Audio glitch at media item joins

toad_uk

toad_uk

Member
Hi

Not posted here for a long time. Hopefully I can get some advice.

I have a Reaper project with a couple of tracks containing 2 and 4 bar drum loops repeated over most of the song and one or two three or four bar guitar parts scattered throughout the project. I also have a bass guitar and rhythm track which run for most of the song. When I solo the guitar or the bass track there is a pop/crackle at each "join" between samples or the start of the other media files. If I mute all the other tracks the doesn't seem to be there.

When listening with all tracks playing the is a crackle/pop at each join and a slight delay. The only crackle/pops that remain on the guitar and bass tracks seem to be on the tracks themselves, again corresponding to the joins/start of media items on other tracK, so I assume they were introduced when tracking.

The computer I'm using is running XP with a 3Ghz Pentium 4 and 960 MB RAM with an m-audio audiophile 24/96. When I run task manager the CPU and memory use don't seem to go that high, about 20-30%. When I solo the CPU is low with a spike when play over the 'joins', but still nothing over 30%.

I tried the project on another computer with Windows 10, an AMD A10 quad core processor and 16GB RAM, obviously a lot better PC and there are non of these issues except for the ones on the guitar and bass tracks themselves that I assume were introduced when tracking.

So basically, is this likely to be a RAM issue or a CPU issue. I understand that when using samples it takes up RAM, but like I say, memory usage doesn't seem excessive.

Will increasing RAM help, or is it time to get a newer PC?

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Jez
 
This doesn't sound like a hardware problem to me. I think it is more likely to be a looping problem, and in particular, how the loops were constructed. If the beginnigs (or ends) are cut off sharply, you can get clicks each repeat.
 
Thanks for taking the time to reply Gecko zzed, much appreaciated.

Yes, that's what I thought at first, I tweaked with the crossfades, fade ins/out etc., but the crackles sound when playing the guitar track solo'd at the points where the drum loops join (even the loops are not audible), and where another guitar part kicks in, and this is just one long take. When other tracks are muted, they disappear. When everything else is muted except a single drum loop track, they sound fine individually. On another computer it all sounds fine.
 
toad_uk said:
The computer I'm using is running XP with a 3Ghz Pentium 4 and 960 MB RAM with an m-audio audiophile 24/96. When I run task manager the CPU and memory use don't seem to go that high, about 20-30%. When I solo the CPU is low with a spike when play over the 'joins', but still nothing over 30%.
Click to expand...

o_O

Go to a yard sale; drop $20; get a better PC! :D

How reaper handles processing of solo vs. muted does seem kind of weird at time. It's distinctly possible that it is still processing all your tracks with only the one solo'd and maxing out some system resource somewhere. (If CPU isn't going too high, it could be RAM or disk I/O)
If it sounds fine with everything else muted, you could render that track as a stem, which should cut down on resource usage.
 
To check if it's CPU, you could increase your interface's buffer size to as long as it gets and see if it helps.

I suspect that it won't be an issue on render because Reaper will be able to take all the time it needs to calculate everything. You could glue your looped items and then it would only be an issue at the very start and ends, or render everything to full-length stems, but that should only help in playback.

...or, I guess, in record, but not on render. I think.
 
Thanks Steve. I did try the rendering idea and it did seem to be OK. Not an ideal solution long term though.

VomitHatSteve said:
o_O

Go to a yard sale; drop $20; get a better PC! :D
Click to expand...
Even my girlfriend said get a new computer and offered to go halves, so I don't know what I'm hanging around for. So it's off to the yard sales, $10 a piece. :-D
 
Sorry Ashcat, you must have posted as I was typing. I'll try the glue thing it might help in the meantime. I did put the buffers up quite high but it didn't seem to make any difference. Thanks.
 
1G of RAM is most likely your problem. If the board has open slots, up to at least 4G - it'll be cheaper than buying a whole new computer.
 
When you cut a clip, unless you need need the cut to be at an exact point, it's helpful to use the "cut at nearest zero crossing" option. That guarantees you a crackle-free edit. If you're joining two clips, leave a little overlap. Reaper will automatically do a cross-fade which will hide any pops. You can do it manually too.
 
Robus said:
When you cut a clip, unless you need need the cut to be at an exact point, it's helpful to use the "cut at nearest zero crossing" option. That guarantees you a crackle-free edit. If you're joining two clips, leave a little overlap. Reaper will automatically do a cross-fade which will hide any pops. You can do it manually too.
Click to expand...
By default, Reaper adds short fades at split points so that this isn't usually an issue. Also, we've already been down this road in this thread and it's not applicable at all. Thanks for playing, though. :)
 
Thanks anyway Robus. I might try mjpphotos idea though before shelling out on a new PC. Being an old PC I could probably get the RAM fairly cheap and if it's still no good for recording it'll make a decent office PC. I'll check if there's enough slots. Thanks again guys.
 
The other thought I had is that it may have nothing to do with Reaper or its looping, nor the hardware, but may simply be a combination of sounds that start in unison at the repeat of each loop. What you could try is deliberately off-setting one or other of the loops and see if it still persists.
 
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