1 (edited by ilya.pastushenko 2021-09-03 08:34:59)

Topic: RME Babyface Pro FS sound is cracking.

I've just got my new RME Babyface Pro FS and I was very disappointed that equipment that costs a decent amount of money is not capable to handle small project in Ableton Live that was perfectly handled by my Avid Fast Track Solo.

Sound cracks even if CPU is 50-60 percent used. If I am using my old Avid Fast Track Solo - everything is good.


My PC - Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-10400 CPU @ 2.90GHz, 16GB RAM, SSD, Motherboard ASRock B460M Pro4, Power unit provides 650 W.
OS - Windows 10
DAW - Ableton Live.


Yes, besides using in DAW everything sounds good.
Yes, I've tried different buffer sizes.
Yes, I've installed latest RME driver and I am using it in DAW.
Yes, I've updated equipment itself.
Yes, I've tried to switch off all power safe policies in BIOS.
I've switched off power of all stuff I don't need in motherboard: wifi, bluetooth, led.
Yes, I've set up "High Performance" mode in Windows power settings.

Added:
Yes, I uninstalled all previous drivers completely.
Yes, I am sure Ableton uses ASIO driver that I've installed from RME site.
Yes, I've tried different USB ports (directly from motherboard and from front panel of PC).
Yes, I've tried different USB cables.

For this moment it was like 20 percent of total time of using this card in DAW when sound is not cracking. All other time it is cracking.

Please tell me what to do ? How to solve this ?
Is buying of DC cord will totally solve this problem ? If so - what DC to buy ?

I really don't understand what I paid for. Feels like I was cheated.

Re: RME Babyface Pro FS sound is cracking.

Have you uninstalled all unused drivers especially all from Avid ?

And is it sure Ableton is using ASIO driver and not something different ?

M1-Sonoma, Madiface Pro, Digiface USB, Babyface silver and blue

3

Re: RME Babyface Pro FS sound is cracking.

You compare a 2/2 channel device with a 12/12 channel device. Your computer obviously has a problem as it should be able to handle even a 68/68 channel device via USB2, but fails somewhere over more than 2 channels.

Your list misses the test of all available USB ports, as some might work as expected, others not.
And the unavoidable test with LatencyMon.

The external power supply will most probably not help.

Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME

Re: RME Babyface Pro FS sound is cracking.

waedi wrote:

Have you uninstalled all unused drivers especially all from Avid ?

And is it sure Ableton is using ASIO driver and not something different ?


Yes, I uninstalled all previous drivers completely.
Yes, I am sure Ableton uses ASIO driver that I've installed from RME site.

Re: RME Babyface Pro FS sound is cracking.

MC wrote:

You compare a 2/2 channel device with a 12/12 channel device. Your computer obviously has a problem as it should be able to handle even a 68/68 channel device via USB2, but fails somewhere over more than 2 channels.

Your list misses the test of all available USB ports, as some might work as expected, others not.
And the unavoidable test with LatencyMon.

The external power supply will most probably not help.


Yes, I've tried different USB ports (directly from motherboard and from front panel of PC).
Yes, I've tried different USB cables.

No, lets not blame my PC - I am using it for programming stuff as well and my CPU handles very weighty parallel calculation very easily.
Actually I don't get how Babyface optimized if it can't handle small project that is perfectly by other more cheaper  audio interface. I thought the reason is lack of power, cause yes, babyface is more powerful equipment then my old audio interface and in theory it needs more power and if it does not get enough power - it does not work properly, but you mentioned that external power supply will most probably not help. I don't understand what is the problem then. If it is not power and not system requirements.

P.S. I will try LatencyMon.

Re: RME Babyface Pro FS sound is cracking.

May be Ableton is storing some kind of driver settings inside the project and you use an old project where still some Avid stuff is inside and Ableton tries to connect to that Avid interface from time to time and there is the crack...?
Uninstall and reinstall Ableton and create a new project for test.
Also using Reaper for a test would be a good try.

