RESOLVED: Audio Problems with FireFace

For the resolution of this issue, see my post on Page 2 of this thread.
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ORIGINAL POST
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I'm hoping someone on this forum can point me in the right direction. I've been troubleshooting an issue with clicking and crackling on my FireFace 800. System specs are below, in case motherboard, chipset, etc. are a factor. This is a machine built by ADK, and I'm in contact with their tech support as well, but I'm probing this forum for some more advice.

Basically, I can't set my FireFace's ASIO buffer size below 512 without introducing significant crackling in the audio at any CPU usage above 30% in SONAR 5.0.1. In the 50% range it becomes constant. If I put SONAR in WDM mode the applicable latencies are similar.

This really causes a problem for me - my experience with RME hardware (HDSP PCMIA with DigiFace on my laptop, which is less powerful than this machine) has been more promising in the past, especially with regard to playability of softsynths. I need to be able to play softsynths in realtime, and that means I really need to be able to push down to 128-sample buffers. An 11 millisecond delay is unacceptable for my use.

Is this an unreasonable expectation for the FireFace? Again, system specs are below - I would have thought that a system of this caliber could handle what I'm throwing at it. I should mention that I can only duplicate the same behaviour in FL Studio 6 if I set FL's audio engine priority to "high" or "normal" - if I set the priority to "highest" there are no buffer underruns. Do I need to be playing with PCI latency settings, etc.? ADK already optimized Windows XP for audio on this machine, and disabled all unnecessary services. FWIW, SONAR 4 has the same FireFace problems on this machine.

I've already tried installing a dedicated FireWire PCI controller card (Texas Instruments chipset). No help. Also removed my UAD-1 and AnyPoint cards, turned off all graphics acceleration, switched the FireFace to clock master and listened directly out the FireFace's headphone jack. No improvements from any of these adjustments.

Is the FireFace just the wrong interface for what I need to do? Do I need a PCI-based solution instead?

Any insight will be greatly appreciated.

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Russell Graham
Keys, Vocals, Songwriting, Production

Dual AMD Opteron 248 Processors
Tyan 2885 K8W Motherboard
2.0GB DDR 400 RAM
Matrox P650 Dual-Head Display
Universal Audio UAD-1 Powered Plugins card
200GB System Drive (EIDE)
200GB Sample Library Drive (EIDE)
300GB Storage Drive (SATA)
300GB Audio Drive (SATA)
Intel AnyPoint HomePNA Network Card
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RME FireFace 800
Dual MidiMan MidiSport 8x8/s interfaces (USB)
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SYNCED BY WORD CLOCK:
Aardvark AardSync II
MOTU 2408mkII (standalone mode)
Tascam TM-D1000
ART DI/O
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Windows XP Professional, SP2

Here's my most recent thread about the same deal:

http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.asp?m=726747

I also wish I could get my latency down a bit too, but what can you do? It seems as though those of us who have this popping and clicking occur are running dual core and/or dual AMD's ...am I correct?

-mr moon

mr. moon -

Thanks for reminding me of that thread. I had already read most of it, both here and on the RME forum, but rereading it showed me a couple of points I missed. I'll have to try changing some AUD.INI settings just to make sure I'm not missing an obscure solution; but I'm starting to think the FireFace just isn't the right interface for this machine - at least not for what I'm trying to do with it.

ORIGINAL: RTGraham

mr. moon -

Thanks for reminding me of that thread. I had already read most of it, both here and on the RME forum, but rereading it showed me a couple of points I missed. I'll have to try changing some AUD.INI settings just to make sure I'm not missing an obscure solution; but I'm starting to think the FireFace just isn't the right interface for this machine - at least not for what I'm trying to do with it.

No Problem sir.

I have a few questions for you:
1. Do the pops/clicks occur whether or not the multiprocessing engine is enabled?
2. How about restarting the computer with the FF800 either on or powered off, and then powering it on once the system has booted into Windows? Any difference?
3. Does the length of time that you've been using the FF800 and Sonar come into play? I've found that at lower latency settings, Sonar will usually run without any pops/clicks for a while (a few minutes, half an hour or so tops), but then once they start, they seem to increase, especially if I'm doing a good deal of editing wavs or running the project with the control panel showing instead of the track view.

