1 Topic by Stanley Love (edited by Stanley Love 2020-12-11 17:11:15)

  • Registered: 2020-12-11
  • Posts: 2

Topic: Babyface Pro Fs: glitches, clicks and errors, - 256 buff/size i7 8750h

I've just switched from my Presonus Studio 68c to the new awesome Babyface Pro Fs. And the sound quality is much better as expected.

But, I am constantly experiencing errors and clicks with rme driver.
Same sessions and projects in Ableton and Studio One on the same buffer size of 256 or 128 samples, works just fine on Presonus studio 68c, but keep on glitching and clicking on RME Babyface Pro FS. (FYI: latency in Ableton and Studio One shows much better result with Babyface). The same glitches appears in Windows, even when I'm not working on projects in my DAW.

Laptop: Dell g7 ( i7 8750h, 32 gb of RAM, Ssd 256gb, Nvidia Geforce RTX 2060, 3 usb 3.0 ports and 1 Thunderbolt usb type-c)

Maybe, this is an issue related to Windows. I don't know. I've tried to turn off the internal audio interface in BIOS on my laptop and that didn't work. I've tried to delete the presonus driver and I've got the same result. Also I've reinstalled your driver a couple of times. All steps were done strictly sticking to the quidelines wrtitten in your manual ofcourse.

Guys, I've heard you have the most epic tech support around the whole freaking Universe! Could you give me some help with this problem?! Cause, I am a little bit frustrated with my purchase now, considering the controversial aspect of good preamps and converters and not very good working driver, with my laptop at least?!

P.S. I need low buffersize, cause I'm doing live gigs 5 times a week and using Ableton with the set of vst plugins. And presonus was "okay" for that purpose but not perfect. I've hoped your product would fill all the gaps in my setup.

2 Reply by MetalHeadKeys (edited by MetalHeadKeys 2020-12-11 18:10:48)

  • Registered: 2019-10-01
  • Posts: 675

Re: Babyface Pro Fs: glitches, clicks and errors, - 256 buff/size i7 8750h

Hello!

You can try these, first:

- Disable C-states in the Bios
- Optimize Windows for Background Tasks
- Highest Performance power settings
- Disable unnecessary windows services

You can, also, experiment by turning on or off any Speed stepping options in the Bios, like Turbo-Boost or anything similar.

Regarding NVidia graphics card, check the settings and see if you can set it to highest performance, as well.

These recommendations are typical audio optimization steps for PCs and Laptops, but I don't know to what temperature levels these tweaks will result, in your situation.

Also, there is the 'infamous' ACPI.sys driver that's plaguing many laptops(used for audio production), so please have a look at this link, as well:

https://www.sweetwater.com/sweetcare/ar … cy-issues/ (thanks to Potscrubber)

RME Gear: Digiface USB, HDSP 9632

3 Reply by Stanley Love (edited by Stanley Love 2020-12-17 22:42:25)

  • Registered: 2020-12-11
  • Posts: 2

Re: Babyface Pro Fs: glitches, clicks and errors, - 256 buff/size i7 8750h

Thanks man! Really glad for the feedback!

I've already done most of those things. Also, I've tested my PC with LatencyMonitor. And there were a couple of buggy drivers and yep, that nasty ACPI.sys!

The only things that really worked, I guess, is to oveclock my CPU to 3600Mhz on all cores. I've used ThrottleStop to achieve this.  That minimizes the count of cracks, pops and glitches. Those bastards are still present in some cases, while streaming with a lot of others software or games going in backround. But now, I can perfrom with 128 buffer size and still get a good results with Ableton live.

The mystery still remains the same, though. I mean, why presonus driver was more stable in the same cases. Guess, that's not important now. Cause, I've sold my Presonus studio 68c and keeping RME Babyface Pro FS. This tiny little thing is just a beast of a device in hands of pro musians and sound engineers.

Guys, you keep on making such wonderful stuff!

P.S. The only thing I'm missing in this thing is dynamic compressor and Androind app. Those would be nice to have... Still, Babyface is just AWESOME!

  • mkok
  • DAW Mastermind
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2020-11-04
  • Posts: 623

Re: Babyface Pro Fs: glitches, clicks and errors, - 256 buff/size i7 8750h

You shouldn’t have to overclock to get good results on your pc. I run at 64k buffers on my new i9 pc but also on my 12 year old i7 without any clicks or pops. It sounds like you have a bottle neck somewhere. I’m not mad on off the shelf PCs as they do tend to have problems in bios. Odd though that your other interface works fine. Have you tried a dpc latency monitor to see if this shows up the problem?

Babyface Pro Fs, Behringer ADA8200, win 10/11 PCs, Cubase/Wavelab, Adam A7X monitors.

5 Reply by MetalHeadKeys (edited by MetalHeadKeys 2020-12-18 01:45:36)

  • Registered: 2019-10-01
  • Posts: 675

Re: Babyface Pro Fs: glitches, clicks and errors, - 256 buff/size i7 8750h

Stanley Love wrote:

Thanks man! Really glad for the feedback!

I've already done most of those things. Also, I've tested my PC with LatencyMonitor. And there were a couple of buggy drivers and yep, that nasty ACPI.sys!

The only things that really worked, I guess, is to oveclock my CPU to 3600Mhz on all cores. I've used ThrottleStop to achieve this.  That minimizes the count of cracks, pops and glitches. Those bastards are still present in some cases, while streaming with a lot of others software or games going in backround. But now, I can perfrom with 128 buffer size and still get a good results with Ableton live.

The mystery still remains the same, though. I mean, why presonus driver was more stable in the same cases. Guess, that's not important now. Cause, I've sold my Presonus studio 68c and keeping RME Babyface Pro FS. This tiny little thing is just a beast of a device in hands of pro musians and sound engineers.

Guys, you keep on making such wonderful stuff!

P.S. The only thing I'm missing in this thing is dynamic compressor and Androind app. Those would be nice to have... Still, Babyface is just AWESOME!

You 're welcome!!!

Nice that you 've fixed it by overclocking!

Regarding the Presonus driver, what really matters is the actual Round Trip Latency, and not the Buffer Size. That is why the BF Pro performs better!
Many manufacturers include a rather large "safety" buffer which is not mentioned(256 or 512 samples) to compensate for bad implented drivers. The users see only the buffer size in the menu, "256" for example. But if you add the "safety" buffer this becomes 512 and thus the RTL increases!
This is not the case with RME which has the best drivers! And that is one of the reasons we all, here, love our RMEs!


@mkok
Hi!
This answer was for a laptop, not a PC! Laptops may run the same processors as some PCs, but they are implemented differently due to the small enclosure and have different power profiles in order to have lower temperatures! Lower voltages etc...
So the 'bottleneck' is the fact that this is a laptop. That is why on your old i7 you had good stability and performance, in general!

RME Gear: Digiface USB, HDSP 9632