Clicks and pops in Phosycon 1.8

[twisted-space]

I'm getting some random clicks and pops when using Phosycon 1.8. I initially thought it was down to my host (Ableton Live but I have just bought Energy XT and have found the same problem. To triple check I have downloaded reaper and it happens in that as well
I have tried at variuous latency settings, bit depth and sample rate settings, it isn't related to CPU load as it happens with under 10% load in Lives cpu meter. It doesn't happen with Phosycon 1.6.

System is a Dell XPS-M1530 with a T9300 core 2 duo and 4 Gb ram on Win 7 ultimate x86. Soundcard is an Emu 1616m. I've also tried it with asio4all using the onboard soundard and with an M-audio fasttrack pro that I've borrowed.

Is anyone having similar problems? anything else I should look at?

[Sebastian@d16]

Hi,

Does in happen exclusively when you use Phoscyon? Or other plug-ins in a project as well?

Best regards,
Sebastian

[twisted-space]

Hi Sebastian.
It happens with just Phosycon loaded, or with other plugins. It happens seemingly at random.

I've recorded Phosycon playing a preset pattern with me tweaking showing what I'm talking about, mp3 is on dropbox here.
This was running Phosycon on it's own inside Live 8.1.4.

[Sebastian@d16]

Hi,

This sounds to me like buffer underruns from ASIO. Do those "noises" appear in exported sound (when you use export audio/video option from Live)?

Best regards,
Sebastian

[twisted-space]

This sounds to me like buffer underruns from ASIO. Do those "noises" appear in exported sound (when you use export audio/video option from Live)?

Hi again Sebastian, thanks for working with me on this.

No, the noises don't appear when I exprort audio. I also thought it sounded like ASIO buffer underruns but, it happens at buffer settings and cpu loads that this pc can easily cope with eg. 880 samples @ 44.1Khz on my emu 1616m, = 20.1 ms output latency lives cpu meter @ 8%. Using Live's cpu/buffer test my machine can do 352 samples @ 44.1Khz = 8.1 ms with 80% cpu load. 20 ms is way to high a latency to be useable, yet still gives these clicks.
I should note that this is the only vst that is doing this, I can run multiple instances of U-he Ace, Xils 3 or Dcam Synth Squad @ 352 samples and over 70% cpu load without clicks, yet Phosycon can't manage a single instance @ 880 samples and 8% cpu load? I have noticed that it happens more frequently if something is modulating one of phosycons controls, Eg if I modulate cutoff with a clip envelope or using an lfo in reaper, or if I tweak settings using the mouse or automap.

[Sebastian@d16]

Hi,

There's one other thing that bothers me, because I had similar issue with very first versions of Silver Lines in combination with PatchMix tool from EMU. Does it happen even if you have the PatchMix window closed? I know you tried it with other sound cards, but I suppose you left Emu installed in your system. Try to make little test, to run Phoscyon through emu, open PatchMix window and then close it. Does it make a difference in occurrence of "clicks"?

Another possibility is that some intel denormalisation appears somewhere in Phoscyon, but we definitely would have been notified by other customers if it had appeared on intel processor with low latency buffer set.

Best regards,
Sebastian

[twisted-space]

Hi.
Nope closing patchmix (minimizing it really, if you close it you lose audio all together) doesn't seem to make any difference either.

[Sebastian@d16]

Ok, so lets make test for denormalization

Turn off the Master Volume knob (on Phoscyon's GUI) and tell me if there're clicks and pops even if output from Phoscyon is completely silent?

Another thing. Please put some notes (the best will be external mode) on midi clip and leave some empty space behind them, play this midi clip and tell if after some time when notes stop playing the clicks and pops disappear too?

Cheers,
Sebastian

[twisted-space]

No noises when Phosycon master volume is set to 0, and none if Phosycon isn't actually playing notes (no noises once Phosycon stops playing notes in external mode)

[Sebastian@d16]

Hi,

We've just examined deeper the sample you sent to us, and it's definitely not a denormalization problem. It's something with your ASIO buffer.



Take a look at the picture above. The fragment marked with a darker red appear bit later again (marked as ligther red), seems that fragment occurred twice, such thing cannot be caused by plug-ins itself. Oscillations that you can see on the borders of lighter red range are caused by approximation filter of sound card's A/D.

Best regards,
Sebastian

[twisted-space]

And in english

I guess you're telling me that it's a problem with my soundcard/asio driver, but how is that possible when it happens with 3 different cards, and only with Phosycon 1.8? Version 1.6 is fine as are all my other plugins.

That sample wasn't recorded through the soundcards convertors, I routed phosycon's output back into ableton (to an audio track) using patchmix. No AD or DA involved

This image shows one of the clicks in that recording:



It's clear that there is some abnormality in the waveform, though of course it doesn't explain why.

[Sebastian@d16]

Hi,

Sorry for bit delayed answer. We were wondering what else could be a reason for those "clicks". Do you own maybe our other instruments? Could you check out(even demo version) one of our Drum Machines. Do the "clicks" appear in Drum Machine's output?

Best regards,
Sebastian

[twisted-space]

No Problem, I own the original Classic Boxes collection. Neither Drumazon or Nepheton exhibit the problem. I've tried the demo of Nithonat and tha's fine aswell.

[twisted-space]

Any news Guys?

[Sebastian@d16]

Hi,

Unfortunately not. As soon as we find the solution for this problem we'll let you know, we need to be able to reproduce this bug to start to work on it. We're installing Phoscyon on every piece of machine here.

It'd be helpful if someone else has similar problem with Phoscyon and let us know in this thread. It'd help to find common determinant.

Best regards,
Sebastian