Reaper / Superior Drummer 3 – pops & crackles on Reaper start-up

[rrrural]

I have a problem that I haven’t been able to solve.
I use Superior Drummer 3 as a VST3i plugin with Reaper.

I have a primary Reaper project, with my Superior Drummer set-up saved alongside some tracks I’m working on.

Whenever I start Reaper, the Superior Drummer output is covered in pops and crackles.
I can reliably remove the pops and crackles if I open the FX for the affected channel, remove the Superior Drummer plugin, then add it back again.

Edit: Here’s a video demonstrating the problem and the solution I described above.

I’m pretty bored with having to ‘reset’ the plugin every time I start a session. Any ideas how I can deal with this permanently? I appreciate that it may be an issue with Reaper, rather than the SD plugin, but I’m not sure where to start.

My set-up:
MacBook Pro 14-inch, 2021
macOS 15.5
Universal Audio Volt 276
Reaper 7.43 (Universal Mac app)
Superior Drummer 3.4

Thanks!

Operating system: macOS Sequoia (15)

• This post was modified 1 month, 3 weeks ago by rrrural.

Topic

[John]

Hi,

sounds like both an annoying and strange problem if this is only after startup and not while running the Project?
If you open the Project, bring up the plug-in interface and hit Play, does it go away or is it still crackling?
I suspect there is some setting in Reaper causing this on your system but I am not that experienced with Reaper, I just know that I haven’t experienced this myself.
I attach some screen shots from my Settings which I *think* may potentially have something to do with this and maybe it will help at least rule out things?

John Rammelt - Toontrack
Technical Advisor

[John]

BR,
John

John Rammelt - Toontrack
Technical Advisor

1

Thanked by: rrrural

[rrrural]

Hi John – thanks for the reply.

sounds like both an annoying and strange problem if this is only after startup and not while running the Project?

Yes that’s right – I experience this when I open Reaper and the project first loads. The problem is experienced until I remove the SD plugin and add it again.

If you open the Project, bring up the plug-in interface and hit Play, does it go away or is it still crackling?

That doesn’t help – still crackling. Interestingly I noticed that it seems to crackle more when I hit the kick drum or the snare. I can’t get it to crackle at all with the crash/ride cymbals. Not sure if that’s a volume thing. That makes it sound like an audio interface problem, but I can reproduce perfect, smooth audio by removing the plugin and adding it again (I usually do both actions in one go with the FX window open).

I went through the preferences and mine match yours, with the exception of my “Request block size” in Audio device settings. I tried setting to the same value as yours but that didn’t make any difference. Edit: See first reply to Brad, below. After further experimentation, I am seeing differences when changing these values, but I still don’t have a practical solution to my problem.

I’ll record a video of the symptoms and include the same preferences panes in the video.
I’ll also post this on the Reaper forum (when the admins are able to approve the addition of my account).

In the meantime, any other ideas will be warmly received.

Thanks!

• This post was modified 1 month, 3 weeks ago by rrrural.

[rrrural]

Here’s a video of the issue I’m experiencing – I uploaded it to YouTube. I load the project, play for a short while, then deal with the issue manually by removing and adding the plugin.
At the end of the video I go through the settings.

I haven’t been able to share on the Reaper forum yet as I still don’t have permissions to post.

[Brad]

rrrural wrote:

Here’s a video of the issue I’m experiencing – I uploaded it to YouTube. I load the project, play for a short while, then deal with the issue manually by removing and adding the plugin.
At the end of the video I go through the settings.

I haven’t been able to share on the Reaper forum yet as I still don’t have permissions to post.

Not being a Reaper user, but what happens if you change the requested block size to 128? 256? 512?

Also what amount of RAM do you have on your MBP?

Operating system: macOS Sequoia (15)

Mac Studio M1 Max, RAM 64 GB, 1TB Drive, OSX 12.x/13.x and Windows 10 (VM)
DAW: Studio One Pro (always up to date)
DTX Express III (Extreme triggers), Nektar LX88
OWC Thunderbay Mini (4 X 1TB Sata SSD), Express 4M2 (4 X 2TB M.2 SSD), Envoy Express (1TB M.2 SSD)
Presonus Quantum, Faderport & Faderport 8
Black Lion Sparrow Mk2 A/D, FMR-RNP-RNC, MIDI Xpress 128, BM5A, KRK VXT4, Equator D5
2020 Macbook Pro 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD Audio(mobile rig)

• This post was modified 1 month, 3 weeks ago by Brad.

1

Thanked by: rrrural

[rrrural]

Hi Brad, thanks for your reply.

I’ve done some more thorough testing, and I do see marked improvements when I increase the Request block size values.

Request block size | Time to reach stable audio
1024 | 4 seconds
512 | 20 seconds
256 | 30 seconds
128 | unknown (gave up after 1 minute 20 seconds)

I have 16GB RAM in the MacBook Pro.

Unfortunately the higher Request block size values produce too much latency for me to be able to play in time.

Whilst this information is interesting, I’m not sure how to make use of it. I’m still puzzled – if I remove the plugin, and add it again, I receive glitch-free audio for hours on end. My system is quite capable of handling it, even with Request block size set to 64.

