Audio glitches on my interface

L

ledones

New member
Hi there,

I have the old but gold M-Audio Fast Track Pro and was working fine, but since some weeks ago something strange is happening here.

I'm using Sonar and when I open some VST like Kontakt, Omnisphere, EZDrummer, or I'm trying to record my guitar, the audio glitches a lot, creating distortion, but the most surprise is when I export and the sound is fine. Also, the interface have the knob of mix, to listen the clean tone of the guitar plugged or the sound from the DAW, and curiosly when I set the mix to the guitar only, not using the DAW, the sound is clean too.

But I was able to record the audio of the glitch, which you can listen in the link below (Please, turn down your volume). If anyone could help me, I'll be appreciate! If you need more information, just ask me!

Cheers

drive.google*com/file/d/1h1bvhRuv5EZtuf1gznUFJITdKU_aaSbb/view
 
It's almost always a resource problem when you hear problems with the sound from the DAW in realtime but it does not do that when bouncing, i.e., it has time to move the data through the VSTs and process it for export.

Sometimes you can tinker with the buffer size setting in the DAW or interface software, possibly, but frequently, you'll need to figure out what is eating the reasources, especially if this is new behavior and nothing else has changed. Perhaps an OS update, or new background application is now taking up too much CPU or memory. Do the usual system cleanup, shutting down unnecessary apps, A/V, etc. and see if that helps. Also, toggle on/off VSTs one by one to see if one of those is causing a problem. If you need the VSTs, you can usually freeze the tracks or even bounce them in place, disabling the originals until you're past this point. Routing tracks that share a common VST to a bus/aux and putting it there can also help.
 
I made a test using my mother's notebook. I just installed ASIO and Sonar, nothing else, and the same issue appears. After this clean installation, I'm guess the interface is almost dead, right?
 
I doubt the interface is dead. Probably just the buffer settings as Keith mentioned. The use of a VST in realtime could demand a lot from your processor. I'm guessing you have a guitar sim plug running. Disable it and record the guitar clean. See if that alleviates the glitches. Change the stream buffer to a higher number of samples.
 
If the sound is Ok when you export, you know that the A/D part of the interface is working. So, if it's only on playback within the DAW, it still sounds like it could be a software problem in the DAW. Just to put it another way, if you play a digitial audio file back from the computer and listen to it on your interface, that suggests the interface D/A path and cabling are actually Ok.

Not saying it can't be hardware, but you haven't ruled out software yet. Does it do the same thing with Audacity? Can you export the recording from Audacity and it's Ok as well?

P.S. Not sure how you made that sound file in the first post but it's totally clipping at the beginning. Is the sound you are talking about that part in the 2nd half? Try changing all the cables and power supply?
 
So, now I connect the guitar here and open the option "recording devices" on Windows tray and checked the "listen device" option. I don't know if these terms are right, because here's in portuguese, but I guess you understood, right? The sound works fine. Also, I'm recording via Audacity and it's working fine too, to export and to listen. Ah, right now I'm using the soundcard of my mobo, and not the interface to listen everything.

After that, I changed the main out audio to the interface on Windows tray and the result is the same of the audio. Noises and more noises. But, the audio from Foobar, and others programs worked fine.

It's really confuse, because playing anything from the PC worked fine, but using the DAW or plugging the guitar, this noises appears. Really anoying.

Any thoughts? haha
 
Updating.

I restared the PC and I'm doing everything again to make sure, and for my surprise now even the first step, that worked, plugged the guitar on the interface and listening via mobo is wrong. Small noises, but the most stranger thing is this time the audio changed to 1/2 step up tuning.

Here's the video. I had to record it hahahaha

 
To me, this sounds like you've got a plugin with some delay being introduced - possibly some other source of latency involved, too.

It's not distortion.

_____________

Note: This is in response to the previous video, not the OP with actual distortion.
 
Last edited:
spantini said:
To me, this sounds like you've got a plugin with some delay being introduced - possibly some other source of latency involved, too.

It's not distortion.
Click to expand...

...and the pitch is up higher by a tone. Sample rate mismatch somewhere? Daw + hardware disagreeing, somehow?
 
If you watch the video, you can see that I'm not using any program with the interface, just did the Windows tray thing. So it's impossible to be a plugin or the sample rate doesn't match with the DAW. And this is happening with or without ASIO.

These are the configurations of the video. Just it.

Sem título.png
 
I'm confused about why you have the M-Audio as the input device but not the output device.

But, I'm guessing a driver problem. The pitch shift suggests a sampling rate discrepancy between the project settings and the interface settings.

