Why am I getting crusty audio in ableton with a brand new PC!?

The Lounge Other Gear
#1

I’m so frustrated, I’ve invested so much money in decent equipment I feel like I really shouldn’t be having such a basic issue with this set up.
So I have a Lenovo legion pro 7i Intel i9 13900HX, 32 GB RAM, Nvidia RTX 4080, 1tb SSD and a Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 and lots of outboard gear and hardware. I’m running Ableton 11 suite and I am getting clicks and pops as if I was using a junk interface or a computer with sub par specs.

I SHOULD be able to easily run it at a sample rate of 48000 with a buffer size of 32 with very little latency, easily with this computer and this interface but I’m getting random pops and clicks.
I have tried changing the buffer size but I get pops and click until I bring it all the way to 256! Which gives me a round trip latency of 24.9ms!

I recently switched from Mac to PC after 18 years of using Macs, Is this just how it is for PC users? Have I just been spoiled from using Macs for so long? That can’t be the case that a super high end gaming PC and a good audio interface can’t handle audio well. I can play Red Dead Redemption 2 with ray tracing with all settings set to Ultra at solid 90FPS on this bad boy while I realize gaming is mostly GPU reliant, still this makes no sense to me what so ever.
I’ve fallen in love with this PC I’ve been very happy with the investment and have been using it for everything and have found it to be much nicer than a brand new Macbook pro in all areas except this one and this is the one that matters most. I very much want to stay away from a Mac vs PC debate here that’s not the point of this and I like both and both have their plusses and minuses but I find it very hard to believe that a buffer size of 256 is the best this can handle…Am I missing something?

1 Like
#2

This may or may not be relevant to you, but a lot of people using a high spec PC for music production optimize them for audio and leave them dedicated to that task alone. PC tends to run a lot of background processes either way and if you’re able to enjoy smooth high refresh rate gaming then your computer probably is not optimized for production audio. Someone might be able to help you fine tune for better performance as a multipurpose PC and I’m no expert so I can’t tell you what you’re doing right or wrong, but just in general this could be one factor to consider.

6 Likes
#3

there’s a lot of optimizing guides out there for PC, some of them might work, some might not, but honestly I hear a lot of PC users on r/ableton complaining about performance and other issues, I think to the point where you might think that Ableton doesn’t care about PC users and don’t optimize it. obviously it’s ludicrous thought but honestly there’s so many PC users that have these issues.
the Focusrite MIGHT be the problem too, you never know until you try other interface… I had issues of clicks and pops on my 2019 intel mbp and focusrite solo, so if you have a chance to try another interface - try it… even if you have one elektron box you can use as audio card…

either way, go through the official optimization suggestions:

https://help.ableton.com/hc/en-us/articles/209071469-Optimizing-Windows-for-Audio

https://help.ableton.com/hc/en-us/articles/209071269-Reducing-the-CPU-load-on-Windows

https://help.ableton.com/hc/en-us/articles/360012015659-Switching-between-discrete-and-integrated-graphics-Windows

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#4

Dowload latencymon or dpc checker and show us what it says. Also a quick test, turn off wifi and check if the problem is still there.

8 Likes
#5

I would agree, this sounds like nonsense.
possibly focusrite nonsense looking at this?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Focusrite/comments/pyncpu/focusrite_scarlett_18i20_2nd_gen_crackle/

Blockquote I think to the point where you might think that Ableton doesn’t care about PC users and don’t optimize it. obviously it’s ludicrous thought but honestly there’s so many PC users that have these issues.

I mean, the problem is probably more that there is no “PC” - every single user has a diffierent set up. Some of them will be all screwy.

If you want to turn it on and it just works, get a Mac is probably true, although there are of course downsides to that too.

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#6

most of this is super basic I am pretty sure you already did, but there’s an interesting suggestion that it doesn’t like USB 3.0 ports at the end… is it in one? Worth trying it in a 2.x if you have one maybe?

(it also seems to suggest it actually doesn’t like 48khz, which. Well. Worth a go though?

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#7

I believe that most Reaper and Cubase users are pretty happy with PC in general, ok sure Steinberg is pretty big but if Reaper can do solid performance then imo Live should too.
it’s easy to blame hardware but honestly it’s ridiculous that software that costs x10 performs worse, and imo Ableton can take like 5-10 laptops of the market and optimize for them and advertise as “these laptops recommended” or something…

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#8

I guess we’d have to do some more research. Maybe Ableton users are just really whiny?
I can’t say I’ve had many issues with it beyond trying to do too much on ancient computers.

