Static / Distortion in recording - Please help to identify and remedy

[rhys8582]

Hello all,

I have this strange static showing up on some of my recordings. It is not consistent, and it doesn't sound like this out of the speakers, only in the recording. I have attached a sample to see if anyone can help me identify the static / distortion. This is a short sample from a 37 minute long recording session. The first 20 minutes are fine, the last 17 sound like this.

It happened a few weeks ago, so I increased my audio buffer size (based on some forum reading), and then it was good for two weeks. Then this week, it happened again. Any help / ideas will be welcome.

We used to do all of this on a Mac, and never had any issues. Recently built a new PC for this function, and this has started happening since then. I am certain that it's some setting in Reaper that I need to change, but I have no idea what.

Allen Heath Qu-32 connected to computer via USB.
Reaper recording 8 tracks of audio from 8 AISO inputs from the board.
Computer is Windows 10 - Core i9 - 64GB RAM - Storage is RAID10 on 4 WD-Black SSD's.

I do not want to have a mac vs pc debate. I do not want a lot of ideas on noise filters. I do not want to debate recording software or hardware. I want assistance in determining why this happens, and what settings can be adjusted to prevent this from happening in the future.

Thank you in advance,

 

[Strryder]

You could try changing the power settings, if it's not set for high performance and you're not touching the keyboard or mouse for a while the computer might be trying to go into sleep mode and/or trying to disable the USB ports.

Start Button>Settings>System>Power & Sleep>Additional Power Settings>Show Additional Plans> then select High Performance.

 

[mjbphotos]

That static sounds exactly like I got on my recordings with my old Win 7 machine and Tascam interface. So I figured it was the interface (and one monitor output had failed), so I replaced the Tascam with a Focusrite Scarlet. Achhhh! The static was more noticeable and it was being recorded. It was the computer itself, or its USB ports - no possible solution worked, never wiped the W7 install clean, of course, because I would not be able to reinstall Win 7. Other things were slowing down/erroring on the computer too by this time.
So, after trying the 'High Performance' thing shown in the above reply, make sure your drivers for the A-H are good - maybe uninstall, delete the files, then reinstall the driver.

 

[rob aylestone]

I'd lay odds on it being a driver issue - and probably Windows has decided the driver it's using for the Allen Heath Qu-32 is the best one, when it's not! The latest one is Qu Windows Driver V4.67.0, so worth checking that's the ASIO one being used, because Windows might be playing back on a generic driver instead of that one!

 

[gecko zzed]

Have you checked whether you get this same sound when you play other material through different applications? For example, if you play a youtube video does it happen?

Or is it only happening on recorded material?