Crackling Audio in Voiceover/Fairlight - Scarlett

Hello fellow Editors,

I'm currently working on a project and trying to voice over my video using Davinci Resolve 18.5 Studio and Fairlight. The Problem is, I'm getting a crackling sound and some distortions while recording my voice over. Whats strange is that, when I'm recording audio via Audacity for example, the sound is crystal clear and crisp. I dont know where these issues come from.

Here some infos about my setup:
- Shure SM7b
- Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 3rd Gen.
- Davinci Resolve 18.5 Studio

What I've checked and done so far:
- matched the Sample Rate in Windows, Focusrite drivers and timeline in Davinci Resolve to 48kHz
- tried different buffer sizes. Got the best results with 192
- changed the usb cables and tried different ports

For some reason I think Davinci is causing the problems which drives me nuts. Maybe some of you are experiencing similar problems? I'm somewhat frustrated and need help. I can't seem to find a solution for this problem.

Thanks in advance.
Best regards

Is this behaviour with ASIO or WDM?

What is the Record buffer size in Preferences > Video and Audio IO?

Create a new Project with Fixed Bussing enabled prior to creating a new Timeline.
Project Settings > Fairlight > Use fixed bus mapping

Same behaviour in Fixed?

i have the same problem, audio in voice over is really bad, when i use the windows build in audio recorder is crystal clear.
Mic is Plantronics Voyager PLT
System: Win10, 32 GB of Ram.

Happens also when i patch the mic to the audio line and speak only.

Thanks for the quick reply. I added a picture with my audio settings in DR and in Focusrite

Create a new Project with Fixed Bussing enabled prior to creating a new Timeline.
Project Settings > Fairlight > Use fixed bus mapping

Same behaviour in Fixed?

I tried this is in a new project and did some quick tests. It seems that it works. Is there a way to change the bus mapping in the project im already working on?

Only Fixed Bus Projects may be converted to Flexi Bus.

There is no option to convert Flexi Bus Projects to Fixed.

this problem exits since the update to 18.5.
With 18.4 it works perfectly

Set up Record Buffer Size to 8 fixes the Problem.

I tried this is in a new project and did some quick tests. It seems that it works.

Which Focusrite driver is installed? Any change across different device drivers?

Set up Record Buffer Size to 8 fixes the Problem.

Where do I set this?
I started a new project and still having the same issue even with fixed bus mapping .... Im losing my mind

Set up Record Buffer Size to 8 fixes the Problem.

Where do I set this?

Preferences > System > Video and Audio IO > Audio IO > Record buffer size

Set up Record Buffer Size to 8 fixes the Problem.

Where do I set this?

Preferences > System > Video and Audio IO > Audio IO > Record buffer size

So these are the settings Im using but still getting audio crackles. Its wiered. When i use fixed bus mapping its way better than without but its noticeably there

I tried this is in a new project and did some quick tests. It seems that it works.

Which Focusrite driver is installed? Any change across different device drivers?

Driver Version is 4.102.4 Firmware 1605

Instead of a Playback processing buffer size set to “Auto” configure a custom larger buffer size.

Instead of a Playback processing buffer size set to “Auto” configure a custom larger buffer size.

Hm i had that idea too but Auto is the only available option in that dropdown window ... any idea why?

In Scarlett Device Settings configure a larger block size than 192. Resolve may be following the Scarlett's driver.

In Scarlett Device Settings configure a larger block size than 192. Resolve may be following the Scarlett's driver.

Okay so I played around a little bit. When I go over 512 in buffer size I get lags and artifacting. When i lower it to 128 it seems to get better but its still there. I tested my recording in another program (audacity) and its super clean. So the problem has to be somewhere in davinci

Okay I can't figure out whats the problem. Have tried several different methods but still getting some crackles while recording a voice over in davinci. It has to be the program and not the gear Im using since its working fine in other programs and I cant believe that so many others obviously have the same issue and that there seems to be now fix

This shouldn't matter but any improvement disabling "Safe Mode" in Scarlett Device Settings?

This shouldn't matter but any improvement disabling "Safe Mode" in Scarlett Device Settings?

I haven‘t tried that yet. What I‘ve tried is setting the Audio Engine to ASIO. This also lets me then set the processing blocks and so on. While the sound quality got a lot worse the crackling remained. I played around a bit with ASIO but this didn’t solve the problem but made it worse.

Reynaud what kind of setup are you using? Do have some of the same issues? I’m still trying to figure out where the problem might be.

Systems here are primarily configured with either the Fairlight Accelerator PCIe card or a third party Core Audio driver (Merging Ravenna Virtual Device) on macOS (see signature).

Merging's driver is also used on Windows 10 Pro (22H2) systems in ASIO mode with Resolve Studio 18.5.1.

Systems here provide consistent low latency performance and both clean capture and monitoring without any of the issues described in this thread.

Will keep looking in to this in hopes of a solution on your system.

Systems here are primarily configured with either the Fairlight Accelerator PCIe card or a third party Core Audio driver (Merging Ravenna Virtual Device) on macOS (see signature).

Merging's driver is also used on Windows 10 Pro (22H2) systems in ASIO mode with Resolve Studio 18.5.1.

Systems here provide consistent low latency performance and both clean capture and monitoring without any of the issues described in this thread.

Will keep looking in to this in hopes of a solution on your system.

Hello again,

So I solved the problem and my god I never thought that this is the problem. So let me explain. I ordered a new Microphone, a USB one. The audio quality got way better but still had some crackling in it which made me suspicious. How can this be that both mics crackle and are absolutely fine in other programs?

I made some further google search and found an article where someone wrote that this has to be and issue with latency. Well that’s also not new i thought since I tinkered around with the buffer size and so on. But then I found a method to test this. It’s called LatencyMon. It monitors your latency and tells you if there’s some package loss and dropouts.

I launched the program and it told me that my machine is not capable of playing real time sound due to latency issues. How can this be I thought? My PC is pretty beefy. Well it also mentioned to update my Bios to get some improvements. Bios update? Really?

Well i looked into the machine and saw that the Bios driver was from late 2020. Long story short i patched it to the newest version and it worked like a charm. Crystal clear sound. No crackling nothing! I couldn’t believe that this did the trick.

Well … this made me go desperate already … Finally got a fix.

Thanks for all the help. I appreciate it.

All the best.

Yeah I'm having the same problem too I don't have a scarlett, I have a presonus device. Very correctly recording. I have a professional mic all good equipment this is a da Vinci problem. Getting so tired of trying to use da DR and it's nothing but problem after a problem after a problem I really wish the developers were do more testing stop adding new features until they can just make the program work correctly! I have too many pieces of hardware and software to have to deal with problems every day I just spent two hours dealing with this crackle and cant fix it.

Are you using ASIO or WDM with the Presonus unit?

I am using WDM with the Presonus