Please uninstall the drivers, and download the correct, latest drivers from the M-Audio site for the interface and OS (which I still don't know!).

It's been several years since I had my M-Audio interface, but you set the sample rate (IIRC) from the M-Audio control panel. Then, the project settings in whatever DAW you are using, i.e., what you are recording with, must be the same, of course. Both input/output should almost always route through the same interface/soundcard, but I understand you are trying to record audio and maybe you don't have monitor speakers attached to the M-Audio?

The Windows settings aren't that applicable, except to show your input and output are not the same device. Settings which affect the pitch are in the device and its driver/app and DAW.
 
keith.rogers said:
I'm confused about why you have the M-Audio as the input device but not the output device.
Click to expand...

Just for the video test.

keith.rogers said:
But, I'm guessing a driver problem. The pitch shift suggests a sampling rate discrepancy between the project settings and the interface settings.
Click to expand...

The noise also happens without the DAW. That's the question.

keith.rogers said:
Please uninstall the drivers, and download the correct, latest drivers from the M-Audio site for the interface and OS (which I still don't know!).
Click to expand...

Last week I'd reinstall everything. The DAW, the VST, que drivers, literally everything.

My PC:
i7 3770 - 16GB - GTX 660 SC 3G - HDD 2TB WD - SSD 120GB Corsair // M-Audio Fast Track Pro - M-Audio Keystation 88es // Windows 10

keith.rogers said:
It's been several years since I had my M-Audio interface, but you set the sample rate (IIRC) from the M-Audio control panel. Then, the project settings in whatever DAW you are using, i.e., what you are recording with, must be the same, of course. Both input/output should almost always route through the same interface/soundcard, but I understand you are trying to record audio and maybe you don't have monitor speakers attached to the M-Audio?
Click to expand...

Of course! The first thing I did was check the sample rate of the projects and the interface. Both was set 44.1Khz.
Playing through the soundcard or the M-Audio nothing changes, I'm still getting the noises.


keith.rogers said:
The Windows settings aren't that applicable, except to show your input and output are not the same device. Settings which affect the pitch are in the device and its driver/app and DAW.
Click to expand...

Yeah! But i don't know why worked in the first time and after I reboot the PC, everything gets worse! I used the same configurations for years, just now I'm getting this problem :/

Thanks
 
Between the time everything worked and now.. did you happen to receive a Windows 10 Creators Update?
 
spantini said:
Between the time everything worked and now.. did you happen to receive a Windows 10 Creators Update?
Click to expand...

Actually, the PC was automatically upgraded to Creators Update when I was traveling, but the first thing I did was return to version 14393. It was months ago and was working fine as well. Two weeks ago that started.
 
Maybe I'm looking at the wrong thing but the Avid site says this device doesn't have Win10 drivers.

Fast Track Pro Drivers

So, what drivers are you using. And, back to your first post, you said it exports Ok? Did it actually do that?

I assume you swapped cables?

Regardless, that is a terrifically old piece of hardware if it's the one I found. You could get a new Behringer and probably save some time at this point.
 
As I understand the sneaky W10 updates, you often CANNOT undo what they have done (unless you format and go back to an earlier image of the HDD) so, I agree, time to ditch the FTPro and get something W10 friendly. But! Don't chuck the pro! That is a handy box of tricks, it can run "stand alone" meaning it can function as an analogue to S/PDIF converter (or V-V) a mic pre amp (tho' not a brilliant one) All you need is a 9V 500mA or greater power supply.

There is a Zoom AI being offered here at £59. I would go for that over a Bellringer cheapy (the ripoff bstds!)

Dave.
 
When I updated to Windows 10 years ago, I did as a try, exactly to see if all my programs would works and yeah, it was fine, and it's fine today.

I don't have any money right now to upgrade the interface, in Brazil we have a finance crisis and I almost losing my job, so... hahaha

And here I go. The Breaking news: This morning I just turned on my PC and open the Sonar, and it's working fine. How to explan that? Damn eletronics and computers! Let's see what happens in the next fews days.
 
ledones said:
When I updated to Windows 10 years ago, I did as a try, exactly to see if all my programs would works and yeah, it was fine, and it's fine today.

I don't have any money right now to upgrade the interface, in Brazil we have a finance crisis and I almost losing my job, so... hahaha

And here I go. The Breaking news: This morning I just turned on my PC and open the Sonar, and it's working fine. How to explan that? Damn eletronics and computers! Let's see what happens in the next fews days.
Click to expand...

SET A RESTORE point NOW! (not that easy in 10 I understand?) then make an image of the current setup. There is free imaging software, someone here will know a good one. I used Reflect which came with a Samsung SSD.

Dave.
 
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