Pops and clicks when using some sample-based instruments through Kontakt Player

newpollution · 2024-03-04T22:29:48+00:00

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Hi,

I'm using Kontakt Player 7 to play a few sample-based instruments, including the Scarbee electric piano one. I'm using Ableton Live 11 and an M1 MacBook Air.

I'm getting some intermittent pops and clicks, especially with Scarbee. For some instruments, it doesn't seem to happen at all, though.

I've tried adjusting the buffer size, but that doesn't seem to be it. I can put it on a pretty low buffer size, and crank the CPU load to 80% in Ableton's settings and get zero pops/clicks/issues, but then with a much lower CPU usage, I'll get fairly frequent pops/clicks playing Scarbee.

Any idea what would be causing this? Are there known issues with Kontakt Player and M1 Macs? Or what would cause a specific instrument to have issues like this?

Thank you in advance for any help!

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Jeremy_NI

@newpollution Are the libraries where the pops and clicks appear installed on the same location on your computer? Did you install your libraries on an external hard drive? What's the format of that drive?

Is it the same in Kontakt or Komplete Kontrol in standalone or only in Ableton?

Have you given full disk access to Kontakt, Komplete Kontrol and Ableton? How to Enable Full Disk Access on macOS

newpollution

Thanks for the reply!

The libraries are on an external HD (format: Mac OS Extended (Journaled)).

The issue doesn't seem to happen with the standalone Kontakt 7.

I've given disk access to Kontakt and Ableton. I don't think I have Komplete Kontrol.

Jeremy_NI

@newpollution What are your audio settings in Ableton? Sample rate, buffer size, etc..Have you checked this article? How Can I Optimize the Performance of Kontakt?

Also, when in Ableton, try different settings regarding the multiprocessor support, does that have an impact on the issue?

If this still happens despite all of these steps, can you give a short list of products where you get these problems and a short list where it does not happen?

newpollution

Thanks for the follow-up.

I've experimented with those variables:

As expected, increasing buffer size seems to reduce the pops/clicks, but I'm hoping to keep the buffer size fairly small to avoid latency issues. 64 samples is working with other instruments and plugins, so I expected it would work with Kontakt too, but I get pops/clicks at this size. At 128 samples, there are still some pops/clicks but less.
I'm not sure if changing the sample rate made a difference. Is there a sample rate that should work best for this? I was hoping to use 48000.
I turned off multiprocessor support, and it seemed to reduce clicks/pops (though still not fixed completely). Is keeping this off generally a good idea?

I've tried all three instruments that I use:

Scarbee Classic EP 88s has lots of clicks and pops.
Vintage Organs has some but less.
Sonokinetic Mallets very rarely has any.

In addition to the above variables, I'm wondering if there should be any difference between using Kontakt Player in AU or VST3 formats. I'm currently using AU. Regardless of whether this would make a difference, how would I go about switching to VST3? I'm not seeing it in my VST3 folder (not on my Mac or within Ableton).

Please let me know what else I can try. Thanks!

Jeremy_NI

@newpollution Sorry, lost track of this post, AU or VST3 shouldn't make a difference. I'm wondering if the MacOs Journaled format could be an issue. For newer operating systems APFS is the recommended format. One thing you could try is to install one of the libraries showcasing these performance issues on your system drive and see if things improve, it could be a sign a reformat of the external hard drive is necessary.

newpollution

Thanks for the idea!

What would be the best way to uninstall and reinstall the library? Would this be through Native Access or another way?

Jeremy_NI

@newpollution Yes you can uninstall the library with Native Access, then choose new location for content and install the library again, or move the library and use the relocate function, in Native Access as well.

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