Maschine SW: Audio Dropouts, crackling, popping regardless of project size or buffer settings

No, all my NI and Arturia and DAW software is installed on the same drive. Not C: drive, but my secondary M.2 drive (as it's faster than my C drive, which does matter for DAW/Audio performance, I know not so much for synth plugins and FX, but perhaps samplers as not sure if it loads everything into memory or if it streams as needed) In the old days I had noticed the old IDE 7200rpm drives having issues with running a lot of audio tracks and plugins, but these days with SSD drives, don't see it anymore.

Are you saying that you have NI and Arturia installed in the default locations? (i.e. C:\Program Files\* if your on a PC). Something I could try, although would be a pain to reinstall everything just to test.

Thanks

 

ok. yes for loading samples a ssd is prefered of course, or a M.2 drive.

the desktop has 3 x ssd, 1 x hd. projects are on hd, also audio tracks, but i don't make or have a lot of audiot tracks.. so no probs. also recordings. sometimes i use, one of the ssd's for recording, one program seems to like it..

i installed arturia on the default path, but on my laptop i now remember, the NI stuff, in another directory, the plugins. but still on the c: drive.

i think it must not make any difference, but you never know..

but on both systems i have, no probs with maschine, works perfectly fine, flawless even..

do you work with an iGPU, an alienware will have a dedicated GPU me thinks.

arturia allows to install resources on another drive, from arturia software center (many updates available now, for the effects..).

laptop has ssd (M.2, or NVME, or something, i must know it..), and 1 x hd.
on the laptop all is installed on the c: drive.indeed sampling loading takes more time on my laptop...

the M.2 drive you use, is it via PCIe? or sata? M.2 drives are also known for fast performance, and then; drop... perhaps that is fixed, i don't know.

i only try to help, i can only help saying, in my case, on two different systems, maschine performs as expected. great even. Motu ultralite mk3 hybrid on desktop, behringer UMC204HD on laptop.

but i did the test, on the laptop with WASAPI, the behringer has the habit (...) to also be sometimes in the studio...

and yes, newer laptops, although it are desktop replacement, don't 'mux', only some more expensive ones.. so maschine runs now on the iGPU...windows lost again settings after 21H1....
desktop has a dedicated gpu, gtx 1060 6gb, iGPU disabled via bios.

so i am at lost, also. for your problem.

but a fast system, i see it a 'lot' (it is 'social' media, problems you see, not the not-problems...), does not always performs better, mainly; so many factors can influence performance. mismatching, usb drivers. of course it can, it mostly will perform better...

did you try it with maschine mk3 disconnected?

nothing on the master? no loopmidi, internal audio disabled. pffff it can anything.

ableton and cakewalk have no problems.

i had at some point big performance problems with bitwig studio 3.2, they aren't there anymore, what has changed. i couldn't record, without problems, beyond 2 minutes. and other problems...

i tweaked and troubleshooted, didn't know what solved it.

this does not help.

it is frustrating. virus scanner!! o a virus scanner mangled my system ones, for audio performance, but for all my DAW's... if i remember correctly.

disabling the virus scanner i did, but deinstalling did really the trick.

shooting in the dark, sorry!

do you run latency mon, next to maschine, perhaps maschine causes.... are power savings disabled in device settings and performance plan for usb?

again shooting in the dark.

 

These can be really difficult to troubleshoot when you have multiple HW and SW components working together. I had this one time with Arturia plug-ins as I had many instances on different tracks simultaneously that ate up my CPU and memory. (Using Reason DAW). Had to bounce the audio to tracks and take out the Arturia inserts to fix it. If watching CPU/RAM usage through Windows task manager or other memory monitoring tool doesn't show what's driving it up as you go, exhaustive trial and error steps might be the only way. Never had this happen to me on my MacBook with Maschine specifically except for one quick moment last week. Turned out my laptop wasn't charging and was down to 4% power.

 

Yeah, it's next to impossible to troubleshoot. I have gone through tons of things with support and finally they just wanted to access my machine directly, which I can't do... So, it pretty much ended there. The only thing left to do is to flatten one of these machines and reinstall everything default, on C drive and see if that helps.

It's very suspicious that I only have these problems with the Maschine software.

 

another individual mentioned by changing the power plan... to highest performance fixed a problem he was encountering resulting in a high cpu spike..
worth trying..

 

I've had Maschine since 2011 and I've had 4 different computers. 1 desktop and 3 laptops (all pcs). At some point, each subsequent update of Maschine yields this problem for your existing pc and I've tried everything to fix it but I end up getting another computer. It's not a PC problem either as you will find the same issue with MACs all over this forum. For me it just now started happening AGAIN with my latest laptop.
2016 Alienware 15r2
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6700HQ CPU @ 2.60GHz 2.60 GHz
32 GB ram.
1tb SDD hardrive
Studio Live Presonus Audio interface /mixer

I got a good five years out of the laptop, but it's happening again. pops and cracks with VST's and/or projects with samples in them. From my past experience it only gets worse to the point where if you load a sample expansion project it will start popping with that also., My latest temporary fix is to change my power plan from balance to Ultimate. Some PCs allow you to do that. I say this is a temporary fix because it solves the pops and clicks but having your laptop in that mode for long periods of time isn't good.

