Arturia mini fuse 2 and a Launchkey mini midi controller.

There's a USB hub that I bypassed to rule out also, it wasn't the culprit. The trouble didn't follow the cable to the new machine, but I swapped it 3 times to be safe since those USB cables can be shit, all 3 worked fine when connected to the server machine, all three exhibit the same trouble on the laptop, effectively ruling out all of that hardware, so I tried just listening to a single track without the midi controller even plugged in, still wonky with literally only a monitor keyboard and mouse plugged in other than the audio int.

I got the CPU monitoring software, and it def seems like the crackle follows and usage changes in CPU, whether going up or down between like 10 and 25% utilization.

Try disabling Windows Defender while recording? I think that was what wound up working for FM llllllllllllllllllll:

llllllllllllllllllll wrote: Wed Dec 04, 2024 12:11 am I hate Windows 11 so bad. I would be done with it if I weren’t so sick of messing with the computer.

I did all what yall mentioned - including just copying Nate’s settings - and its running much better at a buffer of 64 instead of 256 or 512. Plus a BIOS update. It’s hard as hell to keep all the bullshit bloatware off and I feel like I’m going to have to manually go through a bunch of stuff whenever I go to record.

LatencyMon worked pretty well too in identifying was was fucking my shit up - it was Windows Defender

Thanks to yall and the guy from Ferrofish support! He basically made sure my clock settings were right and then went straight into the BIOS update and power settings.

W.L.Weller wrote: Fri Oct 24, 2025 2:25 pm Try disabling Windows Defender while recording? I think that was what wound up working for FM llllllllllllllllllll:

llllllllllllllllllll wrote: Wed Dec 04, 2024 12:11 am I hate Windows 11 so bad. I would be done with it if I weren’t so sick of messing with the computer.

I did all what yall mentioned - including just copying Nate’s settings - and its running much better at a buffer of 64 instead of 256 or 512. Plus a BIOS update. It’s hard as hell to keep all the bullshit bloatware off and I feel like I’m going to have to manually go through a bunch of stuff whenever I go to record.

LatencyMon worked pretty well too in identifying was was fucking my shit up - it was Windows Defender

Thanks to yall and the guy from Ferrofish support! He basically made sure my clock settings were right and then went straight into the BIOS update and power settings.

Good eye! I eventually resolved those problems with all the steps outlined here:

llllllllllllllllllll wrote: Tue Jan 21, 2025 6:56 pm Yes, maybe not for your setup specifically, but for general PC setup for music recording, there’s a lot here:

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/windows- ... de-part-1/

It’s windows 10 or 11 centered, so not sure if it applies to you, but I wish I started here instead of the Latencymon rabbit hole - and definitely wish I had read it before buying my laptop.

I’ll never buy a windows laptop again but I’m kind of stuck with this one until its time to replace it with a tower. That Microsoft blog gets real in depth but once you’re setup you should be good to go for a while.

edit: be careful about going the latencymon rabbit-hole if you should end up there. Your problem is audio clicks and pops, not whether an app (however useful it may be) says your shit is legit or not.

I’ve been running into brutal guitar feedback issues at band practice the last couple of ‘em. Not the good kind, the kind that sounds all piercing and unpleasant and at relatively moderate volume/gain levels (at least I would think so). Granted there’s a couple of things working against me:

• Our rehearsal room is pretty small, and my guitar amp is almost always within 1-2 feet of my guitar
• I prefer bright guitars, a bright OD pedal, amp set pretty bright

I’ve tried repositioning my amp (from head level to on the floor angled up, then on the floor not angled at all), playing around with gain staging and EQ and I still run into this shit. Anyone have any ideas of what I can try in the constraints of our practice spot?

defendyachtrock wrote: Mon Oct 27, 2025 11:49 pm I’ve been running into brutal guitar feedback issues at band practice the last couple of ‘em. Not the good kind, the kind that sounds all piercing and unpleasant and at relatively moderate volume/gain levels (at least I would think so). Granted there’s a couple of things working against me:

• Our rehearsal room is pretty small, and my guitar amp is almost always within 1-2 feet of my guitar
• I prefer bright guitars, a bright OD pedal, amp set pretty bright

I’ve tried repositioning my amp (from head level to on the floor angled up, then on the floor not angled at all), playing around with gain staging and EQ and I still run into this shit. Anyone have any ideas of what I can try in the constraints of our practice spot?

1. point it in the exact opposite direction of what you've been doing
2. do you have any pedals that invert phase? If not, assuming you're playing through like a 1x12 or open back 2x12, swap the leads on your speaker(s) and see if it does anything for you without doing anything negative to whatever else you're trying to do

If tube amp, give the preamp tubes a tap and see if any of them have gone wildly microphonic?

Not a tube amp. Quilter Aviator Cub.

I’ll try reversing the phase of the speaker leads next practice. Don’t know how much I like the idea of turning my amp 180° the other way, but maybe that won’t matter so much in such a small room? (Also I have a speaker emulated out on the cub so maybe I could run that into the PA.)

I feel like if we had more room to put the amp behind me like 3-4 feet I wouldn’t be running into this problem.

defendyachtrock wrote: Tue Oct 28, 2025 9:52 am Not a tube amp. Quilter Aviator Cub.

I’ll try reversing the phase of the speaker leads next practice. Don’t know how much I like the idea of turning my amp 180° the other way, but maybe that won’t matter so much in such a small room? (Also I have a speaker emulated out on the cub so maybe I could run that into the PA.)

I feel like if we had more room to put the amp behind me like 3-4 feet I wouldn’t be running into this problem.

What's going on with the guitar end of this setup? Do you have this problem across multiple guitars?

Seems to happen no matter what I’m using, but of course everything I use that’s gig-worthy has some degree of bright pickup installed (Jumbo MFDs in my ASAT Special, MFD Tele bridge pickup and stratty single-coil in the neck of a Tele copy, Gemini Ultra Ceramics in my weird Hippy Sandwich guy).

I’m sure that doesn’t help my issues much at all and may in fact exacerbate them!

Again I may have to play around with EQing but I’m pretty sure this still happens even if I turn the Treble down on my amp past where I want it. I could also break out my other Quilter amp (Tone Block 200 + Blockdock HD12) which seems to run pretty dark as-is.

If the on-a-string distance from pickups to speaker cone is literally 30" I'm surprised/confused that you haven't been dealing with howling feedback all along. Did anything about your setup/practice space change recently?