I wish our threads would have attracted more attention over at the RME forum, but for whatever reason it's almost as if the RME tech folks ignore Sonar as being a "serious" recording application or something and disregard our issues as nothing. ...But that's just my take on it all.

Do the guys at ADK have any suggestions which I have not listed in my posts?

Good luck!

-mr moon

Russ,

I'm working on a brand new dual pentium 830 and having similar issues. The boys at the DAW builder I used are working on the issue and I'll let you know when we get it. The bottom line is that you should be able to work at hopefully 3 ms or so. 5ms is workable but 1.5 is a pipe-dream. You'll never get there. Even the most rediculous Pro-Tools/HD rig will introduce SOME latency. ANALOGUE introduces latency. People have to understand more about what latency is and less about reducing latency to zero. Latency only matters when tracking. 1.5ms won't happen. There's 1.5ms of latency if you put a mic 2 feet infront of you. Hope to get to 3 or 4.

Either way, the FF800 is an awesome piece of gear and we will be able to proudly get all that we need out of that mofo soon.

Hang in there, Bro

ORIGINAL: dali lama
The bottom line is that you should be able to work at hopefully 3 ms or so. 5ms is workable but 1.5 is a pipe-dream.
...
Either way, the FF800 is an awesome piece of gear and we will be able to proudly get all that we need out of that mofo soon.

Hang in there, Bro

Thanks for the reassurance! I agree that 1.5ms is a pipe dream in most cases. I would be content with 3ms, but I can't even count on that right now. 5ms is, as you say, "workable," but when I'm tracking drums, using softsynths or plugin sample libraries, I find that even at 5ms I have to shift all my recorded tracks backwards to compensate for the fact that I'm anticipating the hits so that my ears hear the latency-processed drums at the proper time. This also means that at the beginning of most takes I'm not quite "in the pocket" - it takes me a couple of measures to settle into the latency that I hear. I realize that I'm more sensitive than most people to these things, but that's my training, and that's my day-to-day musical experience in the jobs I'm called for, and it's frustrating to have to compromise my productivity.

In any event, thanks again for the bright outlook!

ORIGINAL: mr. moon
Now, I know that this probably is not something that you can do with your project, however, ...is there any "fat" that you could possibly trim from the project to possibly help out?

BTW: How many softsynths you have running in an average project?

Hmm. I wanted to give myself a "controlled" experiment, so I've been using the SONAR Audio and MIDI Demo file to test out different adjustments. I opened the CWB that was installed as part of the Sample Content, and saved it to its own folder on my audio drive, with its own audio subfolder. Very few tracks, very little fat, and it came from Cakewalk. To bump up the CPU usage when I need to check the crackle limits, I insert a couple of Perfect Space reverbs, and multiple Tassman 4 plugins (two or three Tassmans usually does a good job of pumping the CPU up to about 50%, even if they're not playing anything).

I tend to use multiple softsynths - Stylus RMX (or even two RMX instances) for loops and percussion, and then a VSampler for live drum samples (although I'd like to add BFD once I get all this ironed out), and sometimes a couple of PSyn instances for basses and synths and such. Sometimes another VSampler for piano samples, and usually many, many tracks of vocals, as well as external synths, live guitars, and live bass tracked to audio tracks.

I also realized I neglected to answer one of your other questions - as far as suggestions from ADK that weren't on your list, they were really more specific to my own personal hardware that I added to the machine they built - they suggested that I remove the Intel network adapter, and try switching slots for the UAD. I have actually now removed ALL hardware that wasn't in the box when they shipped it; once I get this clean, I can add the components back in one by one.

I have a firepod running on an Intel 3.2mhz machine with 3G of ram. (I run SONAR HSXL) I have been plagued with crackling since I pulled my old E-mu 0404 card and whent firewire. The last ditch effort was a complete rebuilt of the OS (WinXPsp2 Pro) This seemed to solve the issue. There are issues with the SP2 firewire "fix" and it is necessary to roll the driver back.

