Hot / Crackling Patches in Omnisphere

Hi Everyone,

I'm having an issue with Omnisphere that I never used to have... Basically some of the patches are hot/crackling/staticky. They're not in the red at all... It's not like mixing them down helps. It's like IN the patch. BUT, if I play that patch by itself, it sounds fine. It's only when a full song of multiple tracks is going does the issue start to happen. Once it does, its totally predictable. The crackling noises happen in the same spots every time I play the song.

Also, I've found that panning that particular track with an effected Omnisphere patch in it to the left or right makes the problem much worse. The crackling gets louder.

I'm pretty sure it's not an issue of resources... I mean my songs have been getting bigger than they ever were in the past, but I'm pretty sure I'm good as far as RAM and my Processor is concerned for projects of the size I'm working with.

Can anyone think of anything that could be causing this or any way to fix it? These songs are in the mixing down phase, so I'm fine with freezing the tracks, but even then the crackling seems to freeze along with them.
 
Could there be an option to play with in my Audio / Driver settings? 

Thank you for your help.

An instance of Omnisphere can only run on a single core. Once you notice crackling in Omni patches, open a new instance of Omni and recreate a few patches in the new instance. This will allow Sonar to run the second instance on a different core.
 
There are other things you can do, like load "lite" versions of the patches, or use Global effects instead of per patch (or disable the FX in Omni altogether). However, to me, the FX are a large part of many patches, so I'd rather just create as many instances as I need.
 
Regards,
Dan
 

OK so a couple notes...
 
I found the setting to slide up the preload memory size... I'm not 100% if it's doing the job... Funny thing is on one song it seemed to be working (I'll know better once I go play it in my car... the crackle is much more apparent out there than on my monitors/headphones... but it does seem to be working). But on the next song I tried, it didn't seem to be making a difference...
 
SO, I went to the other suggestion of creating a new project and copying that single midi track over to it with a new instance of Omnisphere using the same patch. Now it did seem to save the higher preload memory size as a default in omnisphere, so we're working with that and a brand new sonar project... And comparing the two is night and day, it's totally clean in the new project, then I jump over and its crackly (even when soloed) in the other project.
 
SO, I tried another thing... I froze the track in the original project and it freezes with the crackling... No good... BUT then I froze the track in the new project and copied the frozen audio over, and that works great.
 
SO... We've got a serviceable, although annoying workaround. But, what is it exactly that's going on here? Is it a resources issue? I would have thought freezing the track in the original project would be good enough for resource related issues. According to the Sonar resources thing I'm using 57% of my system memory.
 
Also I tend to use just one patch/channel per Omnisphere instance. The song in question uses 9 instances, along with a bunch of other VSTs.
 
For now, I think that one track that I just fixed using the new project and freezing and copying the audio over method was the only track crackling in this particular project, so I'm gonna go finish it up. But if anyone has any further thoughts on this, I'd definitely appreciate it.  I'm hoping that maybe with the upped pre-load memory size, it'll at least be better for new projects going forward?
 
Thanks again for your help. Sorry, I know this is a long post haha.

My OS drive is a Samsung EVO SSD, and all the Omnisphere stuff is on a 2nd internal 7200rpm drive.
 
I have a Core i7 930 2.8ghz CPU with 12gb of ram (my motherboard's max is 16 so I figure it's not worth upgrading at this point until I just get a new computer)... I'm trying to squeeze it out until next summer/fall for my next computer haha. But I know it's getting close to that time.

Yea. I mean to tell you the truth, I "feel" like I'm getting to the point in my music and my career where I need the new PC and more power anyway. So I guess my feeling on that note is right.
 
I still find it weird that freezing a track just within the same project doesn't do the job. I was always under the impression that it frees up resources by doing that... But I guess it frees them up AFTER the fact, so if resource related problems are already occurring you're kinda screwed in that project? It's also kind of weird that now that I think about it, in my original project / try it in a new project test... I left the original project opened... Yea it was minimized, but it was opened... So is Windows/Sonar just that good at managing resources that all of the Omnispheres and other VSTi's that were open in the original project and just minimized weren't counting at all towards my total system load when running the new test project that I successfully froze the track in? I guess that would point to processor related rather than RAM (at least in my limited knowledge, educated guess haha).
 
Here's hoping I get a lot of cash instead of gifts for Hanukkah this year haha.

Here's another trick: when you freeze the crackling track, do a SLOW bounce. If your disk drive is having a hard time keeping up with Omnisphere's demands, the slow bounce gives it a little more time.
 
I've had Omnisphere tracks that would only freeze properly this way. Fast bounces still had the same crackles, or sometimes even weirder stuff such as a pulsing modulation as if it were being amplitude-modulated by a square wave LFO.

Check your set up again. On their installation video, in Logic Pro, it has the buffer settings in view. Asio normally shows it.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2M7KejHXr8Y

About 45 seconds in.

strikinglyhandsome1
Check your set up again. On their installation video, in Logic Pro, it has the buffer settings in view. Asio normally shows it.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2M7KejHXr8Y

About 45 seconds in.

Yea it's not there in Sonar. Just the Buffer Length (which like I said the highest is 10ms)... No normal buffer size like in that video or like with most audio interfaces...

Well a little update to my issue. The other day I woke up and my computer was turned off. I turned it back on and it said that it had shut down automatically to avoid overheating. So I checked and the fan connected to my cpu heatsink was dead. The temperatures were hitting like 180-190 degrees when turned on. So this morning (after about 4 days of not having a computer) I just finally got a new fan installed, temperatures are totally back down to normal. I'm gonna try things out over the weekend, but I'm wondering if some of that crackling could have been caused by the CPU overheating and me not noticing it (overheating is something I've never dealt with before so it's not really on my radar to keep an eye on... now it is! haha).
 
I'll let you guys know if its better.

Definitely could have caused it. Omnisphere really isn't disk bound like Kontakt, so problems with your CPU will be far more noticeable.
 
Regards,
Dan
 

Doesn't explain why your Asio panel is odd. It's like you have the WDM slider mode in an Asio panel.

Interesting Update...
 
So first of all, the new fan and better cooling did nothing. BUT... I got another e-mail from Spectrasonics telling me that they usually just use the ASIO4ALL driver with all their Omnisphere testing. I had heard of that in the past but never tried it because I always figured the manufacturer drivers would always be best.... Just installed ASIO4ALL, switched all my Sonar settings over to it, turned up Buffer Size, and at least in the first project that had crackling, I just tried it and there's NO crackling... Woah.
 
SO... This brings me to my next question... Assuming that this keeps working with some of the other project files that were experiencing crackling... Is there any reason I SHOULDN'T use ASIO4ALL?
 
Thanks for all the help so far everyone.

Oh OK. Is it weird that I'm getting better performance out of ASIO4ALl / WDM/KS than I was out of ASIO. I always hear that ASIO is the way to go. And one composer friend made fun of me for even trying ASIO4ALL haha.