I'm in a vocal quartet, and we just purchased 3 Focusrite 2i2 3rd gen. interfaces (I already have a Presonus FP10 that I'm using). We had our first rehearsal using the new interfaces last night, and we heard audible clicks. We recorded one song, and today I brought the 4 tracks into Logic Pro to see what's going on. All 3 of the Focusrite tracks have the clicks, which occur at different times from each other. There are no clicks in my track from the PreSonus. I'm attaching a screenshot of a stretch of waveform from one of the tracks that shows 2 glitches that you can easily see.
Two of the guys are running Windows 10 and the other is running MacOS (Catalina I think), so it's not an OS thing. We believe that we've got all 4 interfaces set for 44.1k sample rate. Any ideas about what might be causing this?
I know some people are using the 2i2 successfully with JK, so I'm hoping this is a setup issue that we can easily resolve. Any help will be appreciated, thanks!
We just tried installing the latest beta release of the Focusrite Scarlett USB driver (4.65.4.656) on one of the Windows machines, and it seems to use an internal buffer size of 880, causing an audio latency of 80 ms (which JK rejects). I guess we just have to live with these clicks for now! It's acceptable for rehearsals, but not for recordings or doing online concerts.
those anomalies in your waveform appear to be timing errors, suggesting to me a clocking problem with the 2i2.
I have a friend using a 2i2 2nd gen under Win10 and she's not having this problem.
I would try using the 2i2 to make a local system recording (Audacity is free, Mac and Win). If those errors are still there, then the interfaces may be defective.
Not here to bash Focusrite; I have 2 Saffire units that are great
05-31-2020, 12:45 PM (This post was last modified: 05-31-2020, 12:49 PM by StuartR.)
(05-28-2020, 04:12 PM)mhholmes Wrote: I'm in a vocal quartet, and we just purchased 3 Focusrite 2i2 3rd gen. interfaces (I already have a Presonus FP10 that I'm using). We had our first rehearsal using the new interfaces last night, and we heard audible clicks. We recorded one song, and today I brought the 4 tracks into Logic Pro to see what's going on. All 3 of the Focusrite tracks have the clicks, which occur at different times from each other. There are no clicks in my track from the PreSonus. I'm attaching a screenshot of a stretch of waveform from one of the tracks that shows 2 glitches that you can easily see.
Two of the guys are running Windows 10 and the other is running MacOS (Catalina I think), so it's not an OS thing. We believe that we've got all 4 interfaces set for 44.1k sample rate. Any ideas about what might be causing this?
I know some people are using the 2i2 successfully with JK, so I'm hoping this is a setup issue that we can easily resolve. Any help will be appreciated, thanks!
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Are you not able to adjust the buffer size with the ASIO driver for this interface?
Also, in Windows, you'll probably need to make some performance adjustments to allow Windows to prioritize real-time audio transmission.
Start by downloading and running LatencyMon and let's see what it reports.
05-31-2020, 10:33 PM (This post was last modified: 05-31-2020, 10:39 PM by mhholmes.)
(05-31-2020, 05:15 AM)Zlartibartfast Wrote: those anomalies in your waveform appear to be timing errors, suggesting to me a clocking problem with the 2i2.
I have a friend using a 2i2 2nd gen under Win10 and she's not having this problem.
I would try using the 2i2 to make a local system recording (Audacity is free, Mac and Win). If those errors are still there, then the interfaces may be defective.
Not here to bash Focusrite; I have 2 Saffire units that are great
Thanks for the suggestion! Our bass actually made a recording with JamKazam in a solo session, and didn't hear any clicks in the recording. Maybe the extra load of 3 additional audio streams caused the problem. Anyway, I'll see if I can get one of the other guys to try a recording with Audacity. (I have a different interface, so I can't test this myself.)
(05-31-2020, 12:45 PM)StuartR Wrote:
(05-28-2020, 04:12 PM)mhholmes Wrote: I'm in a vocal quartet, and we just purchased 3 Focusrite 2i2 3rd gen. interfaces (I already have a Presonus FP10 that I'm using). We had our first rehearsal using the new interfaces last night, and we heard audible clicks. We recorded one song, and today I brought the 4 tracks into Logic Pro to see what's going on. All 3 of the Focusrite tracks have the clicks, which occur at different times from each other. There are no clicks in my track from the PreSonus. I'm attaching a screenshot of a stretch of waveform from one of the tracks that shows 2 glitches that you can easily see.
Two of the guys are running Windows 10 and the other is running MacOS (Catalina I think), so it's not an OS thing. We believe that we've got all 4 interfaces set for 44.1k sample rate. Any ideas about what might be causing this?
I know some people are using the 2i2 successfully with JK, so I'm hoping this is a setup issue that we can easily resolve. Any help will be appreciated, thanks!
-----
Are you not able to adjust the buffer size with the ASIO driver for this interface?
Also, in Windows, you'll probably need to make some performance adjustments to allow Windows to prioritize real-time audio transmission.
Start by downloading and running LatencyMon and let's see what it reports.
I am also getting clicks and pops/ distortion using my Scarlett 2i4. Been playing with 2 colleagues. They can hear distortion from me and I from them while playing. My own feed is fine at my (output) end. I tried changing the sample rate (using the audio/midi set up in utilities on MacBook Air) to no avail so far. The odd thing is that listening to the recordings, while the .wav files are distorted, the .ogg files are fine. I am pretty sure this is a settings issue, and possibly due to mismatched settings between me and my friends. Any suggestions to help with this very much appreciated. Incidentally I found a link on the forum to a Focusrite download for the Scarlett which reduced the latency from it by about 2 ms to 7.8. Didn't solve my distortion problem unfortunately. Hitting resend hasn't helped either.
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Clicks, pops & distortion (when NOT latency & packet rate related issues) are often caused by system (cpu/memory/architecture) over-load.
Even the fastest high-spec laptop will e.g. throttle down resources when not plugged into the mains and/or running at any power (-saving) scheme not tailored to performing at 'full everything' when trying to work with audio.
Example: Our band rehearsal last night was pestered by an annoying crackling every time our vocalist/gitarist made any sound at all. The rest of us were clear and sounding great. This had never happened before. Actually he is normally the one with the best latency and audio quality. Turned out he had forgotten his laptop power supply at the office leaving his high-spec machine running at not even half power and unable to cope with the demand.
(he was unable to make any changes to his energy settings himself - company restricted)
There are several sites on the interwebs with ample info on how to 'optimize your pc/mac for audio (recording)' which applies mostly to working with JKZ as well.
Thanks very much for this; I suspect it's packet related though and I'm not sure hw to address that. 'Frames rate' is a mystery to me and I haven't yet found the way to change it as some people have been recommending. I'll be attempting that again next time I fire up the program. Since I noticed CPU overload the first time I used JK, I now make a habit of quitting all other programs (Mail was using a lot of CPU power) and all my lights are green; CPU not working too hard at all, except for the latency which occasionally goes amber . My internet latency seems to be between 17 and 27 ms which may be a bit high. I'm also making sure to run off the mains (I think JK puts up a warning if you aren't).
Thanks again for advice; anything you can advise about 'packets' would be great as this is the area I am least confident or aware of.
Audio Settings/Audio Booster:
Music Bitrate - typically Auto Throttle, but you have 4 different manual settings. I use 320kb/s
Network Packet Rate - also Auto, then 3 manual choices. I use 400packets/sec
If you are in a session, such as a test session, you will be able to set your Audio Framesize. If you are not in a session you will see this value is blank. I'm running @ 1ms now, and thus far it's been stable for me. My Jam partner uses 2.5. We usually have a very good connection
