Switched from EZD to SD3 and now I have severe pops and clicks

[ajeckerman]

Appreciate any help.  I’ve read most of the posts I can find about this but I’m really confused why I’m having this issue.

 

I was running the 10 day trial of EZD just fine with no audio problems at all.  Latency was fine.  Upgraded to SD3 and now everything pops and fizzes and buzzes like crazy.  I have to increase the buffer size to 1024 to get rid of those sounds but then my latency is horrible.  What am I doing wrong?  Below are hardware specs:

 

MacBook Air

Processor 1.4 GHz Intel Core i5

RAM 4GB

I’m running MIDI cable to USB cables (FORE)

Sound libraries are on an external T7 drive

Superior Drummer 3 version: 3.2.8
Operating system: OS X El Capitan (10.11)

Topic

[Mark King]

From the spec your computer looks to be quite low powered. SD3 is more power hungry.

SD3 with older sdx,s plus Rooms of Hansa and Death & Darkness. Cubase and wavelab current versions. Roland TD50x using all trigger inputs for triggering SD3 only. Windows 11 computer. Various keyboards and outboard gear as well as VST instruments. Acoustic drums: Yamaha 9000 natural wood and Pearl masters. Various snare drums. RME BabyFace Pro FS and Adam A7X monitors

[BlueMistral]

You need to invest in an audio interface

[pumpkinking]

You might be limited by the 4GB of RAM in your machine.  If you try to use an SD3 kit that uses more RAM than your machine has, you will have audio artifacts like you describe.

Make sure the kits you are loading in SD3 are less than 4GB (maybe a few 100MB less).  There are presets in the 2-3 GB range, and you can always remove pieces to get the memory down.

Superior Drummer 3 version: 3.2.8
Operating system: macOS Monterey (12)

[ajeckerman]

I’m concerned about the RAM size too. I’m not running anything else and all the kits are 3.2GB or smaller so I was hoping that would work. I saw a lot of people talking about the audio interfaces in other threads. Which improves the performance more, more RAM and faster processors, or an audio interface. Can’t do both because of cost.

Is another option buying the full EZD instead of SD3? Is it the same kits just lower sample size? I don’t really need the customization. I’m just playing at home for fun and want it to sound awesome.

thank you again for the help. 

[Brad]

As has been said by others, your machine is minimum specification. So you can’t be running anything else, I would say not even a DAW. So if you run SD3 standalone you might be able to run some basic kits. Remember EZD samples are 16bit, SD3 24bit, so right there you are eating up more RAM.

Click the memory “Show memory details” (top right) and try 16-bit, to see if your performance improves.

Also; open up the Activity Monitor from Applications > Utilities select the Memory tab to see how much physical RAM you are using.

Superior Drummer 3 version: 3.2.8
Operating system: macOS Big Sur (11)

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 3 years, 3 months ago by Brad.

[ajeckerman]

Brad! I was looking for that feature.  Found it and that has solved 95% of the issue.  At 256 buffer and 16bit sound and I’m running clear.  Random scratches very infrequently.  Also did some research into audio interfaces.  Thank you guys so much.

 

I have noticed that I have to change the memory settings to 16-bit each time I change kits/libraries.  Is there any way to set this to default?

[Brad]

ajeckerman wrote:

Brad! I was looking for that feature.  Found it and that has solved 95% of the issue.  At 256 buffer and 16bit sound and I’m running clear.  Random scratches very infrequently.  Also did some research into audio interfaces.  Thank you guys so much.

 

I have noticed that I have to change the memory settings to 16-bit each time I change kits/libraries.  Is there any way to set this to default?

No there isn’t a default setting, you will have to set it everytime you start SD3, but after that subsequent kits/presets will load at 16bit.

Superior Drummer 3 version: 3.2.8
Operating system: macOS Big Sur (11)

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)

[Andrew Payne]

I always use 16 bit for recording and I set a default project with all my multichannel outs and with (my own) 16-bit default kit and MIDI/In e-drum mapping and settings. This way every time I open SD3 it loads this default with 16-bit kit (either standalone or within DAW). Maybe see if that works for you ?

Superior Drummer 3 version: 3.2.8
Operating system: Windows 10

Dell Precision 7730, i7 6 Core 2.6 GHz, 128GB RAM, 1TB SSD and 3 x 2TB SSD, Windows 11, Cubase Pro 14, SD3 plus a variety of SDX's and EZX's, Orchestral Percussion, EZBASS, RME BabyFace Pro FS and KRK V4 monitors. Modified Yamaha DTX900, DTXPRESS4 and Edrumin10 triggering SD3. Yamaha pads/cymbals and Roland VH-10 HiHat. PDP Maple acoustic kit for live playing.

[Author]

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