Crackling, Distortion, Latency and Lag (after extended use)

I've seen many threads on various boards regarding my issue, which is audio distortion and crackling. This was not a problem for me at all until a few weeks ago, but it's come to the point of running me mental.

It always takes a reboot to temporarily fix the issue - but within a few hours it's back and it's a right pain in my butt - being an audio producer.

I've a dedicated firewire sound card (Focusrite Saffire Pro 24) for my audio work, and various sound cards for normal usage. (ATI HD, Asus Virtual Video Capture, SB Xfi Xtrem Audio, VIA High Definition Audio) This distortion and lag occurs on every card I have, so it's definitely not exclusive to one sound card or sound card driver. And anyway, I've already gone through the normal attempts to correct this by updating drivers. I've also tried the suggestion to shut down drivers selectively until I locate the offending one, but that doesn't work.

Like I said I've seen many threads on this but not once did I find a solution was found. Has anyone any suggestions for me? Please guys, someone give a brother a hand - I run a music production studio and this is costing me in productivity. I'm not the sharpest advanced computer user around, but I can manage pretty OK.

Oh, btw I already have the latency checker tool and it's peaking in the red within an hour of use. Previous to whatever has caused this, that thing was always green, and I know because I often check my latency as I use new VSTs or install updates for my DAW or keyboard.

If someone could help I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks in advance :)

fireberd said:

I have a Sonar X1 DAW with a Saffire Pro 40 interface.

I had problems when I had a SoundBlaster Xfi installed in my system (for regular PC audio, not for recording). I had to remove the Xfi as it was interferring with recording.

But as it develops the problem after a while, it sounds like a memory or a memory "leak" problem from some application that is eating memory. Keep track of memory and see if a leak is a possible cause.

Thanks for the advice, I'll remove the soundblaster driver and software now. I never use the bloody thing anyway lol. Saffire are awesome yes? The Mix Control that comes with it is uber powerful - a little complex but I love it. I'm using Ableton Live 8 + Pro Tools myself, with a crap load of VSTs and other goodies. Love Sonar as well, just never installed since Ableton has kept me busy.

One potentially silly question... how do I keep track of memory exactly? I mean aside from the obvious, is there a software or app that can track it or search for potential leaks? Just wondering.

Thanks heaps for your help.

Hi again Fireberd, I run my task manager always keep track of process usages. Never seen any spikes or uncommon percentages there. At any rate, I've disabled all my sound cards with the exception of Saffire and I still had some spikes in my latency checker, but it seemed to make a slight improvement. What I tried - after you clued me in that it may be a memory leakage issue - I disabled/shutdown my Utorrent client (which I run non stop to trade files between studios) and so far that + disabling all my other sound drivers seems to work. It's only been about an hour though, so I'll let you know if this was the issue.

Again, thanks heaps for the attention mate. What is that you're playing in your avatar? :) Is it a Hammondy thing? Those protrusions downward look like pedals, or am I just hallucinating. :)

Cheers!