTF is that? Gets me every time. Oh yeah, don't DO that...record on another track and move it into place

That doesn't sound right. Didn't you get a new machine not too long ago? Or are you still on that older server machine? I've never had issues punching in/out on a track with plugins on it, I do it all the time. That makes me raise an eyebrow that you'd get crackling when punching in on a track that's running a reverb.

I guess I never (or rarely) run a reverb directly on a track though. I've usually got it on its own track and use a send from an audio track. Maybe I've never had to punch in on a track that's running a reverb as an insert...I'll have to play with it and see.

I think it's to do with the fact that I'm tracking on a track which has an active reverb send on it as well. It's always been that way. Same machine as always, and it never breaks a sweat in normal recording.

[Armistice]

Why I'm still running Windows 7, incidentally. Windows upgrades...

At some point I'll get a new machine entirely and "archive" the old one, rather than attempt to get Windows 7 to Windows 11 AND upgrade all the drivers and other software. At this point I can still do everything I need on Win 7.

[Alison]

You all never fail me! So much good advice! I'm packing it in for today (had enough hair-pulling) and will be back at it tomorrow. I'll definitely keep you posted as to how things are going. THANK YOU!!

[CeeBee]

When I saw the title I thought it was going to be a recipe for Roast Pork, crackling lots of it, yummy

[vomitHatSteve]

I thought that was spelled "cracklins"

[Greg_L]

I thought that was spelled "cracklins"

It is, and it's not "roast pork" either.

[vomitHatSteve]

I thought that was spelled "cracklins"

It is, and it's not "roast pork" either.

Still counts as "pork" right? Just deep fried pork.

I've always wondered what happens to the hair. Do they shave pigs before cracklin' them?

[Greg_L]

Still counts as "pork" right? Just deep fried pork.

I've always wondered what happens to the hair. Do they shave pigs before cracklin' them?

It's not really the skin.

[CeeBee]

On this side of the pond we still call it crackling

[Armistice]

I don't think you're talking about the same thing...

[vomitHatSteve]

Still counts as "pork" right? Just deep fried pork.

I've always wondered what happens to the hair. Do they shave pigs before cracklin' them?

It's not really the skin.

Really? I was pretty sure that it is
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pork_rind

[Greg_L]

Really? I was pretty sure that it is
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pork_rind

"Pork rinds" is skin. Cracklins is more like the underlayers. Meat, fat, a little skin, all rendered down. Cracklins and Pork Rinds are not exactly the same.