# Clicks/Audio glitches



## New_Loops (Oct 24, 2021)

Hey guys. I know there are a lot of things that can make audio problems, things like CPU, buffer size, latency etc.. I often push my PC to the limits so know what is normal.

So now I've said that. Why am I getting mad glitches from the IRCAM stretch engine with just a single sample playing one or 2 notes. CPU in Falcon reads around 10%, but it's actually only about 1 or 2 percent of my computer.

It seems to be there is some issue with this engine as I can play big chords with the granular engines with 2 reverbs, 3 filters, drive, echos ect... But glitches with 1 note of IRCAM Stretch?!

Anyone else get this?


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## doctoremmet (Oct 24, 2021)

I don’t. Maybe it’s your PC’s specs?


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## New_Loops (Oct 24, 2021)

doctoremmet said:


> I don’t. Maybe it’s your PC’s specs?


Oh come on mate, I thought my caveat was clear.  It's not normal for my PC, no other synth does this with way higher CPU use. 

My specs: windows 10 x64, Intel Core i7 (12 cores), 16 GB RAM. Reaper (latest), Falcon (Latest). Audio buffer 1024.

How many voices can you play before audio problems with the IRCAM Stretch?


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## doctoremmet (Oct 24, 2021)

Comparable specs. I can play at least four notes without any glitches, but I typically use the IRCAM stuff for processing audio and then bounce it back to audio in my DAW. That oscillator definitely is not suitable for building ‘playable’ very polyphonic patches, but are there for sound design.


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## New_Loops (Oct 24, 2021)

doctoremmet said:


> Comparable specs. I can play at least four notes without any glitches, but I typically use the IRCAM stuff for processing audio and then bounce it back to audio in my DAW. That oscillator definitely is not suitable for building ‘playable’ very polyphonic patches, but are there for sound design.


Ok, so I guess it might be something on my setup. It seems strange to not be able to play more than one note, though. I'll have to make this patch monophonic!! lol


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## New_Loops (Oct 24, 2021)

I've made it monophonic and turned off everything apart from 1 wav in IRCAM stretch. Every time I retrigger it, there are audible glitches. That's basically unusable to me. There must be some setting somewhere causing it. 

BTW, are you using the latest version of Falcon? I am also going to try this patch in LIVE now.


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## New_Loops (Oct 24, 2021)

THEN THIS HAPPENED! I've switched to normal stretch for this patch and played 21 voices! 21 notes together with not a single glitch! Then I switched back to IRCAM stretch and it let me play 4 or 5 notes together with no problem - that VS the 1 note before. IMO, there is a bug with it. I will have to email UVI.


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## Pier (Nov 7, 2021)

New_Loops said:


> THEN THIS HAPPENED! I've switched to normal stretch for this patch and played 21 voices! 21 notes together with not a single glitch! Then I switched back to IRCAM stretch and it let me play 4 or 5 notes together with no problem - that VS the 1 note before. IMO, there is a bug with it. I will have to email UVI.


Did you hear back from UVI?


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## EvilDragon (Nov 7, 2021)

IRCAM algorithms are super duper CPU expensive.


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## New_Loops (Nov 10, 2021)

Pier said:


> Did you hear back from UVI?


I didn't ask, as I had a ticket open already and didn't want another one. There is a difference between “CPU expensive” and “unusable though”. I don't exactly have a slow computer either, and the fact someone else reported the problem on here makes me think it's not simply "high CPU usage".


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## Bee_Abney (Nov 10, 2021)

I have similar issues with IRCAM Stretch sometimes. Enough to make it unplayable; But I can use it to record each note in turn in order to resample. (PC i5 eight core 32 GB.) 

My audio buffer rate is usually 512.


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## Pier (Nov 10, 2021)

Bee_Abney said:


> I have similar issues with IRCAM Stretch sometimes. Enough to make it unplayable; But I can use it to record each note in turn in order to resample. (PC i5 eight core 32 GB.)


Does Falcon include an option to do this automatically?

If not, it should, considering that IRCAM stuff is super CPU heavy.


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## Bee_Abney (Nov 10, 2021)

Pier said:


> Does Falcon include an option to do this automatically?
> 
> If not, it should, considering that IRCAM stuff is super CPU heavy.


I don't believe so but I have wished it had. I didn't find a way.


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## New_Loops (Nov 10, 2021)

Bee_Abney said:


> I have similar issues with IRCAM Stretch sometimes. Enough to make it unplayable; But I can use it to record each note in turn in order to resample. (PC i5 eight core 32 GB.)
> 
> My audio buffer rate is usually 512.


