Traktor audio glitches disappear when removing NI soundcard and using Pioneer HID

Hi Folks,

A bit of text in this post, but I'm hoping someone with a good knowledge of hardware/software may be generous enough to assist me.

As background information, when using Traktor, I have run a NI soundcard with a Windows machine. I have owned three (3) different laptops and NI's 2,4,6, and 8 soundcards over the years. My laptops are multiple purpose and, to be fair, are not solely dedicated to Traktor. I have previously 'optimised' my machines to the greatest possible degree within that ambit. I really wanted to enjoy my experience without audio glitches and spent a stack of time researching, changing services, removing programs, disabling drivers etc.

All machines and all soundcards have presented problems with audio glitches when using NI's soundcards. I'd had enough of dealing with this and picked up a pair of Pioneer XDJ-700's to run off USB. Simple.

However, with the recent release of Traktor 3 Beta 3.X including HID mode for Pioneer's XDJ-700 I thought I'd try it out. To my absolute astonishment, there are no audio glitches when using the XDJ-700's in HID mode on my Win 10 machine. I also connected one of the players to a powered usb hub along with my NI Kontrol X1 Mk2 and still no glitches.

Out of curiosity, I then tried my Audio 6 with no other controllers connected. Consistent and frequent audio glitches ...

Does anyone have any insights that could help explain this, please?

Thanks in advance:thumbup:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Emmett

Hi Folks,

A bit of text in this post, but I'm hoping someone with a good knowledge of hardware/software may be generous enough to assist me.

As background information, when using Traktor, I have run a NI soundcard with a Windows machine. I have owned three (3) different laptops and NI's 2,4,6, and 8 soundcards over the years. My laptops are multiple purpose and, to be fair, are not solely dedicated to Traktor. I have previously 'optimised' my machines to the greatest possible degree within that ambit. I really wanted to enjoy my experience without audio glitches and spent a stack of time researching, changing services, removing programs, disabling drivers etc.

All machines and all soundcards have presented problems with audio glitches when using NI's soundcards. I'd had enough of dealing with this and picked up a pair of Pioneer XDJ-700's to run off USB. Simple.

However, with the recent release of Traktor 3 Beta 3.X including HID mode for Pioneer's XDJ-700 I thought I'd try it out. To my absolute astonishment, there are no audio glitches when using the XDJ-700's in HID mode on my Win 10 machine. I also connected one of the players to a powered usb hub along with my NI Kontrol X1 Mk2 and still no glitches.

Out of curiosity, I then tried my Audio 6 with no other controllers connected. Consistent and frequent audio glitches ...

Does anyone have any insights that could help explain this, please?

Thanks in advance:thumbup:

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Have you updated the drivers for your Audio 6? What version of Windows are you running? Do you only experience glitches when using the interface with Traktor, or with other software as well?

latency issue?

Hi Gents,

Thanks for the responses.

I spent a couple of hours testing different scenarios and managed to find something which seems moderately stable @ 14ms without need to turn off drivers and other services. More testing before I'd say it is working as it should.

the_bastet,
In answering your questions:

1.) Yes to latest drivers.
2.)Win 10 (Build 18362). Computer is running a Core i7, 8th Gen chip and Traktor runs from a SSD.
3.) Audio 6 has worked fine when recording into Audacity.

I'm still interested as to why Pioneer in HID requires zero optimization and works flawlessly, all things equal.

If there's one thing Pioneer does right still, it's low latency hardware. I would be willing to bet the problem you have is a very low buffer size that is too small for soundcard delays but works with direct HID.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Emmett

Hi Gents,

Thanks for the responses.

I spent a couple of hours testing different scenarios and managed to find something which seems moderately stable @ 14ms without need to turn off drivers and other services. More testing before I'd say it is working as it should.

the_bastet,
In answering your questions:

1.) Yes to latest drivers.
2.)Win 10 (Build 18362). Computer is running a Core i7, 8th Gen chip and Traktor runs from a SSD.
3.) Audio 6 has worked fine when recording into Audacity.

I'm still interested as to why Pioneer in HID requires zero optimization and works flawlessly, all things equal.

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i7, 8th Gen can be a slew of processors from dual core single thread to octa core dual thread. Audacity takes minimal CPU and RAM to run, so it is not a great use comparison in this circumstance.

That aside, what are your current settings in the Audio 6 Control Panel?