Severe Distortion After Running Banana for Minutes to Hours

[xcasxcursex]

Speaking of annoying but sometimes necessary reinstallation processes.... You've mentioned a few times that you needed to enable exclusive mode for your audio devices, and I'm fairly sure that is normally enabled by default. It might even be worth your while to remove the sound devices from device manager, so windows can reinstall them with all the defaults. All that is pretty extreme but if you have any suspicion that perhaps the settings have changed from defaults, it's maybe worthwhile. Maybe leave that for step 99)

A less extreme step 4/5) for you: Try using only one output device at a time. It's possible that just one of your two USB sound devices is causing all this trouble and the trouble won't go away until the device does.

Generally speaking, VM works pretty well with out-of-the-box default settings, unless there are some strange driver problems (sadly all too common) or something configured strangely (we're all guilty of tinkering too much sometimes), so that's kinda where I'm heading with this post.

Edit: ahaha we keep posting at the same time XD

I'm pretty sure that 7168 smp is the default now that I'm seeing it. If you didn't even know this existed, there's a solid chance you didn't change anything The rogue 44k1 output is a result of the default setting for it in the windows control panel. That's the one in the recording tab, Since this is the output of a virtual cable, it's the input of a virtual device (it's B1 in Voicemeeter). Let's see if I can figure out how to attach stuff here..... This is mine:

[Cook1e1412]

Haha, as you noticed, we're posting at the same time - I just noticed your latest post when I came to update my last...

Anyhoo, I have changed the recording device settings as recommended and that's taken care of the 44,100 - interestingly (may be a clue, dunno) now the 'Output' information block (where 44,100 was showing and 48,000 now is) is flickering, which it wasn't before

Your idea re using one output at once is brilliant and I should have thought of it myself. Doh!

For now, I'll let it run until the next distortion, to see if the output SR change makes any difference, then I'll run just one set of speakers at once and post an update.

[xcasxcursex]

see if the output SR change makes any difference, then I'll run just one set of speakers at once and post an update.

Sadly, I don't expect that'll change much. You're not even using B1, and the sample rate conversion shouldn't be a problem for VM anyway.

I'll pop by in an hour or two and hit F5

[xcasxcursex]

I just noticed something. It may just be because the driver has been running and you've been changing settings and restarting VM a lot but....

See that line up the top that says "Push loss"? That number there is basically telling you how many times the driver has failed to 'push' a buffer. If you restart the VM engine or change settings it's normal for a few buffers to fail to push, since there's nowhere for the buffer to go....but that number is really big. I've been changing settings a fair bit, to try figure out this problem for you, and mine's at 178. Every time a buffer fails to push, you're going to hear a glitch.

It might be worth running that config app while you're doing the other testing; do it after a reboot when the push loss should be zero (or very low, like less than 10) and see if that number a) stays low (optimally, stays at zero) when everything is fine and b) starts to grow rapidly when you get the distortion.

[Cook1e1412]

Good spot, I'll try that tomorrow.

You were right, changing the SR on the other output made no difference and the distortion recurred. I don't know when though - I paused the music player a good few hours ago, but everything was still running. When I took it off pause just now, the sound was distorted: i.e. the glitch occurred when only silence was playing...

I'll update in the morning.

[RobBoss]

I have noticed while I have tried different ASIO buffer settings on-the-fly that sometimes it is necessary to close the ASIO client and Banana to establish a glitch and crackle free connection.
On-the-fly some connections seemed to be stable at first glance, but after some minutes instability took over.
But if I closed both (Voicemeeter and the ASIO client) the same settings were indeed stable after a fresh restart of both (without Windows restart!).


adjust settings in Voicemeeter

close the client application

close Voicemeeter

restart Voicemeeter

restart the client application

Using this method I have found a very low stable ASIO buffer setting, that without restarting Voicemeeter and the client was not stable.

[Cook1e1412]

Breif 'progress' report: this morning, I reverted to A1 and A2 connected to the 2 sets of USB speakers via WDM (as using the sound card from A1 for timing did not improve the situation) and upped the WDM buffer to 1024.

No distortion yet after about 3 hours running. Watch this space...

[RobBoss]

Ok, 3 hours without a problem.
I would call that a stable setting.

So what next?
768?

Keep in mind you are getting older with every minute.

So, based on your experience, what do you think is an appropriate period of time to say a setting is stable?
5 hours?
3 hours?
2 hours?
1 hour?

If you have plans to stream night and day, you probably prefer to count days and not hours?

[Cook1e1412]

Morning Rob, still a work in progress - appreciating your input.

Ok, 3 hours without a problem.
I would call that a stable setting. About 4 hours now - towards the top end of 'normal'

So what next?
768? Tried that already (albeit with the sound card as the reference output), still distorted after a while.

Keep in mind you are getting older with every minute. Harsh, but true

So, based on your experience, what do you think is an appropriate period of time to say a setting is stable?
5 hours?
3 hours?
2 hours?
1 hour?

If you have plans to stream night and day, you probably prefer to count days and not hours? I use the system to have background music through much of the day.

I can control the music player from my phone, but when Voicemeeter starts distorting, thanks to Sod's law, I have to e.g.: wash my hands (if I'm cooking or working in the garden); move my comfortable arse (if I'm sitting reading); get dry and wrap a towel round (if I'm in the shower); break my train of thought (if I'm writing or studying) - before I go to the desktop computer in the office to restart Voicemeeter so yes, days (or weeks would be better

[Vincent Burel]

without entering in complicated parametering, you may first try other audio interface for the unstable device
as it is explained here: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=451

REM: WDM output device running in shared mode 'S' is often not working well with Voicemeeter ... in this case you may select MME insterface for example.