Pops and Clicks - Cubase on a PC

[Mark Kaufman]

I'm running Cubase SX through a Presonus Firebox on a PC with Windows XP...dual core processor, blahblahblah.Here's the question:On two of my Cubase projects, I hear a lot of pops and clicks in the Cubase file...but when I export it to WAV, they are gone. One file has a kabillion tracks and effects...the other one, really not many of either.So, for now, I've just pretended to ignore it. But does anyone know what I should do about it? Is it an issue with latency settings, or simply that I need more of something on my computer (RAM, drive space, etc).Thanks for your thoughts!-Mark

[mazz]

Pops and clicks could be caused by a loss of clock sync, although with one box only (Firebox) I can't imagine that this would be the case.Are you using Firewire drives? Sometimes sharing the Firewire buss with an audio box and hard drives can cause this issue as well.You might want to check your latency settings as well. When you are mixing, it's often a good practice to increase the latency because you're not monitoring live inputs anymore so you'll never notice 1048 samples or more of latency. This will take the load off of your CPU and that might get rid of the clicks.Since you're not hearing it on your exported files, it's not on a track, it's a system problem. I'm not a Cubase/PC guy but this seems more like a digital audio problem and not a specific issue with software.Just some speculation.Mazz

[Mark Kaufman]

Thanks Mazz...I'll check those things out. It's odd that it only affects two of the files so far, and one with not much going on.

[ggalen]

Mark,Sometimes that happens to me on XP with Sonar.I have to reboot and then it goes away. Not sure why it happens.

[devin]

Hey Mark, please keep us posted....I remember some clicks really early on with Cubase, but somehow I solved it...I'll stare at the settings tonight and see if it comes back to me.

[bluntbeats314]

I've got cubase myself & I don't use it much mainly because when I add a pad or something that's rich sounding it cracks much like what your describing. try freezing whatever pad or atmospheric sound you have & see if that does the trick-if it does you can adjust your audio card setting but the latency will throw you off a bit when you start working again. hope this helps

[matto]

Usually when there a pops and clicks in Cubase on playback which are not in the exported files, it's due to CPU overload, meaning you have too much stuff going on for the processor to handle it. Look at the CPU meter on the Cubase transposrt bar and see what it's doing to see if this is the case.You may be able make it go away by raising the latency as mazz described. Or of course by freezing one or two of the most CPU intensive tracks.I'm not sure what's happening with the songs that has "little going on". I have noticed that sometimes, but only occasionally, when I use a certain plugin (Kontakt 2 Player), it kind of "locks up" and produces lots of clicks. When I click on "restart engine" on the plug-in it goes away. So it IS possible that you are using a certain plugin or even preset within a plugin in that particular song, that somehow "has a problem".Again, if you can figure out which track is causing the problem, and freeze or render it, it should go away.HTH,matto

[Mark Kaufman]

Matto, it very well may be due to a single plug-in...and to be a namedropper, I suspect the Blockfish compression plug-in. I'll know later when I look into it at home. Thanks to all for the help and comments...even those who are just listening in, it's nice to know I'm not the only one dealing with the issue. I've never noticed the CPU meter! Time to do some more homework...but just jumping in and recording is irresistible.

[bluntbeats314]

lol! yeah cubase is a monster on cpu usage which you'll notice more when you're mixing a particular sound or adding more emotion to the music. F2 will become your shortcut of choice real quick when you start bouncing back between those screens and checking those little green meters on the left. took me a while but a learned some valuable things in cubase-it just kills my cpu so i'm holding off on it until i get a more capable machine.

[dankityd]

The CPU meter will not necessarily tell you everything that's going on with your audio driver. These latency/buffer related issues typically have more to do with the driver for your interface than they do with Cubase or any particular plugin. On your Firebox control panel or whatever little settings menu they give you, just play with the buffer settings. Bigger buffer means more latency but less strain on the CPU. I try to keep the buffer large unless I'm monitoring audio from a guitar amp simulator or a VST instrument. Then you'll need low latency. But if you do this early on in your project when there's fewer plugins running, you shouldn't hear too many clicks. Minimize redundant effect usage (e.g. don't run reverbs on every channel, use a send).Also make sure that you disable background applications, especially the ones that typically load at startup and run in the tray at the bottom corner of the taskbar. A lean mean music machine shouldn't have any of that kind of thing. I wish computers didn't come pre-loaded with so much of it. This alone will get you back so much of your lost memory and processor resources.Also your windows performance settings should favor "background services" over "applications." This seems counter-intuitive but ASIO is actually a background service, at least in XP. Maybe that doesn't apply to Vista.