I say it's a Maschine issue because like most of you I can still work in Cakewalk and Studio One with no problems. When I open the same project in Maschine, I have issues. My most taxing VST is Slate and Ash's Cycles. When I open an instance of that in Maschine the Cpu meter will literally bounce up and down without even playing the instrument. Once I play the instrument it's done. I will then open that VERY SAME Cycles instrument in Cakewalk and the cpu meter doesn't budge and I will have no problems. Another sign that it's not the PC is that Latencymon finds no problems even when it's popping and crackling in Maschine. Also, while Maschine is pegging at 100% pc on its internal Cpu meter, Task manager will say that Maschine is only using 17% of my cpu and memory. Yes I turn everything off.... No wifi-, no security software, nothing but Maschine. In the beginning of the issue I can usually pin-point the vst or sample that's causing it, but like I said it eventually gets worse. For now the power plan change works. I will do that until I buy Abelton or get better at using Cakewalk.

 

Totally man, same for me. I have narrowed my plugins collection down to just NI (K13) and Arturia (V Collection 8 and FX pack 2). I have tried so many things to resolve this and it's gotten to the point where I just do all my preproduction in M+ standalone without issue, then bring it onto PC to finish up and as soon as I add any PC only plugin (NI or Arturia) the project becomes unstable. So, I am resorting just using Maschine as a plugin with the M+ project and adding additional plugins directly in Cakewalk. I have tried the power plan route, doesn't seem to make a difference on either of my computers.

Yes, definitely a Maschine software problem, my current support ticket with them is left with them trying to get licenses for Arturia plugins so they can try to repro, not holding my breath on that... I am going to shoot another video showing a song made in M+ standalone, playing just fine in Maschine on desktop, then adding just one Arturia plugin (like a compressor or reverb) and show how it breaks the project causing these dropouts. Then if you remove the Arturia plugin, it still has the issue until you restart Maschine. This to me says that something with these plugins is putting the Maschine audio engine into an unstable state that seems to not actually have anything to do with the plugin being added itself.

It sucks, I just want to make music and not have to mess around with this stuff all the time. I love the Maschine workflow and have gotten pretty proficient at it, but sadly I just can't use it fully on my computers.

 

tweaking your windows enviroment/services plays a huge part in Daw performance... to expect a gaming latop to be a out of the box DAW and run with 90% efficiency is a little unrealistic..
you make mention the Task manager is showing only 17% system cpu usage, whilst maschine is 100%, this should highlight to your system is being massively under-utilised... to think this is solely a Maschine issue is a extremely dubious thought...
i wonder, how much tweaking and investigation into known system issues regarding performance issues have you done?

heres one i come across just goggling issues with performance relating to the laptop you utilise..

https://www.dell.com/community/Alienware/Alienware-15-R2-1-6-1-BIOS/td-p/6126985/page/3

 

heres just one i com

im curious about something, given you and dazeja share a similar type of laptop by dell... just a question

1. did the problems still persist once dropping back to the previous version of maschine?? as it wouldnt make sense you continually having problems when you went to a earlier version.

whats interesting... is this individual who is on youtube... has studio-one project that is quite large, and the Laptop he uses, is very much identical to yours...

heres the clip... but take note of conversation of spencer arnold and the youtuber in the comments section... theres a couple of tweaks they mention.

 

i also want to just say... that studio one and Maschine are no doubt completely different in how they utilise both their CPU/Core &threading...
im guessing here and i would assume that Maschine being more geared toward realtime performance, and actively waiting upon input from hardware, a High single core performance CPU would be preferable, and the programming surrounding it, would also cater and be optimised around a single cored performance.... whereas studio one a mixing based slash one directional performance has only to worry about putting things on a track in a single direction realtime...
this differs with maschine, that will jump around realtime, with such minute precision, that they are basically 2 different DAWs...
it would be more CPU-intensive to have precise timing jumps etc when utilising the standalone maschine....

which begs the question... how does the same problem you mention behave when utilised as a VST in the studio-one or cakewalk?? same issues?? or non existent?

 

As stated initially in this thread, this is happening on both of my systems, The Alienware A51m and a standard built Intel i7 based desktop with same ram, SSDs, RTX2080 (not that that matters much). It's actually worse on the desktop. On both systems Cakewalk performs without flaw loading tons and tons of plugins all at once.

It's really odd because it doesn't seem to be a "general" CPU deficiency problem as the CPU level is low most of the time and then spikes (like the video I posted earlier in this thread), it has something to do with the combination of plugins being used. Like in my latest repro (which I am planning on capturing via video and posting soon, when I get time), it's an M+ standalone project that is only using the plugins available in standalone, loaded into Maschine desktop and at that state it plays perfectly fine with no CPU spikes at all, ever, the meter is very low throughout the whole song and it is using quite a few plugins (on the M+ standalone it was getting near to max CPU). Then, if I add just ONE Arturia plugin, doesn't seem to matter which one, say a compressor, or the Juno Chorus, or an instance of one of the V8 synths, the project becomes unstable and spikes to the point of heavy crackling and dropouts at the same points in the song, which don't have anything to do with the plugin that I added.