M1-Sonoma, Madiface Pro, Digiface USB, Babyface silver and blue

7 (edited by ilya.pastushenko 2021-09-03 09:12:39)

Re: RME Babyface Pro FS sound is cracking.

LatencyMon results

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Xc4xLw … sp=sharing

System consumption while Ableton using.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DSNYZx … sp=sharing

As you can see power using is very high.

8 (edited by vinark 2021-09-03 09:34:28)

Re: RME Babyface Pro FS sound is cracking.

You tried different buffers I read, but does that make any difference at all. If it is a performance issue things should get at least better at higher  and especially at 1024 and higher buffers.

Vincent, Amsterdam
https://soundcloud.com/thesecretworld
Babyface pro fs, HDSP9652+ADI-8AE, HDSP9632

9

Re: RME Babyface Pro FS sound is cracking.

Use that project so you get cracks. Have the Settings dialog open and see if you get USB errors counted up.

Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME

10 (edited by MetalHeadKeys 2021-09-03 15:05:09)

Re: RME Babyface Pro FS sound is cracking.

Hello, everyone!

I noticed in LatencyMon results that the drivers in question are both related to the management of connected devices!

Here are two links I found for each:

ACPI.SYS : https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/win … c34?page=7   (scroll down, a bit, and you 'll see a lot of different power related problems)
(Usually, acpi.sys often causes latency and audio performance issues in Laptop computers.)

NDIS.SYS :  https://www.partitionwizard.com/partiti … s-sys.html

So, @ilya.pastushenko check for Usb errors, as MC suggested, and disable, also, screen saver, don't allow the PC into "sleep" mode etc.

You can, also try these:

- Disable C-states in the Bios
- Highest perfomance settings(Windows)
- Optimize for Background tasks(Windows)
- Disable unnecessary windows services.

Also, open Device Manager -> USB controllers
Right click on every usb hub(or if you can pinpoint your specific USB port) -> Properties -> Power Mangement and uncheck "Allow computer to turn off this device" option.

RME Gear: Digiface USB, HDSP 9632

Re: RME Babyface Pro FS sound is cracking.

MC wrote:

Use that project so you get cracks. Have the Settings dialog open and see if you get USB errors counted up.

Sorry, I think I did not fully understood what you've meant, but I've run my project while testing with LatencyMon and check USB driver stats and that what I got:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gTzjhv … sp=sharing

For me looks like no errors.

12

Re: RME Babyface Pro FS sound is cracking.

Manual chapter 8.1 and 28.3.

Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME

Re: RME Babyface Pro FS sound is cracking.

MC wrote:

Manual chapter 8.1 and 28.3.

No errors during playing.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/10qnxgw … sp=sharing

But I just realized that if take a look at CPU usage in ableton itself it looks like there are some bursts of usage.

Re: RME Babyface Pro FS sound is cracking.

vinark wrote:

You tried different buffers I read, but does that make any difference at all. If it is a performance issue things should get at least better at higher  and especially at 1024 and higher buffers.

It makes difference only in a bad way - if I choose 256 everything sounds like noise.

Re: RME Babyface Pro FS sound is cracking.

I've tried to switch driver type to MME and found out that there is no problem with cracking for this setting.
But when switch back to ASIO from RME - it cracks again.

So this setting has no problem:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ALHx47 … sp=sharing

but this does:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AtlfNV … sp=sharing

From Ableton CPU monitor looks like MME consumes constantly about 80 percent without any bursts, when ASIO consumes about 50-60 with burst to 100-120.

16

Re: RME Babyface Pro FS sound is cracking.

With MME I see 100 ms latency...no wonder that works. Something is still very wrong here.

Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME

Re: RME Babyface Pro FS sound is cracking.

MC wrote:

With MME I see 100 ms latency...no wonder that works. Something is still very wrong here.

