Random single crackle

[Monoroch]

Specs:
AMD Ryzen 9 3950X
32Gb RAM 3600 CL18
Windows 10 Pro x64 21H1
Behringer U-PHORIA UMC404HD (Revision v1.12) (4.59/5.0/5.12)
Voicemeeter Potato x64 3.0.1.8
Everything set to 24bit 48kHz

Problem:
Random single crackle. Can be noticed once a minute or hours (obviously I not notice them all).
Appear only when some sound already playing.
Appear with different sound sources Firefox, MPC-HC, etc.
How it looks on record via Voicemeeter recording tool:


Voicemeeter A1 → ASIO Behringer — Problem
Voicemeeter A1 → WDM Behringer — Problem
No Voicemeeter, Default windows output is Behringer — No problem

Checked things:
ASIO buffer 32-2048, not affect on a problem.
Behringer driver version not affect on problem (4.59/5.0/5.12)
A2 on/off not aftect on problem.
Patch insert on/off (to LightHost with VST) not affect on problem.
Voicemeeter x64 or x32 not affect on problem.
Reinstall all audio, step by step, as in forum instruction. No affect.
audiodg.exe priority and/or core affinity, not affect on problem.
All apps use default output (VAIO) or Voicemeeter AUX/VAIO3.
I still not tried reinstall Windows, but it will be last step.

Sooo, is anyone have an idea, what else I can do with it?

[xcasxcursex]

audiodg.exe priority and/or core affinity, not affect on problem.

This is a bad idea always, and is only intended to act as a workaround for a bug in discord specifically. Make sure you roll this one back. It 100% is bad for performance and stability.

Anyway, a few things for you to check:

You said this requires playback to trigger it. What happens if the playback is a constant level (ie, silence)? What if you play a constant tone (ie sine wave)? **
Do you see push or pull loss in the virtual cable control panel (it's in your start menu)?
Have you tried LatencyMon? Any hints in your results there?

** Food for thought: The fact it doesn't happen without input is very useful info. This helps us to isolate the fault, because VM is ALWAYS playing audio. It might be playing silence, but it's always playing. So if the crackles don't happen if there's no input, it means the crackles are coming from the input. This means you can move away from looking at voicemeeter itself, and focus on the cables and apps that feed it.

This is likely an overall performance issue where some background process is freezing the system or stealing priority for a tiny fraction of time, enough to not normally notice, but enough to break an audio stream.

[Monoroch]

Thank you for your answer

Sine wave — same thing (standalone wave generator/file — no difference)
Virtual cable installed, but not used at this moment.

LatencyMon
While I can received ndis.sys go over 1ms. It rare exception. I have few 8+ hours monitoring where it 0.7ms maximum
At same time, crackles uppear while LatencyMon still have Highest ~0.5ms

And crackles happen with all apps, not one specific.

[Vincent Burel]

1- Sound discontinuity is a historical problem under Windows that makes all musicians and sound engineers go to MAC from 1990 until today.
2- To get a continuous audio stream with Windows (for example 24h without a cut in a sinus 200 Hz for example) can be done only in some strict technical conditiosnd (usually with an ASIO driver) and a validated audio process (that we do with the MT128 for example).
3- with Voicemeeter the audio path can be much more complicated and of course increase the probability to get a cut in the stream.

General recommendation: 2048 is usually too big for the main stream (try to use a main streamin between 256 and 1024 sample buffer size).

So to help you, you may precise the audio path:
assuming you record the channel 1 & 2 , what is the source for channel 2 ?
the Voicemeeter Tape recorder is patched on BUS A1, so you are recording a source coming from virtual input ? Which one ?

To make more technical test, possiby use a Tone Generator as source with a Sinus 200 Hz -10dB for example this one: http://vincent.burel.free.fr/download/index.htm

You can also check your ASIO driver ith ASIO Tester app: https://forum.vb-audio.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1204

[Monoroch]

Soooooo, after all. I didn’t find exact reason. But small good thing there.

Even not remember where found it, but it has some impact.
Turn off CPPC and CPPC Preferred Cores (BIOS settings)
Don't remember the reason, but I turned off only CPPC Preferred Cores.

And at first, it was literally miracle. Zero issue, I even set buffer 8, and playback was flawless. (now buffer 64, for realtime VST on mic)
But, world not ideal and few days later random crackles are returned.
Now, they still random, but much much more rarely. Meantime it can still become one by one every 5-10 minutes (maybe once a week), and then disappear (not windows defender).
PC uptime not affect it, by the way .
Attempt to find which software cause problem, but no luck. I even know about zombie handles now

I know about software that will record everything what going on in system. But at this moment I'm not ready for such deep investigation.

Hope, advice about CPPC and CPPC Preferred Cores will help someone too.

Thank you all for advices

[gozen]

Hi Monoroch

I know you made your post a while back, and I'm not sure if you'll see this, but if so, I am wondering if you ever came across any other developments not mentioned here in your thread. I too am experiencing issues similar to what you described and have also attempted to perform the same troubleshooting steps you had outlined, only to have my issue persist as well.

[Vincent Burel]

assuming you have the latest voicemeeter version installed.
there is cases where Windows/PC configuration is unable to manage audio correctly.
most of the time audio crack come from:
- Audio stack corruption (windows being unable to re-install non-pnp audio driver it can bring chaos in audio scheme).
- Conflict with other driver (especially video driver).

if you cannot solve your problem, i invite you to send audio log to Microsoft by using the Matthew van Eerde's guide:
https://matthewvaneerde.wordpress.com/2 ... ioned-way/