:wink:

#9

I wouldn’t call a person who comes with 18 years of experience with something whiny if they have shitty performance and it’s because Live.
could be other things of course, just saying I’ve always noticed way more PC users asking about performance issues so it’s not out of thin air…

2 Likes
#10

Is it plugged in? I have an older legion and it is a weak ass when on battery power. My battery lasts like 5 minutes too. :roll_eyes:

When plugged in it performs pretty good though. But never at so low buffer. I work at 44.1 and a huge buffer :joy:

I’m hoping to get a mac as soon as I’m able to and won’t be missing this noisy windows laptop (i don’t game).

1 Like
#11

Simliar specs to my PC and Ableton and Focusrite user.

This happened to me. Turns out its the Focusrite driver that was corrupted.

3 Likes
#12

I was joking. I am an ableton user! (I am quite whiny though).

3 Likes
#13

You’ll get it sorted. I couldn’t believe it when I bought my last PC and my rant could have been word -for-word the exact same as OP’s, but after doing a bit of research and adjusting my computer always ran fine. I just can’t remember what I had to do.

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#14

Do you have another audio interface you can try? Like perhaps a built-in one, or even a Digitakt or something? It might be interesting to try different audio interfaces to narrow it down.

Also, have you tried reinstalling the audio interface driver?

I haven’t used Windows since 1997, so I don’t have any OS-specific tips. This sounds super frustrating though and I’m really resisting the urge to talk shit about Windows right now

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#15

no idea if this will help or not and I’ve read zero replies to this… but I ran into this the other day. RME USB interface with a Mac Mini M1. been working beautifully for years without Ableton, monitoring audio using RME Totalmix. no clicks, pops, etc. but in Ableton, everything is distorted. changing buffer size did nothing. turn Ableton off and go to Totalmix, everything’s fine. back in Ableton, every input channel is distorted.

unplugged the RME USB interface from my USB hub and plugged it directly into my M1: issue GONE!

so I recommend bypassing a USB hub if you’re using one. no idea why it pisses only Ableton off, but whatever…

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#16

Just to check, you are using the latest focusrite asio drivers and you have set those asio drivers in ableton, correct? 25ms at 256 is not normal

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#17

PC specs alone do not result in solid latency.

From a lot of previous experience with Focusrite interfaces and Windows, certain onboard USB controllers do not play nicely with Focusrite drivers no matter what you do. I can’t remember whether or not Focusrite actually writes their drivers inhouse or uses an off-the-shelf option, but their latency performance under Windows has always been at best ‘okay’.
In the past at least you needed to be plugged into a USB2 port instead of USB3 or your interface could face issues or just outright refuse to work, maybe try that?

For PC users the best latency comes from one of two options: RME anything or a PCIe interface.

2 Likes
#18

I have a new Legion as well. Setting the GPU to run discrete always solved all my crackling issues. It’s a setting in your bios.

AFAICT, audio processing doesn’t agree with hybrid mode.

2 Likes
#19

Absolute beast of a machine. I am extremely happy with it. Great value.

Join the Legion Discord and check their knowledge base for all the good optimizations. The invite is found in the Legion Reddit.

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#20

Thanks guys for the fast and through replies. I am going through them now and trying out different stuff to troubleshoot.
I may have found part of the problem at least. I remember about a month ago when I was first setting this PC up reading somewhere not to install ASIO4ALL when you have a Focusrite interface because the drivers clash and can cause issues, I ignored this because I figured I could run ASIO4ALL when I am using the laptop away from the studio using the built in interface so that it would be usable without having it tethered to my audio interface all the time, Sometimes I like to work on music in bed or in the living room or whatever. So I figured I could use ASIO4ALL when not using my interface and the ASIO focusrite drivers when I was using my interface…That seemed to be working fine until the issues today, so for the hell of it I uninstalled ASIO4ALL and now I’m able to run at a much more reasonable buffer size of 64 with (mostly) no pops or clicks…Not ideal because I def feel like I should be able to run it at the lowest possible buffer size with ZERO pops or clicks with this set up. Also without ASIO4ALL installed I absolutely can not use it for music purposes without the interface as the realtek drivers are complete garbage. So this is far from ideal although I do think I am getting closer to the solution.

It’s tricky because I want to use it for both gaming at music production so when I’m going though the optimization stuff I’m trying to make sure that by optimizing it for one I’m not losing anything for the other…In theory I really don’t see how I can’t do both perfectly.

I suppose I could use my Digitone or SP404mk2 as an audio interface when I’m using the laptop away from the studio but that’s a little more cumbersome than just grabbing the laptop and headphones and going to town.

idk I’m still going through things and running down the list of possible culprits
hopefully I can get it sorted out in away where I don’t take away from the performance or stability when doing non audio things and vise versa

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