Macs and ASIO?

[Suture]

I'm going absolutely nuts here. No matter what I do, I cannot eliminate the pops and crackles when the polyphony rises to only 5 on some of my virtual instruments (using Sytrus). For a little background, this is what I'm using:

Intel Pentium 4/3.0GHz
2GB DDR533 RAM
80GB SATA HD
M-Audio 2496 Audiophile
XP Home w/SP2
ASIO4All drivers
FL Studio XXL

There is NOTHING else on this system; I only use it for music. I have been unable to get rid of the audio pops forever. I've tried just about everything, both with the M-Audio driver and ASIO drivers. I've tried every latency setting, interpolation, etc. and nothing seems to help.

Do Macs have this issue? If not, that's all I need to know to make a switch. I never had this issue back when I used Cakewalk 8 and Acid Pro 4 with a Sound Blaster Live Platinum.

I've read a ton of forums to look for tips, but they all say the same thing. I don't get it. This computer is more than powerful enough to do what I need it to do. I see people which much less doing much more.

 

[zimv20]

do you have the FL Studio clock set to slave off the m-audio? pops and crackles are usually a sign that two or more clocks are running out of sync.

 

[Suture]

Since I'm using the ASIO drivers presently, when I go into Settings|Audio for FL Studio, it states to refer to the control panel for the clock source. And from opening the control panel, it shows that the use of the Monitor Mixer and Patchbay/Router are disabled since I'm letting the ASIO driver control it all. The Master Clock (Internal XTAL) is locked.

FWIW, I have the priority set to Highest, unchecked Safe Overloads (everyone says to uncheck it), Sample Rate is set to 44100, and Interpolation is set to 6-point hermite (default).

Buffer length is currently set to 512 samples (11ms).

 

[zimv20]

The Master Clock (Internal XTAL) is locked.

see if you can slave the m-audio to the internal clock, then. if not, you'll keep getting those glitches.

and then you should switch to mac

 

[Chundles]

ASIO? Are you spying on us?

Meh, they probably are. *waves to Canberra* Hi fellas!

 

[Suture]

Thanks for the help... but it's still poopy. I am going to give it a shot and see if official FL Studio support exists. I hope so, considering I purchased their top of the line version. If not, I am so fed up I will start looking to play around with Logic, Ableton, anything -- on this old Mac.

 

[scottlinux]

OS X has a built in low-latency audio driver (Core-audio) which windows doesn't have. This, among other reasons, is why lots of audio folks use OS X.

 

[Sesshi]

Just curious but why do you have the ASIO4All drivers installed?

 

[Killyp]

I can tell you exactly what the issue is:

You're running too much information down one IDE channel.

I had EXACTLY the same issue as you for AAAGES with my Dell, you wouldn't believe the hassle and frustration it caused. It went on for ages, making it practically useless. Turned out I had two hard drives running on one IDE channel, which should be fine but due to the way my Dell computer is CRAP, it couldn't handle it and as a result, the audio occasionally popped and crackled like too low latency settings.

Make sure each drive in your computer is running on it's own individual IDE channel, and try removing any unnecessary cards etc...

 

[Sesshi]

It shouldn't be such an issue with SATA. Depends on the mobo/drivers of course. Didn't answer my question anyway.