Hearing Crackles while composing via Pro Tools and Kontakt

DDmUSA

I have a Windows 10 machine that I built for stage and I am now using it for original music production as well. I am using the Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 USB interface (1st and 2nd generation). Using the latest subscription version of Pro Tools, I have a track that is record-enabled with a sound from Kontakt. During the course of arranging a musical part using the S88 keyboard, I am hearing crackles too often for my liking. I have been exchanging e-mails with NI support in an effort to get rid of these crackles. I did a "batch re-save" of the samples, based on their recommendation. I tried lowering the number of voices on the specific sound in Kontakt. I've tried adjusting the samples value from 1024 to 512, 256 and 128. The sample libraries reside on a separate, internal 4TB SSD SATA drive.

Any other ideas what could be causing the crackles?

Blindeddie

what are the computer specs (as detailed as possible)? I assume you have done all the recommended tweaks for audio production? Have you disabled any real time Antivirus scanners or at least excluded the Kontakt libraries? (what is your antivirus?) do you have Wifi enabled and if so have you tried disabling it. Could be one or a number of small issues... I also assume the drive with the samples loaded on it is formatted NTFS?

DDmUSA

Thanks for reaching out.....

As an I.T. consultant, I built what I thought was a decent mini-ITX form factor cube of a machine that I could place on stage at my feet for a live performance.

The processor is an Intel i5-7500 @ 3.4GHz. 16GB RAM. I recently installed a new 4TB SSD so I could accommodate the Komplete Ultimate 13 sound library at 1.1 TB.

Wi-fi is disabled, but I did have the Ethernet enabled and connected.

I don't have any separate anti-virus or firewall software running on this machine as I didn't want any additional background tasks getting in the way of a live performance.

At the advice of a fellow sound engineer / music producer, I just tried a different USB cable, along with calling up the grand piano in Kontakt known as "The Maverick", and I am noticing that the crackle is apparent when using Pro Tools and Kontakt, but not when using Kontakt by itself.

EvilDragon

I would never use Pro Tools in a live performance setting. There are far better tools for that out there (personally I would just use Reaper because it's far more performant and rock stable).

DDmUSA

I'm at home working on original music. It would be nice to be able to play the keyboard with a track record-enabled in Pro Tools and not get the crackles.