Audio Recording Stutters/Garbles in DR17 but not in DR16?

Hi there,

I have 2 wav files which have both been recorded into the same project using the same settings and same audio interface. The DR17 beta 8 (and 9) fairlight audio recording (both straight to track and ADR) stutters and the DR16 records fine. Both buffers were set to the same in both preferences of the 2 version of DR and I tried tweaking it to larger and smaller buffer sizes. In DR 16 stutters can be heard whilst monitoring but the recording itself is fine.

Short files here for a listen;

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ly128t1hscr0 ... CIoha?dl=0

I'm recording at 48k with the interface set at that too. Buffer changes make no difference to the watery sound. All other apps that I have that can record audio (Cubase, Audacity, SoundForge, Audition, Premiere) work fine with my setup and I have never experienced this garbling sound before. It sounds like some sort of sample rate mismatch/sync issue. General sound out from DR is abaolutely fine - no clicks or pops at all. I'm on the long waiting list for Studio version but I'm a bit nervous that this issue will still be there making voice over/ADR impossible on my setup. The sound garbles on both recording in fairlight and in the ADR Panel.

Windows 10 1909 i9 18 Core 4ghz, 128GB, AMD Radeon 570 4gb, 6 SSDs, 2X Nvme drives, RAID
MOTU Ultralight MK4 (latest driver 4.0.8.2000)
DR (free version not Studio - soon to upgrade)

Does anyone have any ideas what this could be?

Thanks,

Ed

Every time I see a post like this about audio going sideways I cringe...

Here's the short version to save you time and frustration: Do NOT use Fairlight to do any recording, ever.

For whatever reason the Fairlight section of DR has been one of the buggiest sections, and for no good reason. (I think others say that Fusion has more unresolved bugs.) In point of fact, very simple and seemingly easy tasks just don't get done right (or fail completely) and BMD has ignored fixing these basic-yet-deep audio troubles.

So the "fix" is to record outside DR and use Fairlight to do your ducking, final EQ, key-framing levels, finishing etc. Don't expect it to do high-functioning things and never expect it to record properly.

Audio issues have been going on all the way back to v.12 when I jumped on-board prior to the Fairlight module being added, and to date are still buggered.

Trust me Ed, don't waste your precious time trying to figure this out or hope-against-hope that BMD will issue a fix. "That's a long wait for a train that don't come."

Hi Robert,

Thanks for the upfront honesty - really appreciate it. I spotted another post with a similar from another user and a few other people saying their experience has been the same. It’s hard to believe that something that is being touted as “ the world’s fastest and highest quality solution for audio post-production! with new high-performance audio engine, “Fairlight Audio Core” cannot operate at a basic level for recording VO. It’s not like I’m trying to record at 192khz either here. *sigh* back to other audio workflows it is!

Cheers,

Ed

The best way I can describe to you how to think of DR in it's entirety, is to recognize what it's strengths are and, avoid it's weaknesses altogether rather than fight them or waste energy chatting up support tickets that go nowhere. So here's my 25c...

For those that didn't cut their teeth on FCPX's magnetic timeline (et al; AVID, Premiere, Vegas, FCP7, Edius, Media 100... you know, everything else) the EDIT module of DR is straight-up what we'd expect. With v.16 and up the UI got a great overhaul and it's damned easy to do the basic work of editing. Despite claims from FCPX pros, I can make a full cut/output edit on DR 2x faster than they. It's just uber-smart in the EDIT panel.

But literally everything deeper than straight-up edits and color-correction (which is by far DR's core offering and most stable) has bugs, some more head-scratching serious than others. And these bugs are long-standing, (years) and have all been ignored by the Malaysian tech team that actually builds DR and other BMD products.

So if you come across *anything* that goes sideways, and you don't find an immediate answer on the forums or your own experience in troubleshooting, move on. Find a workaround or, do it externally from DR.