So, it's seeming like there is some issue with either the Arturia plugins, the way their installed and/or how they are being mingled with the other existing NI plugins in the Maschine audio engine (at least in my 2 systems). As even if I then remove the plugin from the project and play again, it still has the issues. Not until I restart Maschine and reload the "clean" M+ standalone project will it play nicely again. So it puts the Maschine engine into a unrecoverable state.

Again, both systems have this same issue with this same project/scenario. Note that on both of these systems, NI and Arturia packages are not installed in the default locations (on C drive), they are both installed on secondary M.2/SSD drives (E drive).

Regarding running Maschine as a VST in Cakewalk, this same behavior also happens there. I notice on the Cakewalk CPU meter when the glitches happen, the usage does go up, but not max like it shows in the Maschine UI.

 

is all the above still using the latest version of maschine?? or and older version??

 

yknow, one things for certain... should you do a fresh Windows install of one of your PC's and then install the latest version of Maschine after tweaking the simplest of settings, it should indicate where the issue resides...

its not something i would do straight away, until such point i have exhausted all tweaking possibilities,, for future reference...

there are a few tweaking videos out there to look at...they would be based on the problem solving that is mentioned when using Latency Monitor as a reference point
https://www.resplendence.com/latencymon_using

just understanding what is mentioned in this help section is a good starting point to identify possible problems when dealing with audio.. the program itself is worth using too... to at least gauge whats occurring as far as interrupt calls are doing on your system...

and although NI have acknowledged a issue... what suprises me... is your CPU is more powerful than mine... and im not having issues mines being a measley 3770s 3.2ghz cpu with only 8gb... which in comparison to your alienware laptop outdoes my AIO-PC in many respects... so im finding it a little diffucult to accept that the problem is with the latest maschine update... which im also running with also another daw in tandem at times

Edit: ill run a test on my 3770s system and try to overload with plugins to the point of crackles etc.. and ill get back to you

 

oh just to eliminate the obvious.... run malwarebytes through your system to ensure no nasties are hiding on your system

 

Yes, this is the latest Maschine software, I keep everything up to date, I only use NI K13 Ultimate, the 2 Arturia packages and Omnisphere for plugins these days.

Yep, latencyMon, yes have run it, worked with NI support through that and countless other trial and error steps. It's not a CPU issue (multiple machines), it's not an audio driver issue (happens with multiple hardwares with all drivers), when the problem happens, it's not like the project is playing on the edge, it's sudden and consistently in the same spots every time. When not happening, CPU load is low and there is no glitching/artifacts.

Regarding the Windows reinstall, yes, I think that will be my final step, but these systems are my main work machines for audio, graphic arts, photography, 3d modeling and software development professionally, so it's a tremendous undertaking to do that... :|

The systems are clean, I run a very tight ship.

 

By the way, if I add Omnisphere to this same clean M+ standalone project, it's totally fine, no issues, CPU remains low and stable for the entire track. It's really looking like an Arturia issue, like there's some fundamental thing that is in most/all of their plugins that is causing this instability. Not knowing the innards of their software, I could only guess what the hell is going on... But it's getting pretty specific here.

 

okay ive done a 1st test.... using the DJ jam meister track as the background template..
i have found the most utilised patterns in each of the groups based on the amount of notes of that song and used that as the test pattern
and so far i have added on 6 massive plugins running random instruments looping over a single pattern... thereby flooding it with just a cacophony of arp patterns and also a single instance of kontakt player at present...
so far my maschine CPU reading is sitting @ what looks to be 50%... and taskmanager reads an average of 32%
also im using ASIO4all with 64 samples and using the internal audio driver... then running the output from the headphones into a mixer which offloads to another PC which uses a old m-audio 410 firewire..(no crackles)

 

okay 2nd test, using the same track as previous, and adding another 5 instances of massive making 11 in total recording arps into it...and having also removed the kontakt player instrument... at which point everything was working no clicks or issues...
to which i then tried to load a instance of the Reaper Daw and midi translator pro which i use in conjunction with reaper to control my bcf's and bcr's faders... the maschine crackles began to occur in a major way..

i believe i couldve added another 2 or 3 instances of massive before the crackles but that would have to be tested again to verify that thought...
so my trusty AIO 3770s 8gb got 11 instances of massive arps playing over the top of a playing song template that was continously looping over a single pattern.. and no problems until i tried to load an instance of reaper... which became the tipping point...

ill try this again.... and push the limit and try to video capture it, so you can hear the cacophony

 

Again, I don't think this has to do with overall load (sounds like your test is really just pushing CPU limits). The project I was working with NI support was only like 3 tracks, 2 massives and some internal plugins, eq, compressors, reverb, etc. Then adding an Arturia plugin and the spike occur. I'll try to post of video of all this later today.

Appreciate you putting time into troubleshooting this, it really seems like it has something to do with how my systems are configured specifically with Arturia.

 

you may have already seen this... and done all the necessary tweaks and tests... but its still useful a useful reference for attempting to diagnose the issues you have been experiencing...