Digital Clicking and Popping While Recording

[madguitar1086]

I am in desperate need of help. I record from home with a few microphones, a Tascam US16x08 usb interface, Studio One 2 Artist DAW, and a brand new Dell Inspiron 17 7000 laptop. This seems to be a pretty simple setup. I bought the new Dell because my old Dell (about 6 years old) was not cutting it in the audio recording department. I was experiencing digital clicking and popping noises every few minutes, and these noises would, more often than not, leave artifacts in my recorded takes. I noticed that this issue would occur when my CPU monitor would show CPU spikes. My brand new Dell is proving to be almost as bad as my old one. You would think that a brand new computer could handle software and hardware that is several years old.
I studied up on what the problem might be, but have not found any solid solutions. I have optimized my power settings (high performance), I have disabled my wi-fi and Bluetooth (the new Dell is only being used for recording), I disabled my antivirus software, and I have cut down on needless background processes. This had done nothing to remedy the problem. I have tried changing the buffer size: at the lowest setting, the problem occurs constantly, and at the highest setting it occurs less often, but still occurs.
I read about CPU throttling, but have found no way to disable it in Windows 8.
I am in desperate need to help. Any advice would be most appreciated.
Sincerely,
Desperate Home Recording Musician
Madguitar1086

 

[John Mackenzie]

I would check that your pops and clicks are not being created before the recording stages. just set it all up with the levels you are going to use, and listen for a bit. Many things can cause this, even fridges/household gadgets switching on and off, which create spikes through the power lines. There are filters which prevent this sort of thing. I would be interested to know if you resolve this issue, and what the cause was.

 

[BazzBass]

windows, that's the problem. Windows does not handle the recording process well. The list of tweaks and things to turn off is like 20 pages. Then another update drops and you have to start all over again. I can't afford a stand alone audio pc so I have to connect to the net.I had enough of all that and bought a 2488.

 

[-mjk-]

This is a very old thread, but, yeah. I turn off as many unnecessary processes as I can.

 

[Phil Tipping]

...I can't afford a stand alone audio pc...

You could configure your PC as a dual/multi-boot system. I'm still on Windows XP - no sniggering, but if it ain't broke... - which isn't safe on the internet, so the studio PC has a triple-boot: 'Music' is streamlined for the DAW, 'Office' is a standard config for programming, video editing etc, and 'Network' is linux (lubuntu) for network access. The linux system is able to 'see' all the windows partitions and has a virus scanner, so anything downloaded for windows can be checked. The windows modes have all network and anti-'this, that & the other' processes disabled so things run as fast as they used to before this interweb thing took over

 

[Arjan P]

windows, that's the problem. Windows does not handle the recording process well. The list of tweaks and things to turn off is like 20 pages. Then another update drops and you have to start all over again.

Windows is the best recording platform I can think of. Totally configurable with my own (sometimes old) hardware and I don't recognize having 20 pages of tweaks at all. Maybe it was true 15 years ago, but I maybe use 5 tweaks to optimize for recording. The only thing I need to check after an update is whether the firewire driver has been 'updated' as well. And then I set it back. No further issues, and I'm always online with anti virus running as well.

Sidenote: this is a 5 year old topic, with the first reply after two years

 

[BazzBass]

I am not a pc expert, don't know how to do a dual boot. Another reason I don't wanna go the pc route. I had to turn this off, tweak this,change that and still got glitches. Windows must be better if you know what you are doing, I don't.
The glitches only occured whilst tracking,so I'm hoping I can track on the 2488 and if mixing is not so easy on it,I can transfer to Reaper.

 

[Arjan P]

@BazzBass Ofcourse you should choose the OS that you like best and if your experience taught you negatively about Windows, that's fine. To each their own.

But you stated your experience as true fact, "Windows does not handle the recording process well", hence my reaction. It is simply not true for me and many many other Windows users. Also, I've never used dual boot and have no need for it - and it certainly is no prerequisit for a Windows DAW.

 

[-mjk-]

My personal experience with windows all along has been very good. I even use Reaper on my Surface Pro.

 

[BazzBass]

I bought an i7 laptop a year ago,havent installed windows on it yet,saving it for when ready for recording, which is NOW lol. My old lappy was 32 bit. New one will have 64 bit windoze,running an ssd so maybe I will be able to run it out of the box?
Appreciate any advice on this.

 

[-mjk-]

@BazzBass my 5 year old i7 AIO is going strong and running Reaper well.

 

[Arjan P]

New one will have 64 bit windoze,running an ssd so maybe I will be able to run it out of the box?

Windows and SSD won't be any issue, but very important is your audio interface and its driver(s)..

 

[BazzBass]

Focusrite 18i20 2nd Gen.

 

[Arjan P]

Focusrite has a good reputation AFAIK, so you should be fine with that interface and the ASIO driver that should come with it.