Yesterday I reinstalled driver one more time and updated equipment itself and it started to work properly.
But today after I switched on PC I found out that sound is cracking again. And reinstalling drivers did not help this time.
I think that driver is a problem. It is completely unstable. Is that possible somehow to get some log/error information from driver working ?

Re: RME Babyface Pro FS sound is cracking.

Well, today card started cracking in the game while there were a lot of shooting. I am losing it...

Re: RME Babyface Pro FS sound is cracking.

And no support from RME. Is this like you are buying interface that costs almost 1000 $ and you are supposed to figure out why it is not working properly by yourself ?

20

Re: RME Babyface Pro FS sound is cracking.

Contact your local dealer, distributor or RME support. This is a user forum.

Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME

Re: RME Babyface Pro FS sound is cracking.

ilya.pastushenko wrote:

And no support from RME. Is this like you are buying interface that costs almost 1000 $ and you are supposed to figure out why it is not working properly by yourself ?


From what I see here, it's more of an issue of the computer not working as it should, which has little to do with the price of the interface. Unless something is actually defective, it's not the Babyface that causes these problems...

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

Re: RME Babyface Pro FS sound is cracking.

RME Support wrote:
ilya.pastushenko wrote:

And no support from RME. Is this like you are buying interface that costs almost 1000 $ and you are supposed to figure out why it is not working properly by yourself ?


From what I see here, it's more of an issue of the computer not working as it should, which has little to do with the price of the interface. Unless something is actually defective, it's not the Babyface that causes these problems...

What exactly allows you to make assumptions like this one ?
What exactly is wrong with my PC/OS ?

As far as I can see I did not provide any information that compromises my PC. I have operable PC that did not show any defect for the long time and it works perfectly in any other situation except unstable working of RME driver. 
I provided all test that were asked - no problem found.

Even if there is some problem with OS/PC why your system requirements did not mentioned exact specification that should be provided to support this interface ? If some OS tweaking needed why exact instruction is not provided in guide ?

Buying equipment like this I expect it to be plug and play device that should work perfectly without any additional effort. What I've got - you buy audio interface and supposed to play guess game to find out by yourself what exactly should I do to suffice obscure requirements of this audio interface. 

And more thing: if your equipment and driver is perfect in every situation - why there is so much threads and topics in variety of forums where people are complaining about same problem ?

Re: RME Babyface Pro FS sound is cracking.

You will find people with problems like this on all audio interface forums and it is nearly always the computer or user error. Without looking at your computer it would be very hard to diagnose. Why would the same interface work fine on all three computers I have from an old i7 , Xeon workstation and an i9 I use as my main computer.

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

24

Re: RME Babyface Pro FS sound is cracking.

Plus multiple 10,000 other users all around the world (that is one of the facts that allows us to make assumptions). It's really easy: either the unit has an issue, then exchange it. Or get a different audio interface that suits your needs better. This thread will not find a solution to this problem.

Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME

25 (edited by ramses 2021-09-08 09:03:16)

Re: RME Babyface Pro FS sound is cracking.

ilya.pastushenko wrote:
RME Support wrote:
ilya.pastushenko wrote:

And no support from RME. Is this like you are buying interface that costs almost 1000 $ and you are supposed to figure out why it is not working properly by yourself ?


From what I see here, it's more of an issue of the computer not working as it should, which has little to do with the price of the interface. Unless something is actually defective, it's not the Babyface that causes these problems...

What exactly allows you to make assumptions like this one ?
What exactly is wrong with my PC/OS ?

As far as I can see I did not provide any information that compromises my PC. I have operable PC that did not show any defect for the long time and it works perfectly in any other situation except unstable working of RME driver. 
I provided all test that were asked - no problem found.

Even if there is some problem with OS/PC why your system requirements did not mentioned exact specification that should be provided to support this interface ? If some OS tweaking needed why exact instruction is not provided in guide ?