Do a little test with it. When the IRCAM is glitching and maxing out, try swapping to a different sampler mode a couple of times until it “behaves” itself. Would be interested to know if others could replicate this.


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## Bee_Abney (Nov 10, 2021)

New_Loops said:


> Do a little test with it. When the IRCAM is glitching and maxing out, try swapping to a different sampler mode a couple of times until it “behaves” itself. Would be interested to know if others could replicate this.


I'll give it a try.


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## Bee_Abney (Nov 10, 2021)

New_Loops said:


> Do a little test with it. When the IRCAM is glitching and maxing out, try swapping to a different sampler mode a couple of times until it “behaves” itself. Would be interested to know if others could replicate this.


I have tried. I don't think there was any difference. I do find that after I have played a lot of notes, that then I have less trouble with the audio breaking up. But I have been assuming that that is because the work that IRCAM did has been buffered to some extent. If I play many notes in fast succession, or change chords quickly, it goes back to breaking up again.

I used the same sample in the regular stretch function. It worked perfectly without any trouble. But it also sounded no better than Kontakt's timemachine and timemachine pro. Whereas IRCAM stretch makes the sound better than the original sample. A bit like applying an Zynaptiq's Intensity. I demoed that recently and it uses an AI to analyse the sound and make adjustments that enhance aurally pleasing features of it.

Zynaptiq Intensity is very CPU intensive and the audio can break up sometimes when using it; IRCAM stretch seems to be combining similar processes to that plugin with time stretching. So I'm not surprised that it causes even more issues. In neither case does either my DAW (Studio One 5.4) or my computer register that they are overloaded. Again, that didn't suprise me with IRCAM stretch since it is operating on one core. It only needs to overtax that one core.

I tried a further experiment. The sound I had been using was a sample of a glass bowl resonating after being struck. I switched to a sample of a bowed string (a low tagelharpa string). IRCAM stretch started to break up when I played eight notes in a row as opposed to three or four.

So I would recommend, if you haven't already, trying different kinds of sample. It may just be that certain sounds take a lot more processing.

If your experiencing a worse case than I am despite having a more modern computer (i7 compared to i5) then that would be very odd. Either way, it is worth writing to UVI, as you plan on doing, to see what they have to say.

It would be very nice to have a batch processing feature with IRCAM stretch, to make getting the enhanced and stretched samples out and back in to another 'oscillator' more conveniently.


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## Pier (Nov 10, 2021)

Bee_Abney said:


> It would be very nice to have a batch processing feature with IRCAM stretch, to make getting the enhanced and stretched samples out and back in to another 'oscillator' more conveniently.


How do you do it now?

You write the midi notes, bounce the whole audio, then cut it to pieces manually, and finally import each sample again?


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## Bee_Abney (Nov 10, 2021)

Pier said:


> How do you do it now?
> 
> You write the midi notes, bounce the whole audio, then cut it to pieces manually, and finally import each sample again?


Yes, that's what I do. You needn't do eighty-eight notes, just as many as you feel the sound warrants to sound natural.


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## Pier (Nov 10, 2021)

Bee_Abney said:


> Yes, that's what I do. You needn't do eighty-eight notes, just as many as you feel the sound warrants to sound natural.


I wonder if a Reaper script could do this automatically?

🤔


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## cmillar (Nov 10, 2021)

If you have VEP7, try loading Falcon in there and connect to it from your DAW.

When I did this, I solved the CPU problem on my computer; and that's with having VEP7 on the same computer.


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## Pier (Nov 10, 2021)

cmillar said:


> If you have VEP7, try loading Falcon in there and connect to it from your DAW.
> 
> When I did this, I solved the CPU problem on my computer; and that's with having VEP7 on the same computer.


This is very weird.

@New_Loops @Bee_Abney what DAW are you using?

I think Falcon can run stand alone. Have you tried that and seen any difference in CPU usage?


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## Bee_Abney (Nov 10, 2021)

Pier said:


> This is very weird.
> 
> @New_Loops @Bee_Abney what DAW are you using?
> 
> I think Falcon can run stand alone. Have you tried that and seen any difference in CPU usage?


It does seem to help not being in the DAW for some instruments, but not by much. I haven't noticed that with Falcon.
I'm using Studio One.