Happy as a clam until I purchase MUTO Symphonic Orchestra. (replacing an old version of Synthful) This plugin is very ram intensive and caused me to upgrade from the 1G I had to The 3G current. Unfortunately the pops and cracks come back whenever I try to map more than a couple of instruments to the DXI panel. I had previously found that I had more success with the WDM driver vs the ASIO, but that did not cure it.

Late last nite . . .Hallelujah! playing in the BIOS again, I tried turning off Hyper-Threading. Started back into the test project that had been crashing and never did play without noise, and VIOLA! (or cello) It played like a champ! I then tried to max it out with a full orchestra and it stilled played.

I am still using the WDM driver. I may try the ASIO again, but for now it works and I can make music.

I know this reply is not really thread specific, but the combination of firewire and Hyper-threading caught my eye. Maybe my experience may solve a piece of your problem.

RT and Dali you guys are running windows xp with service pack 2. have you tried running the older sevice pack 1. when I built my system I installed my old version of win xp with SP 2. Just a thought. Arthur

www.dmsstudio.com

www.myspace.com/greyskysunday

Lasty 1.5 ms is not a pipe dream I'm doing it now and you guys will soon. keep it positive. Arthur

Thanks dude24man.

I have to double-check my BIOS revision and see if a newer one has been released.
Since I'm running AMD chips, though, there's no HyperThreading on my machine at all (HyperThreading is strictly internal to Intel processors) - does anybody know if enabling or disabling AMD's HyperTransport has any impact? I don't want to mess with it without some guidance, as it's a component of the overall bus architecture, not just a processor feature.

I did some more experimenting tonight.

My findings?

...If I turn off the multiprocessing engine, I can run my "problem" project with the soft synth drums (Dimension Pro) with the latency set at 128 samples, and no pops/clicks, or anything. However, with that very same project file, even after a reboot, and sprinkling magic dust on my DAW, the lowest latency I can go is 256 samples to not have the pops and clicks come back. All my other audio-only projects can run pop/click free at 96 samples ...as long as the multiprocessing engine is disabled. With the multiprocessing engine enabled, best I can do is 128 samples. I was even able to conjure up a few dropouts tonight ...only with the multiprocessing engine enabled, of course.

...This makes me bummed out as I was hoping my issues were *not* related to the multiprocessing engine, however I am a pragmatic sort of fellow, and I call 'em as I sees 'em.

I will NOT be running Sonar with the multiprocessing engine enabled any longer, and will just chalk it up to my hardware configuration and Sonar not wanting to play nice with it ...and/or vice-versa, as I'm not trying to BLAME anyone for the problem, but only trying to find a solution.



-mr moon

Hey guys, I really hope all your problems get resolved one way or another! I am in the process of upgrading to the FF800 (almost got enough $) so I will be watching this post closely. I am bummed out enough that I have to have multiprocessor turned off in Sonar and HT off in BIOS with my current Aardvark set up, even more bummed to hear you guys are having probs with the FF and multiprocessors.

It may be upsetting to have to disable a "feature" that's supposed to improve things, but it's not the end of the world. Real-world reliability/stability is the most important thing. PS: Be sure to turn off Hyperthreading in the BIOS too - that gave me another notch of stability. There are also strong suspicions that plug-ins might be the actual problem with the multi-processing engine/hyperthreading thing. I have an RME Fireface 800 on it's way from Sweetwater right now - Will probably have it the first of the week (I'm in eastern Canada). Perhaps I can report back my findings once I have it up and running.

Hey Guys,
I am another user who is running the FF800 at 1ms latency with WDM drivers. I have not had great luck with the ASIO drivers and my system has been running smooth since I decided to stay put with WDM. I run sessions every Sunday where there are 20 tracks being recorded at the same time for well over a half an hour straight. I also have two UAD-1 cards and have had no problems running complex mixes with no need to up my latency slider so it is possible. Don't give up on the FF800 as I believe it's the best card on the market. Good Luck.