Audio distortion/crackle at start of every loop iteration

Issue #349 new
Derek Lamp created an issue

If I load more than a few plugins, Playtime becomes unusable. Every go around of an audio loop, there is an ugly crackle and audio skip (the same sound that happens when the buffer size on an audio interface is too low). This skip becomes worse every iteration of the loop, and sometimes, after a few minutes of the loop, audio playback will completely stall. I have tried all sorts of buffer settings in Reaper preferences, to no avail. I've tried increasing the buffer size to +6000ms and I've tried disabling buffering altogether. I've disabled/enabled Anticipate FX processing, etc. I've toggled the disable media buffering and FX settings in Playtime. Even when I increase my audio interface buffer size to a ridiculous 2048, the lag/distortion still occurs, with no improvement.

I am able to run projects 10x more complicated in Ableton with no hiccups. (I really, really want to ditch Ableton and move my entire producing/mixing process to Reaper.) When mixing a normal Reaper project I can load many high-memory Kontakt instruments and CPU-intensive plugins with no problem.

It is as if the audio files are not loaded into memory and need to be reloaded every loop repeat, regardless of buffer settings.

I attached the project and audio files, but I'm not sure how helpful it will be without all the same plugins...

My specs:
UMC404HD (issue also occurs with my Mackie Onyx Blackjack)
Reaper v6.05
16 gb ram
i7 @ 2.20 GHz
Solid-state drive
Windows 7
Various LePou guitar amp sims, Ignite Amps NadIR cabinet sim, and Sitalia drum machine--happens regardless of what combo of VSTs and VSTis I load.

Comments (4)

  1. Benjamin Klum repo owner

    I can’t reproduce it at the moment, but you are right, that could be because of the missing plug-ins. Could you please try on your machine if you are experiencing the same issues with the attached project if all of your plug-ins are switched offline or unloaded? If not, could you check if it is related to a certain plug-in - by step by step taking more and more plug-ins online? That would help a lot for debugging that issue.

  2. Derek Lamp reporter

    I figured it out. It was not any of the plugins. I had added a few quick time stretch markers to correct my lousy timing. If I glue the clips, thereby rendering the time stretches, the skipping and crackles no longer occur.

    This is unfortunate, because I like to work quickly when I’m writing, dropping a few stretch markers and moving on to writing another part. Then later I record a good take. (The files I uploaded are obviously not good takes. Awful! What am I doing to that poor bass…)

    Gluing the clip is inconvenient for my workflow. (I also find I have to glue a clip to change it’s section/length when editing. Not ideal if I’m trying to find a interesting section of a clip or playing with the clip start position.) Other DAWs can handle this time correction in session view. And Reaper on its own can loop a clip that contains stretch markers. But it seems to cause Playtime problems.

    Thank you for your work to make Reaper an even better DAW. If I can find a way to successfully integrate Playtime into my process, Reaper will be all I need. Great stuff.

    (Also, random: sometimes a take volume envelope randomly appears in an item. Not sure what that’s about…)

    I attached two versions: glued and unglued.

  3. Benjamin Klum repo owner

    I think I never tried it with items that contain stretch markers. Although I understand the need for that, I’m not sure if it’s possible to support them the way Playtime works. I’ll have a look.

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