Over the past couple of weeks, I've noticed more and more audio "hiccups" happening while running SoundDesk. I tried rolling back to SoundDesk 5.1.3 and they persist, so I'm wondering if it's a macOS 15.4 (and 15.4.1) issue. The hiccups happen at random times, but can easily be triggered by, say, launching System Settings. This was something that would have been FINE on this setup even as recently as a month ago.
Three times this week, for no discernible reason, I saw SoundDesk double my Audio Buffer Size (from 256-512 twice and once from 512-1024, which was jarring to my brain to hear myself on that kind of delay :).
I don't see any crashlogs (or logs of any kind) related to coreaudiod nor SoundDesk, so I'm wondering where I might be able to look to find the source of these issues. Or at least the "why?" behind SoundDesk's decision to double my buffer size.
Really, any guidance or even thoughts would be helpful!
Those are All-in-One (AIO) overloads. Overloads occur when the total processing time of an IO cycle exceeds the real-time available to deliver the buffer to the hardware. If Auto Recovery is enabled, SoundDesk will increase the buffer size to prevent further overloads. You can revert back to default by disabling Auto Recovery in the AIO setup window.
Here’s a list of common causes to watch out for:
- Ensure all AIO devices are synchronized and running at the same sample rate. Real-time resampling is costly.
- SoundDesk processing load; Use the CPU - Audio Thread indicator in the Audio Setup window to keep processing time below 50% (a good rule of thumb for small processing peaks).
- Applications connected to any device in the AIO (virtual devices included) consume IO cycle time. You can close applications to find the ones using too much time (browsers are notorious for causing issues).
- Remove unused devices from the AIO to free CPU resources for other tasks.
- On Apple Silicon, using 128 or below as a buffer size can be more stable than larger buffers.
Here are some other resources that may be helpful to you:
Thank you for this! I would never have thought to use 128 (or below), so am trying that, for sure (along with a few other of your suggestions, because I found I had accumulated a couple unused devices in the AIO).
Thanks for this. After doing some testing, I realized the issue was a plugin: iZotope's RX 11 Voice De-Noise. I use it (occasionally) when a podcast guest has a noisy environment and it does wonders. I must have left it enabled and, sure enough, disabling it lets me run at 64 buffer size works fine.
THat said, most of the time when I use a third-party plugin, I see the number of samples increase. But when I put RX 11 Voice De-noise inline, it stays at "0 samples". Clearly it's using *some* samples if it's causing the routine hiccups. Anything I can do to make sure SoundDesk "sees" this?
Thank you, I will proceed with testing the RX 11 Voice De-Noise with SoundDesk.
Important: The samples display indicates latency, not CPU usage. To monitor CPU usage, please refer to the Audio Setup Window’s Audio Thread usage indicator or navigate to the Desk View Menubar and open the CPU Usage Window.
Comments
Three times this week, for no discernible reason, I saw SoundDesk double my Audio Buffer Size (from 256-512 twice and once from 512-1024, which was jarring to my brain to hear myself on that kind of delay :).
I don't see any crashlogs (or logs of any kind) related to coreaudiod nor SoundDesk, so I'm wondering where I might be able to look to find the source of these issues. Or at least the "why?" behind SoundDesk's decision to double my buffer size.
Really, any guidance or even thoughts would be helpful!
Thank you!
Here’s a list of common causes to watch out for:
- Ensure all AIO devices are synchronized and running at the same sample rate. Real-time resampling is costly.
- SoundDesk processing load; Use the CPU - Audio Thread indicator in the Audio Setup window to keep processing time below 50% (a good rule of thumb for small processing peaks).
- Applications connected to any device in the AIO (virtual devices included) consume IO cycle time. You can close applications to find the ones using too much time (browsers are notorious for causing issues).
- Remove unused devices from the AIO to free CPU resources for other tasks.
- On Apple Silicon, using 128 or below as a buffer size can be more stable than larger buffers.
Here are some other resources that may be helpful to you:
https://www.loudlab-app.com/sounddesk/en/4.html#SoundDesk_AIO_Setup
https://www.loudlab-app.com/user-area#/discussion/453/understanding-and-troubleshooting-sounddesk-all-in-one-device
I'll report back. Thank you!
THat said, most of the time when I use a third-party plugin, I see the number of samples increase. But when I put RX 11 Voice De-noise inline, it stays at "0 samples". Clearly it's using *some* samples if it's causing the routine hiccups. Anything I can do to make sure SoundDesk "sees" this?
Important: The samples display indicates latency, not CPU usage. To monitor CPU usage, please refer to the Audio Setup Window’s Audio Thread usage indicator or navigate to the Desk View Menubar and open the CPU Usage Window.