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Crackling Sound
Submitted by michellex on Fri, 08/05/2011 - 15:44.
I don't know if this is a stupid question, but for some reason when I play a CSound file using QuteCSound (for example the one from the beginner tutorials) I hear a crackling sound. On the console, the message that appears while the file is playing says "warning: buffer size should be an int multiple of ksmps in full-duplex mode". Am I doing something wrong? |
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Whatever the problem is,
Whatever the problem is, that warning has nothing to do with it - I always get it, but I don't have any problems. Do you notice anything strange under Configuration?
I'm not sure; what would be
I'm not sure; what would be considered something strange?
I tried playing around with things and when I checked the buffer size box and changed the buffer size under the run tab in Configuration from 1024 to 10000 I stopped hearing the crackling. Why is that?
Buffer size
I don't use QuteCsound, so I can't be specific (and I've never had 'crackles' just from Csound itself) but using too small a buffer could definitely cause such a problem. [In fact I do have exactly that problem generally in a developing OS that I happen to be working with!]
The thing is, for sound to be played smoothly, a buffer must be filled (by Csound in this case), and forwarded to the part of the system that actually drives your audio card, before the previous one has finished playing. If it doesn't arrive in time, the audio will be interrupted briefly -- a crackle.
A buffer can get delayed by anything in a multitasking system that thinks it has greater need than Csound for the CPU at that moment. Such interruptions will normally be very short, but if their length is comparable to the time a buffer takes to play they can get in the way.
Use a longer buffer, though, and such short delays will never prevent the next buffer arriving in time to take over smoothly.
The trade-off [a big one for some uses!] is latency. Audio will always be delayed from the moment it is requested by at least one buffer time. If you're playing a Csound program from live MIDI [as I do...], you need the note to play "immediately" (with at most say 15 or 20 msec delay) which will not be so with a long buffer. For example, your 10000 frame buffer, if your output is at the usual 44.1kHz, will take ~1/5sec to play! Not much of a problem if you're playing from a score file, but fatal for live input.
What OS are you on (Windows I assume), and how fast is your machine?
It must be the
It must be the configuration...
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