• This post was modified 1 month, 3 weeks ago by rrrural.

[drumjack52]

16 gig isn’t nowheres near enough ram. There’s 2 things in life one can never have too much of – ram and money.

Jack
aka musicman691 on other forums
Superior Drummer 3.4.1
Area 33 1.0.0
Death and Darkness 1.0.1
PT 2021.6
OSX 10.13.6
3.46 GHz hex core 2012 MacPro 48 gig ram

[rrrural]

I’d agree with you @drumjack52, but it works flawlessly – for hours on end – once I reload the plugin. It is enough RAM (this is Apple Silicon/Unified Memory after all).

There seems to be some issue with the way the project first loads, or the way the plugin loads a “resumed” state.

[Scott]

Maybe a shot on the dark but are you running in cached mode? Do all of the samples load at first start-up or do more samples load as you hit the kit pieces?

Scott Sibley - Toontrack
Technical Advisor

2

Thanked by: rrrural and Brad

[Brad]

Scott wrote:

Maybe a shot on the dark but are you running in cached mode? Do all of the samples load at first start-up or do more samples load as you hit the kit pieces?

Good thought Scott…. before you change anything, can you load the session in Reaper, save the SD3 state as a project (file save as).

Zip the saved file and post it here.

Tx

Superior Drummer 3 version: 3.4.0
Operating system: macOS Sequoia (15)

Mac Studio M1 Max, RAM 64 GB, 1TB Drive, OSX 12.x/13.x and Windows 10 (VM)
DAW: Studio One Pro (always up to date)
DTX Express III (Extreme triggers), Nektar LX88
OWC Thunderbay Mini (4 X 1TB Sata SSD), Express 4M2 (4 X 2TB M.2 SSD), Envoy Express (1TB M.2 SSD)
Presonus Quantum, Faderport & Faderport 8
Black Lion Sparrow Mk2 A/D, FMR-RNP-RNC, MIDI Xpress 128, BM5A, KRK VXT4, Equator D5
2020 Macbook Pro 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD Audio(mobile rig)

1

Thanked by: rrrural

[drumjack52]

rrrural wrote:

I’d agree with you @drumjack52, but it works flawlessly – for hours on end – once I reload the plugin. It is enough RAM (this is Apple Silicon/Unified Memory after all).

There seems to be some issue with the way the project first loads, or the way the plugin loads a “resumed” state.

Unified memory doesn’t mean a thing – ram is still ram and 16 gig is still only 16 gig. Unified ram doesn’t get you any more ram no matter how fast it is. It doesn’t make 16 gig bigger.

Jack
aka musicman691 on other forums
Superior Drummer 3.4.1
Area 33 1.0.0
Death and Darkness 1.0.1
PT 2021.6
OSX 10.13.6
3.46 GHz hex core 2012 MacPro 48 gig ram

[rrrural]

Maybe a shot on the dark but are you running in cached mode? Do all of the samples load at first start-up or do more samples load as you hit the kit pieces?

No, I’m not running in cached mode. I wasn’t familiar with the performance options in SD3 but I’ve had a play around and I am now.

@Brad – Before I changed any settings I exported the SD3 settings. I’ve attached the SD3 save file, zipped up.

Superior Drummer 3 version: 3.4.0
Operating system: macOS Sequoia (15)

[John]

How many CPU Cores are selected in Settings > Performance?

BR,
John

John Rammelt - Toontrack
Technical Advisor

[rrrural]

@john – only 1 when I reported this, but I have experimented with 4 and 8 (the max) – changing the value didn’t make any discernable difference.

[Brad]

rrrural wrote:

Maybe a shot on the dark but are you running in cached mode? Do all of the samples load at first start-up or do more samples load as you hit the kit pieces?

No, I’m not running in cached mode. I wasn’t familiar with the performance options in SD3 but I’ve had a play around and I am now.

@Brad – Before I changed any settings I exported the SD3 settings. I’ve attached the SD3 save file, zipped up.

Superior Drummer 3 version: 3.4.0
Operating system: macOS Sequoia (15)

Hi there,

It’s a head scratcher alright. Do you experience anything similar when you open the same project that you posted, in SD3 standalone?

Also, sorry no answers, only questions…. after rebooting, start Reaper and load a session that’s giving you grief, then open the Activity Monitor and see if there’s anything unusual in the CPU and Memory tabs.

 

Superior Drummer 3 version: 3.4.0
Operating system: macOS Sequoia (15)

Mac Studio M1 Max, RAM 64 GB, 1TB Drive, OSX 12.x/13.x and Windows 10 (VM)
DAW: Studio One Pro (always up to date)
DTX Express III (Extreme triggers), Nektar LX88
OWC Thunderbay Mini (4 X 1TB Sata SSD), Express 4M2 (4 X 2TB M.2 SSD), Envoy Express (1TB M.2 SSD)
Presonus Quantum, Faderport & Faderport 8
Black Lion Sparrow Mk2 A/D, FMR-RNP-RNC, MIDI Xpress 128, BM5A, KRK VXT4, Equator D5
2020 Macbook Pro 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD Audio(mobile rig)

[Author]

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