Logic pro - crackling sound

[GumaRodak]

Hi, i recently started to use logic on my mac 16”.
Even when i have song only with one audio track and wants to add another one, or reading some sample sets i get horrible noise, distortion or cracklings from the speaker. Cant imagine to have it on loud speakers.
Its most likely some latency issue, so can anybody give advice how to properly set the audio? I am coming from Reason years ago and logic is new to me. Thx

 

[thingstoponder]

Is your buffer size super low? I’ve found if it’s in the lowest setting it crackles. 128-256 should be fine for latency and no crackling.

 

[GumaRodak]

Well, i have set it to 128. Let me test that.
Thanks for the advice

 

[StoneJack]

Hi, i recently started to use logic on my mac 16”.
Even when i have song only with one audio track and wants to add another one, or reading some sample sets i get horrible noise, distortion or cracklings from the speaker. Cant imagine to have it on loud speakers.
Its most likely some latency issue, so can anybody give advice how to properly set the audio? I am coming from Reason years ago and logic is new to me. Thx

it might be the internal mike.

 

[3SQ Machine]

You want to first figure out if it's a CPU issue or a hardware issue. To rule out the CPU, open up Activity Monitor and click "View" in the menu bar and open up the real-time CPU usage. The CPU window will look like this:

As you're working on your project, watch the first two cores on the left. If one or more of them spike, you're getting crackling from the CPU maxing out a core. Logic tends to often spike single-cores, without some tweaks. The good news is that these types of crackles will not show up in your bounced project, as it's just a real-time issue.

If CPU maxing out is the cause, this can be fixable by increasing the buffer as @thingstoponder noted. However, sometimes it's not a buffer issue but something more complex--there are other steps here we can go over once you determine if that's the reason.

A hardware cause can be tested by trying external speakers, headphones, or initializing a different core audio. There IS another thread on here about crackling from the internal speakers on the new MBP, which you can search for.

 

[GumaRodak]

Thx

 

[organisum]

delete

 

[MajorFubar]

My Mac was fine running Logic under Cat, then I upgraded to Monterey and it Logic pops and crackles. No change to settings.

Set your buffer to 128 or 256, no lower.
Freeze tracks loaded with resource-heavy plugins.
Close down any other apps you don't need to be running at the same time, like the 200 browser tabs I've been told your average person absolutely needs open all at once. (I definitely mustn't be average.)

Unfortunately Monterey is two generations newer than Catalina, and each new OS is more resource hungry than the last.
That's been the case for nearly forever and it doesn't show any signs of stopping.
I don't expect my M1 Macs will run -quite- as nippy under Ventura as they do in Monterey. But it's an aggregate performance decrease that you don't notice much, one generation to the next, it usually takes a leap of two or more before you notice it. Like you just have.

 

[organisum]

delete

 

[MajorFubar]

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll be sticking with Cat. I make music with my computer, I don't enjoy losing performance to hemorrhage personal data to an operating system made to leach data from children.

Errr...ok. That quickly escalated. But whatever works for you. Lol.
BTW tinfoil hats are actually a disguised transmitter.

 

[BrianBaughn]

I have a hackintosh built in 2014 with a Haswell chip. Runs Monterey and Logic Pro 10.7.4 with no crackles.