I'm hoping that one of our senior/guru members can help me.
 
So, I have one laptop I use for music and 2 Line 6 UX8 interfaces (one at home and one at my little studio- which is 2 doors down at a different location). I recently installed the Waves Abbey Road bundle (at home) and was trying it out in SONAR Platinum and put several plugins on various tracks and busses.  Everything was working swimmingly... until I took my laptop to my studio. When I played the project in SONAR, I started getting a "garbled" sound and popping. When I disabled the 2 Waves plugins on the Master Bus, the problem stopped. Also, at one point, the song started playing back slightly slower than normal. This to me, indicates some sort of clocking issue (but more on that later).  I went back home, played the project, no problems! So, I took the interface I had at home to the studio, hooked it up and guess what? Same garbled sound. I swapped USB cables, power cables, and tried everything I could think of and the problem persists at my studio.  I am wondering if it could be an electrical/voltage problem causing clocking issues when the system requires a certain amount of processing power?  The funny thing is that my house is from 1935, ungrounded and still running on its original wiring and fuse box, and the studio is at a property with new wiring and an upgraded electrical on breakers.  At first I thought it was the Waves plugins, but I called their tech support and we swapped out the Waves for some Cakewalk plugins (I think the Multiband compressor - it has a 64 in the name), and the garbled sound and pops returned, so it's not Waves. The only thing I haven't swapped out is the power supplies to the laptop. I use different model power supplies at home and at the studio.  I will try that today, but in the meantime wanted to put this out there to see if anyone has encountered something like this. I haven't talked to Line 6 because they are no longer of any help. Especially for a unit as old as mine. I have had to solve several issues in the past on my own because of their lack of even basic computer knowledge. Really sad, but that's another story.  

Borrow a different ASIO interface and see what happens. 

Unfortunately, that is not an option. I would have to buy one, which I'm trying to avoid, but may have to do.

pinguinotuerto
Unfortunately, that is not an option. I would have to buy one, which I'm trying to avoid, but may have to do.

have you tried running it using WDM ? just as a test to see if the Gargling goes away.
also is there a way to perform a factory reset on the unit ?
 
you might be able to try and play with the buffer size and see if that helps as well.
Sorry to hear about this Ping.

chuckebaby
 
 
have you tried running it using WDM ? just as a test to see if the Gargling goes away.
also is there a way to perform a factory reset on the unit ?

No way to do a reset. No, but WMD doesn't work as well as ASIO from past experimenting. Just weird that it works fine at one location and not the other. Unfortunately, the studio is where I really need it to work. I may have to bring an electrician in.

pinguinotuerto

chuckebaby
have you tried running it using WDM ? just as a test to see if the Gargling goes away...

...but WMD doesn't work as well as ASIO from past experimenting...

 
You are correct about WDM not working well with Line6 interfaces. However it usually works ok for playback, so I believe it's worth trying just for testing purposes.

I'll be damned if it wasn't the power supply, like I suspected. I guess as the software requires more processing power from the computer, the computer increases its power consumption. What made me suspect this was the change in the performance meters when I would engage/disengage the offending plugins. The power supply I have in the studio is much smaller than the one I had at home, so I guess they don't supply the same amount of power to the laptop. You learn something new every day.
 
Glad I don't need to call an electrician or buy a new interface (for now).

I guess that's what I get for using a "Travel Adapter!!!!!!!"

Power supplies can be a source of misery, especially if the USB power is also used for connected interfaces, etc. So are phones, electrical wiring, magnetic disturbances, etc. Some power supplies in PC's and laptops are worse than average and are the source of tictac sounds, crackle, etc. In fact they cannot deliver enough power for the job you want them do.
In a number of cases it will be suitable to supply interfaces from their own power source being a separate power adapter. It is clear that your travel adapter is too light for the job. Good that you found it yourself.
 
Jan

Always good to check PSU wattage. Looks like yours are 120w and 50w. Never use less than the original rated one.
Higher end laptops require a lot more than most consumer models.