alexandertimofeyev wroteI'm getting bizarre CPU spikes in Studio One 5 that are causing audio distortion during playback (and maybe also during recording? I haven't tested that out yet) and I have no idea what's causing them or why.

I first noticed it while playing back a simple 3 track song with only 3 plugins loaded - two instances of Neural DPS Archetype Nolly with Oversampling set to Normal, and Superior Drummer 3 on a MIDI track. I would get periodic CPU spikes in Studio One that would cause obvious audio distortion.

In the Studio One Performance Monitor, the overall CPU utilization would hover around 28%, but would occasionally spike into the red. The plugins would hover at 19% each for the two instances of Archetype Nolly and 15% for Superior Drummer 3.

Checking CPU utilization in Windows Task Manager, it shows overall CPU utilization hovering at 24% with occasional spikes to 38%. Looking at individual cores, three hover around 40%, no core ever goes over 65% during a spike, and the spikes don't seem to line up with when the Studio One CPU monitor spikes.

I went through the PreSonus guide to setting up my laptop as a DAW, which didn't change anything. I went further by disabling all the built-in audio devices (build in soundcard, Nvidia HDMI Audio) and disabling Studio One services like ARA and Windows Audio support, and that didn't improve things either.

Studio One Dropout Protection is set to Minimum. I tried Plug-in Nap enabled and disabled, no difference.

The only thing I found that made a difference is changing my Focusrite Scarlett's buffer size from 64, which I have used in the past without issue, to 96. I can live with that, but I don't understand why I can't run 64 for the buffer (like I did in the past) and what's causing Studio One CPU utilization to spike like that.

Any advice to resolve this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Lokeyfly wroteCan you proof out if the original signals are recording clean? And then you playback distortion? Or is it pretty much everywhere?

reggie1979beatz wroteThe one thing that stood out to me was that you are using a Laptop. BTW, specs didn't seem to be there. Windoze?

My now pretty old Dell laptop have been a struggle at times to say the least. Things that I would check: First, we need to make sure that you have created a "power scheme" that is "best performance". Anything else is a big no-no on windoze. Second, I wonder if there is any kind of interference from WIFI? Even with this powerful computer I still get the occasional pop, even with LAN if I have a browser or something like that open as well.

Lokeyfly wroteI have to leave forum questions entirely alone going forward, if this continues.

alexandertimofeyev wrote

Lokeyfly wroteCan you proof out if the original signals are recording clean? And then you playback distortion? Or is it pretty much everywhere?

It will playback cleanly until a CPU Spike occurs in Studio One, and then it will distort during that momentary spike. If I rewind and play that section again, it'll play back cleanly, and continue playing cleanly until the next spike occurs.

Spikes seem to occur as often as every 15 seconds, or as infrequently as once a minute or two, but there's no rime or reason for when they occur or why. There's no unwanted distortion during playback outside of the spikes.

Lokeyfly wroteAh got it. CPU spike. My miss, as I thought transient spike. Sorry about that.

You can always open the CPU dialog and sort by CPU percentage. You may find the guitar fx processor you're using could be high. Definatly scale down those first and possibly checking your background comouter activity. Even dropping internet activity can help.

You're computer sounds fine for the task at hand.
As you've already found, it works but with this recent issue that's cropped up, you're getting CPU spikes.

Hope that helps my friend. 👍

alexandertimofeyev wroteThe only thing I found that made a difference is changing my Focusrite Scarlett's buffer size from 64, which I have used in the past without issue, to 96. I can live with that, but I don't understand why I can't run 64 for the buffer (like I did in the past) and what's causing Studio One CPU utilization to spike like that.

JohnBW wrote

alexandertimofeyev wroteThe only thing I found that made a difference is changing my Focusrite Scarlett's buffer size from 64, which I have used in the past without issue, to 96. I can live with that, but I don't understand why I can't run 64 for the buffer (like I did in the past) and what's causing Studio One CPU utilization to spike like that.

I also run a Scarlett 2i2 on Windows 10, and would suggest that you up your buffers to at least 256, which is where I leave mine at (if not higher).

If your buffers are set too low, audio distortion and breakup will happen quickly when high real-time audio demands are put on the CPU, if it struggles to keep the audio buffers full. The CPU hit of plugins can add up fast, especially at low buffer sizes.

alexandertimofeyev wroteWhat's strange is that I used to be able to run 64 just fine, even when using more plugins simultaneously. I'm not sure what changed.

Oh well, it seems to be fine at 96, so I'll leave it at that for now.

JohnBW wrote

alexandertimofeyev wroteWhat's strange is that I used to be able to run 64 just fine, even when using more plugins simultaneously. I'm not sure what changed.

Oh well, it seems to be fine at 96, so I'll leave it at that for now.

It's hard to say what changed, but if increasing the buffer size reduced the audio distortion, that implies that the CPU is struggling with the load at lower buffer sizes.

Glad that you got it working for now. But as newer software evolves with ever newer features, it will most likely come at the expense of a larger CPU load.

JohnBW wrote

alexandertimofeyev wroteWhat's strange is that I used to be able to run 64 just fine, even when using more plugins simultaneously. I'm not sure what changed.

Oh well, it seems to be fine at 96, so I'll leave it at that for now.

It's hard to say what changed, but if increasing the buffer size reduced the audio distortion, that implies that the CPU is struggling with the load at lower buffer sizes.

Glad that you got it working for now. But as newer software evolves with ever newer features, it will most likely come at the expense of a larger CPU load.

alexandertimofeyev wroteYeah, it's just so weird that it'll be running along at 28% CPU utilization and then suddenly spike up to 100% for a split second.

I'll play around with different plugins, maybe one of the ones I was using has an issue.