Buying equipment like this I expect it to be plug and play device that should work perfectly without any additional effort. What I've got - you buy audio interface and supposed to play guess game to find out by yourself what exactly should I do to suffice obscure requirements of this audio interface. 

And more thing: if your equipment and driver is perfect in every situation - why there is so much threads and topics in variety of forums where people are complaining about same problem ?

Hi, sorry to hear about your problems. Maybe a few background informations ..

Why do you think there are still companies on the market selling audio optimized / tested audio workstations for up to double of HW price because testing and optimizing costs time ? If the PC HW world was as good as you want it to be, then no one would really need them, but they are still there.

There are many ways for a computer to fail. In the area of BIOS, hardware, interrupt processing, bad drivers, bad installation, internal organization of PCIe lanes, temperature and possibly clock fluctuations and that was not all.

Audio makes tough demands on a computer system in terms of timely processing of audio and the more channels a recording interface has, the more audio data must be processed in a timely manner.

But Windows is not a real-time OS, which could also ensure in the area of low level routines (processing of kernel code) that drivers and programs from the audio area do not come up short in terms of CPU time. Thus, it also depends on the devices and the programming of their drivers whether everything works properly (DPC latencies, bad programming of drivers that block a core for too long on which potentially an audio related low level routine or process is waiting).

Even on a good working system a driver update can cause issues and much higher DPC latencies, because sometimes the programming changes. So that CPU cores become blocked for too long by a running driver code. The problem is, that the normal process scheduler may not control/end this job. Only the driver itself is allowed to detach itself from the CPU core on a non-real time OS for data consistency reasons so that nothing gets lost during I/O operations. You can only hope, that developers stick to recommended programming conventions, how long at maximum a driver / low level routine shall utilize a CPU core.

Furthermore, there are even bigger differences if you have a desktop or laptop, with the latter the performance is not as
high and you still have to compromise on the clock and performance because of heat development. Then there are possible problems in chipsets, for example USB is sometimes not implemented without problems, then, as MC mentioned you can try to solve this by a) trying every USB port on your system and if you do not find a good working one b) getting a separate PCIe USB card with USB chipset that is known to work. Also with the goal to isolate audio traffic / the interface to another USB infrastructure of this separate card.

This is a wide topic. Usually it works quite well, but it can also fail and you need to find out, what solves the issues best or try to get working compromises with e.g. higher ASIO buffersizes.

My next PC will be from such a manufacturer, because I know how much time it may take to get a good working system and I think after I made this exercise once, I do not need / want to repeat that again.

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13

Re: RME Babyface Pro FS sound is cracking.

ilya.pastushenko wrote:

What exactly allows you to make assumptions like this one?

Experience.

Buying equipment like this I expect it to be plug and play device that should work perfectly without any additional effort. What I've got - you buy audio interface and supposed to play guess game to find out by yourself what exactly should I do to suffice obscure requirements of this audio interface.

Sadly, that's not how things work. No audio interface can compensate or fix a computer's performance issues. This is not about "obscure requirements", but about basic functionality without issues that cause audio dropouts. Impressive numbers in a computer's specs on paper do not make a good audio system, unfortunately.


And more thing: if your equipment and driver is perfect in every situation - why there is so much threads and topics in variety of forums where people are complaining about same problem ?

Because PC performance issues are common. This is in no way RME specific.

Mind that neither the Babyface nor any other audio interface actively "handle" your audio projects. They are in no way involved in rendering effects, plugins, or the like. All of this happens inside the software exclusively.

ilya.pastushenko wrote:

But I just realized that if take a look at CPU usage in ableton itself it looks like there are some bursts of usage.

Have you talked to Ableton about this? Is the issue reproducible with other software (Reaper)?

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

Re: RME Babyface Pro FS sound is cracking.

just for information, I have switched to "ultimate performance" for windows, not High, but Optimal, and I have no more cracking sound with VST at 48khz and 64 samples, before I could only use 128 samples with no crack.