Focusrite Saffire Pro 24 Problem (Clicks - Pops)  

fireberd said:

Like I said, mine worked OK for over a year with the default driver and never had a problem - until one day about 4 months ago. The only thing that I can think of that caused this could have been some Microsoft update. There wasn't any hardware changes.

yeah I know.. thats why like I said "Ill have to keep that in mind"
lol

thankfully no problems here.. Just educating myself... for 4 months from now what might happen! hahahaha

It's been a long time since this post, but I have to say, I did a clean install of windows 7 and the problem came back. Well I finally disabled my wireless network adapter by Belkin, first impression is really good, much better response. (Because without disabling it, I have problems listening to songs even on VLC).

Normally I don't revive threads this OLD. But considering how i just did a google search for Saffire Pro 24 pops n clicks now that I am experiencing them all of a sudden with my OWN Pro 24, and found THIS very thread that once upon a time I commented on when I had NO issues.. I figured why not.

I have no idea wtf is going on with mine now. NOTHING has changed on my system at all, with the exception of installing the driver and SW for the MPC Renaissance, and some windows updates. That's it. Yet now I get pops n clicks on My Pro 24. Even just using it as my default windows audio device, which I never used to do. I only set it to def to test it with basic windows tasks to confirm the issue. Usually I send windows audio out of my Delta 44 sound card, and use the Pro 24 for Reason, Maschine, Cubase, Pro tools, and now recently the Renaissance. I have a mixer that allows me to route the outs for each audio device to the mixer, and then out of the mixer to my monitors. After adding the Ren I noticed the pops n clicks.

Wondering if this has something to do with the drivers for the Ren? Somehow?
Also I know there can be issues in the registry once you have a specific Number of audio/midi devices installed.
Like there are a finite number of slots you can use for device drivers, and if you uninstall/reinstall drivers sometimes they do not fully get removed, and those installs stack up and cause issues?
Something I read, not sure if there is any truth too it.

None the less, Anyone having this issue, or a similar one with these devices on 7? If so CHIME IN.
I have tried updating to the most recent Mix control sw, to no avail.
Need input!

@TripleXbeatz

I never fully understood what caused the clicks and pops in my case, but they seem to have stopped. Of course I had to make some minor sacrifices... No Aero themes, no USB WiFi adapter (because yes, things seem to work better when I disable it). That doesn't mean necessarily that the cause of clicks and pops was Aero and the adapter, but since they stopped I won't occupy myself any further with it. You could start by reducing the resources used by windows for graphics etc and see what happens. Hope I helped even a little bit.

P.S.: On MacOS X not a single click... not even once.

WOW its dope to see we are all still here, and still answering the thread. Cool little bit of peace of mind lol.

I may have left it out, but I've been doing PC repair for the better part of 12 years. So when it comes to troubleshooting stuff like this I can more than hold my own. I usually leave that out though as I find it limits the replies I get. And even someone without a definitive answer may set us on the right track to discovering the cause of an issue by simply recommending something they did, or heard.

That said, I am sure its not Wifi, and wouldn't even presume it has anything to do with USB devices at all. I have run DPClatency checker, and never have any spikes there, so I have more or less ruled out the PCI bus, IRQ conflicts, bus saturation, etc.(for the most part)
The one thing I have tried that appears to be working so far, is reducing the setting of "firewire driver latency" from short to medium. It seems I get either much less pops n clicks, to the point that its difficult to detect them (fewer are father between), OR I am now getting none at all when set to medium for the FW driver latency.

The real question is WHY. This setting has been on short since I purchased this device around the time I first posted on this thread(feb2012 i think). The only substantial change on my end has been the addition of the MPC renaissance and its driver and sw. Which is USB. My PC only has a single FW port which is a T.I., and that is in use by the Focusrite.

So yeah, not sure what is causing me to have to increase the FW driver latency setting. That obviously diminished the pops & clicks it seems, but also increases the latency. So every VSTi I am triggering is affected, the MPC Ren is affected. Its counter intuitive, and a move in the OPPOSITE direction.
Still want to know why! lol

Wow 1962? Well you got me beat by a long shot!

I actually got into computers in 1998 via working in a recording studio, and being the only one with any knowledge at all to handle upgrades, bad drives, etc. Which then led troubleshooting DAWs, and then finally basic consumer repair, laptops, motherboard swaps and repairs, soldering caps, etc.

I agree with you that Wifi can certainly cause issues. I can recall back in the day when 56K was still cool, we always preached keeping your DAW and your basic use computer with internet access SEPARATE.

In this case, I have ruled out wifi a couple of ways. One was to completely unplug it from the computer and being able to duplicate these pops n clicks. The second way was to run the wifi adapter, and also run DPC Latency checker concurrently, and check for spikes that would affect the performance of other devices sharing the PCI bus, or even the same IRQ. Unfortunately, I was able to duplicate the issue in both instances.

The only thing I have been able to do to temporarily prevent these pops n clicks from happening, is to set the FW driver latency from short to medium. That works for me for NOW. But I DO need to find out WHY I have to set it that way to get any satisfaction to begin with.

So onward we go. lol

P.s. I never actually owned an Ampeg, but back in the late 80's early 90's it was my dream amp. That and an Ibanez S540STLD. two dreams that never came true, lol. Ampeg used to ROCK tho!

Yeah I've done some tests and taken screen shots of the difference between using the Saffire ASIO and MPC REN ASIO drivers, the latency difference between them, and the latency difference between short and medium settings on the FW driver latency settings. The diff between short and medium is minimal. Like 1-2ms at 512buffer 44.1K. But I still wanna dig into to find out why all of a sudden using the Short settings produces pops n clicks. My PC specs are the same and are listed in my sig. Im due to update, but even still a Q6600 and 6GB ram is nothing to shake a stick at, so to speak.

My current guitar rig is an Ibanez S520EX, with duncan JB and Jazz pups, and a Line 6/Bogner Spider Valve, with a Celestion G12K100 in place of the V30. And a few pedals. But I don't play nearly as much as I used to. Only when I lay down the occasional guitar line in a few productions here and there.