Question / Help Lots of crackling in recording

[Gideon Delta]

Hello,

I recently switched from OBS to OBS-M. Since making the change, I've had a major issue with a very obnoxious crackling/popping sound in my recorded audio. I had this same issue in OBS, but it was remedied by adjusting my noise gate to be less restrictive. No such luck in OBS-M.

I have no problem in Audacity or Skype, so I know the problem isn't with the hardware.

I'm using OBS 0.12.3 for Windows. I have Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit. I'm using a Logitech G930 wireless gaming headset with USB receiver.

An example is this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohe1P3iqXO4

(NOTE: This video is unlisted because I know it has several quality issues beside the audio... but I've had the same problem with later recordings with several other different games.)

I should also note, I'm only using OBS to record. I'm not streaming.

I've attached my log below.

Any help is appreciated. I love open source software and was very happy with the original OBS. I really like the multi-track recording in OBS-M and don't want to go back to the single audio track.

Thanks!

~ Gideon


EDIT: For grammar, clarification.

 

[Audaxiom]

I'm having the same exact problem and have tried everything I can think of. When I record with OBS 0.657 these issues don't exist.

 

[DEDRICK]

Sounds like audio buffer underrun (or overrun, I always mix them up)

You don't have direct control over the buffer size on your Logitech USB like you would on an audio interface, this popping and cracking sound is common if the USB buffer size is set too low.

Either or, what is the sample rate for your playback and recording device in Windows or possibly in the Logitech software? Having them set above 16bit 48000 Hz can be too much for some USB devices when you add encoding on top.

 

[Flare]

I have an issue with this crackling problem as well. It doesn't show up in regular OBS recordings/streams, but it will in OBS MP recordings/streams. I didn't want to create a thread with the same issue, so I hope it's alright to post in this one.

[Log]
https://gist.github.com/5d2a1db602d0c410b6b7

[Edit]
After doing some research I found another person with the issue here https://obsproject.com/mantis/view.php?id=291 and his solution worked which was installing itunes for the coreaudio encoder. (specifically extracting the installer and running AppleApplicationSupport.msi) Hope this helps people stumped with the issue

 

[Gideon Delta]

Sounds like audio buffer underrun (or overrun, I always mix them up)

You don't have direct control over the buffer size on your Logitech USB like you would on an audio interface, this popping and cracking sound is common if the USB buffer size is set too low.

Either or, what is the sample rate for your playback and recording device in Windows or possibly in the Logitech software? Having them set above 16bit 48000 Hz can be too much for some USB devices when you add encoding on top.

What would be the appropriate audio buffer size?

Playback device is set to: 2 channel, 16 bit, 44100 Hz

The headset's microphone seems to be locked at 1 Channel, 16 bit, 16000 Hz.

 

[TackMeister]

Depending the type of crackle/pop you mean, it could be due to the wireless nature of the headset/mic and interference. But it could also be the sample rate mismatch -- I had a problem with this when I inadvertently had audio coming into OBS at a sample rate other than what I had OBS set up to create the audio stream with. I think the mismatch in my case was 96KHz vs. 48KHz but not sure. Anyway as soon as I got them all matched up it went away.

That may not be a "knob" you have with the setup though.