Audio clicks when switching clips

[mikestjean]

Hi fam

I am building an automated a/v playback system using Max / M4L to trigger clips in Resolume over OSC (and Ableton w M4L).

When I trigger another audio clip in Resolume (whether using OSC or manually mouse-clicking), I frequently get a digital pop/click sound. I have the Res layers set to 2s fade.

When I trigger clips in Ableton I don't get any digital click/pop sound.
I have also tried this setup with Ableton set to a different audio output to try make sure it's not a clock issue between the two competing softwares.

I have the audio sample rate at 48khz for the files and in Resolume setup, and am running 1024 Buffer size.

Any thoughts on mitigating this popping issue when triggering audio clips in Resolume?
I am also triggering images & text in other layers and running a 2015 MBP w AMD Radeon R9 M370X 2 GB
& Intel Iris Pro 1536 MB GPU, so I do wonder if this is just my laptop struggling to keep up.

Any thoughts would be appreciated!

[Zoltán]

Do you hear the click at the moment of the trigger?

Is Resolume producing the click or is it Ableton?

[mikestjean]

I hear it at the moment of the trigger.
Resolume is producing the click, not Ableton. The problem persists even if Ableton is closed, and I am still just triggering clips manually.

[mikestjean]

Do you hear the click at the moment of the trigger?

Is Resolume producing the click or is it Ableton?

Basically I can open my Resolume session and just trigger clips back and forth manually, clicking them, with the fade time at 2s, and I hear the click almost every time I trigger a clip.

[mikestjean]

The clips are about 8mins each, stereo .wav 48,000 khz
They are minimal ambience which is maybe why the clicking is so audible, relatively.

[jacoblamb]

Hey all,

I actually encountered a problem with this as well a number of days ago. Unfortunately I don't have a solution, but I'll share my finings to help track down the problem.

I was hearing an audio "glitch" when firing clips, and upon further experimenting, it seemed that the audio was dependent on the last audio clip that played, and also dependent on when the clip was cleared. For instance:

Starting with no active clips, clip A (with dialogue audio) was fired, playback was normal with no glitch. When clip B (no audio) was fired, there was no glitch. Simply a natural fade because I was using a transition. Firing clip A again would produce a small glitch or audio artifact before the transition takes effect and the clip fades in.

The strange thing is that if I cleared clip A (with the audio) during a time where there was silence in the audio track, then i could not repeat the issue. I tested with another clip containing audio and verified the same thing, but the "glitch" sounded different depending on the audio in the clip - much like there is a "sample" of audio that is being played from the previous clip before firing the appropriate clip.

I'm not a software engineer, so my apologies for not explaining this more clearly. Hopefully this can help a little to reproduce and understand the issue.

[mikestjean]

Hey all,

The strange thing is that if I cleared clip A (with the audio) during a time where there was silence in the audio track, then i could not repeat the issue. I tested with another clip containing audio and verified the same thing, but the "glitch" sounded different depending on the audio in the clip - much like there is a "sample" of audio that is being played from the previous clip before firing the appropriate clip.

Can you explain what you mean by 'clearing' clip A? Is clip B still playing? How do you 'clear' a clip / doesn't launching the next clip do this?

[mikestjean]

More context: Triggered without a fade, there is no clip, whether another clip is playing or not.
Sounds like, to Jacob's point, maybe 'clipA' is not being reset before it is triggered, then quickly restarts, allowing 1 sample or so of audio through, causing the clip

Edit: Actually that doesn't make sense because triggering 'new' clips (not previously triggered) still causes the click / pop.

Will keep troubleshooting.
My first work-around is to have 'A-clips' and 'B-clips' on different layers and to trigger fade-outs/in on the two different layers rather than cross-fades between clips on the same layers, but that seems a bit unnecessary.

[Zoltán]

What kind of files are you using, DXV?

Could you please send us the Resolume log file via the feedback tab in preferences?
Thanks!

[mikestjean]

For audio I am using .wav files.
For the 'video' elements, .png and Text generator 'source'. No video files.

Will send the Log file now.