Cubase 5 - scratching/popping noise

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I have almost completed the beginners tutorial on Cubase 5. Im at the point of adding crashes and sweeps, but now occasionally in my track I get a scratchy, distorted, and clipping type sound randomly for a split second. None of my channels are clipping, and all of them are atleast -7db. I cant figure out what would be causing this. It seems to only be happening on the crash loops.

What soundcard are you using? What is your buffer setting?

Im not entirely sure what kind of sound card Im using. Right now Im running cubase on my Lenovo Ideapad (Y580). In device manager its showing Nvidia Virtual Audio, and realtek audio. br
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I did install ASIO4All. Currently my buffer I have set to 512 samples. br
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Thanks for helping a noob, :slight_smile:

Using the built in soundcard puts enormous pressure on your CPU which will start to make audio crackle when it runs out if juice. You can pick up decent enough USB ones from around £50+ br
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I like the focusrite ones, although most bigger brands do a decent job.