Pops and glitches without maxing out DSP meter

[TheGuyNotNamedBob]

Hey all,

Feel free to move/delete this if this isn't in the right subforum. It has to do with an RE, but I think it might also be due to Reason's underlying architecture, so I think it might go best here.

First off: Reason 9.5, running lots of REs and VSTs, but haven't had any issues save for trying to cram too much into a song for my poor laptop.

I've been working on a song recently, and for whatever reason, it has this error where it starts to pop and glitch out, and I can't hear much. I can hear the bass, but only the pattern that the bass should be playing, but just glitchy static and noise. From what I can tell, it shouldn't be processor related, as the DSP meter is only reaching about halfway. I did manage to track the error to an instance of the GQ-7 EQ, which, when replaced with an Mclass EQ, fixed the problem. I use this RE on basically every instrument, and haven't had a problem up to this point, with probably several dozen finished songs. The basic signal chain is Serum > Mclass Compressor > Audiomatic > Polar > RV7000 > EQ if that's any help.

To further confound it, the instrument also didn't work when it was soloed, just staying silent until I replaced the EQ.

Did I run into some strange issue? Am I an idiot and the DSP meter does not work like I think it does? feel free to roast me if this is the case.

[MrFigg]

Driver issue?

[TheGuyNotNamedBob]

Driver issue?

That is definitely a possibility, admittedly I'm on Catalina (but from the past four months of using it it's mostly been visual glitches), but the thing I can't get over is that it's only happening in one song file. I've made new songs since starting this one, and none of them have had the same issue, and none of the songs beforehand have had the issue either.

[Loque]

Maybe there is one chain consuming too much CPU which causes everything to crackle. On GQ7 it may help to turn off the display.

If it happens on a empty song with just 1 instrument and EQ, i speculate its a driver or hardware issue. I had some serious stuff a while back, where the sht driver crashes somehow and i need to restart the audio card (external, just reconnected USB) and it worked again. For sure i need to reassign the driver in Reason.

And i am sure, you have checked al the other stuff like buffers, multicore, RAM, power settings and so on...

[DecafDreams]

Hey all,

Feel free to move/delete this if this isn't in the right subforum. It has to do with an RE, but I think it might also be due to Reason's underlying architecture, so I think it might go best here.

First off: Reason 9.5, running lots of REs and VSTs, but haven't had any issues save for trying to cram too much into a song for my poor laptop.

I've been working on a song recently, and for whatever reason, it has this error where it starts to pop and glitch out, and I can't hear much. I can hear the bass, but only the pattern that the bass should be playing, but just glitchy static and noise. From what I can tell, it shouldn't be processor related, as the DSP meter is only reaching about halfway. I did manage to track the error to an instance of the GQ-7 EQ, which, when replaced with an Mclass EQ, fixed the problem. I use this RE on basically every instrument, and haven't had a problem up to this point, with probably several dozen finished songs. The basic signal chain is Serum > Mclass Compressor > Audiomatic > Polar > RV7000 > EQ if that's any help.

To further confound it, the instrument also didn't work when it was soloed, just staying silent until I replaced the EQ.

Did I run into some strange issue? Am I an idiot and the DSP meter does not work like I think it does? feel free to roast me if this is the case.

Go Reason 10.4 or Reason 11 man. The optimisations to the engine since 10.4 makes a huge difference, especially to VSTs. I found that Reason 9 had real issues with DSP and instability when running big CPU sessions.