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## Bee_Abney (Nov 10, 2021)

Pier said:


> I wonder if a Reaper script could do this automatically?
> 
> 🤔





Pier said:


> I wonder if a Reaper script could do this automatically?
> 
> 🤔


I don't know. The cutting up part, and naming the samples, maybe. 

I'm only familiar with one Reaper. And he isn't into music.


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## Bee_Abney (Nov 13, 2021)

Just as a follow-up to this. I just made a patch using a single string sample, IRCAM Stretch Complex. Zero problems playing it directly at all. So, I tried the glass bowl in IRCAM Stretch Complex instead of High Quality. Same issues - playable, but with a tendency for the sound to crack up with too many notes ringing at once. The same string sample with IRCAM Stretch High Quality was still great - virtually no problems, especially after each note has already been played. I could press down around twenty keys and no cracking/glitching.

High Quality has a fuller, more processed sheen and comes out louder with the same gain settings compared to Complex.


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## Bee_Abney (Nov 13, 2021)

liquidlino said:


> You've probably found it already, but you can bounce from the menu in IRCAM Stretch:


Does that bounce the whole key range? If so, I'm a fool for overlooking it and very grateful now.


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## Bee_Abney (Nov 14, 2021)

liquidlino said:


> You've probably found it already, but you can bounce from the menu in IRCAM Stretch:


That option is only available if you don't have multiple samples loaded (Where it shows as 'Batch' rather than showing the sample wave itself). Which is why I didn't see it when I looked for it originally. Also, when it is available, it only exported the root note. Which is to say that it exports the original sample, at the original pitch, albeit perhaps with the 'shine' of IRCAM stretch. You would be exporting from the start and end ranges that you have set and any effects that you have applied directly to the sample inside the Oscillator (to that, you right click on the sample itself inside the oscillator and the 'Apply FX' option is on the menu that is revealed).

So, it does not provide a batch export for the keyrange.

Sorry, you probably knew all of that. I just got a little hopeful there for a bit as exporting the full keyrange with stretch applied is surely exactly what anyone would want from such an export. Still, getting samples that have been edited and had effects added is not a minor thing. Falcon isn't the best sample editor - it's not as good as my DAW - but it does have nice effects, that I now know can not only be applied on a per sample basis, but can also be directly exported on a per sample basis. Just, sadly, pitch stretching isn't an effect for these purposes.


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## Bee_Abney (Nov 14, 2021)

liquidlino said:


> I hadn't actually tried it - Was only expecting it to export the current oscillator, not all oscillators in the keygroup. But didn't expect it to apply FX, that's really powerful - have to remember that.
> 
> It's strange, but I've searched the interweb and there just isn't anywhere that people are converging and discussing Falcon like this... even Falcontinuum is a dead wasteland these days. Really surprising.


That is odd and it's a real shame.

When you have multiple samples on a single layer, does that count as multiple oscillators? I'm still trying to get to grips with the terminology, since strictly speaking a sample isn't an oscillator and nor is a sampler module. But the module is definitely called an oscillator in Falconspeak.

I really appreciate you sharing what you found as it led me to discover this great way of adding effects to samples. It's useful independently of exporting.


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## Bee_Abney (Nov 14, 2021)

Also, it's worth mentioning on the glitch, crack and click front that using the transient editor in the oscillator, or any of the other options, increases the burden. The editor is 'Remix' and that is disengaged by default. But in the 'Options' section 'Transients' is engaged by default. This emphasises the attack and is particularly useful for percussion, but I think that it is also adding to the CPU load and it can be disengaged.

It is also always worth rechecking sample starts and ends to ensure that there isn't an additional clicking coming from an ideal start or end point. Either start and end in silence or adjust the ADSR (DAHDSR in Falcon) - a slower attack faster decay as needed to avoid the clicky start or end point. This is unrelated, but the click did have me wondering at first if there was glitching when I loaded a recent sample, but it was just a noisy end to the sample.


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## Bee_Abney (Nov 14, 2021)

liquidlino said:


> Yep, each sample is an oscillator in falcon speak. So when you're in batch mode you're editing all the oscillators at the same time for either the keygroup or layer or whole program depending on where you've selected in the tree. Can be handy, for instance sometimes I do the trick of pushing the master tune on falcon up two or three semitones, and then batch edit all oscillators to be the same lower. This has the side effect of making most samples sound better, depending on the content of the sample.


Very nice. I'll have to try that!

Of course, what Pier and I wanted was to export multiple processed files (stretched) from one sample/oscillator. So, for now, it is back to recording every key, bouncing and slicing.


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