I would not invest in the Studio version as whatever is broken in free is also broken there; the only difference is the addition of the deeper filters/controls, work/export in DCI 4K, multiple GPU's and a few other things that don't justify the cost. When I purchased Studio a few years back, hoping that the "pro" version would be rock solid it was a nasty hoodwink to realize the same broken-code lived there too. I was furious.

If it weren't for the fact that I can work so blistering fast in DR editing I'd have moved on to something else. (nothing from Adobe.) But I too use several external tools to get the job done rather than fuss with the broken DR elements. Too right, it shouldn't be that way what with the marketing telling us we can "do it all" in one application. Reality is far from that.

As I've mentioned in a few other threads, this behavior of offering amazing products filled with bugs permeates the BMD product line entirely. It's a long-standing cultural thing, it will never change unless BMD gets bought-out and goes through a top-down changeover in it's business structure.

Having said all that DR is still an amazing and capable tool, just love it for what it can do and don't fuss about the rest. There's too much else in life to put fuss into. haha

I had a bizarre issue with Resolve where I tried to record a voiceover on my M1 Mac Mini just 2 days ago in 17.8 studio. It was literally a 6 second voiceover for an intro. I recorded it in Fairlight, played it back, and I sounded like a chipmunk??? Googled the issue and found that other users reported similar things in 2017.....

So I recorded the voiceover again, same exact result. I said screw it, recorded it in OBS, worked as it should and then I brought that audio into my Resolve project, worked like a charm. OBS....a completely free software program worked as you would expect for a simple voiceover recording.

Another thing I can't understand for the life of me is why using a text layer in the edit tab that is more than one sentence has it's spacing changed when you change your playback to half or quarter in timeline proxy mode? I posted about this issue on these forums over a month ago, nothing has been done about it at all. The spacing of text vertically should not change just because you're viewing a timeline in half or quarter resolution via the proxy timeline settings.

I love Resolve as an editing software, it blazes on my M1 Mac mini, especially with heavily compressed HD H.264 and H.265 footage, but some of the bugs that have been an issue for years are maddening to say the least. I'm editing 40-60 hours a week in Resolve and love it, but some of the longstanding "bugs" are unbelievably frustrating.

My guess is the text line spacing issue will still be an issue a year from now, and it completely kills the speed of my edits.

Thanks Jason - great to hear your experience is the same too.

My patience for computers has been extremely good with problem solving over the years but more recently if its a creativity killer or disrupts/delays a critical timing workflow then I can't justify any extra faffing these days - it sounds so dramatic but it can be utterly soul destroying can't it!

Ed

The plot thickens...

I changed my sample rate in windows experimentally for input and output to 44.1 and then back to 48 and of course on the hardware too. I also have an identical second audio interface so swapped this out just before trying this and it’s exactly the same problem. Have restarted machine several times but...

I’m now completely unable to get any VO sound into DR. Everything is patched correctly as before

All I can hear when selecting record on a track and the monitoring mode is active is a short buffer sized looping audio segment which is a recording of me clicking my mouse through my VO mic. So utterly weird. This is actually recorded into the file too when pressing the record button. All other audio apps work fine - Cubase Pro tools Soundforge Audacity etc. Even checked everything works in zoom and Skype with the different sample rates and no problem there.

- Utterly bizarre - . I’m so glad that I’m not on a major project! On a positive note if anyone would like a ‘mouse click’ sample pack I’m up for doing some careful tempo looping. From this evenings experiments, I seem to now be in possession of a fabulous folder of mouse samples.

Here's the short version to save you time and frustration: Do NOT use Fairlight to do any recording, ever.

That's my technique for success. Zoom makes some good gear.

Here's the short version to save you time and frustration: Do NOT use Fairlight to do any recording, ever.

That's my technique for success. Zoom makes some good gear.

I was about to buy a Tascam field recorder so I pulled the trigger finally. Recording audio is painful on Resolve, and I know folk who basically bought FCP just because of not being able to record audio reliably at all.

It's...intensely frustrating, as the work flow for simple ADR becomes laborious as you have to do a whole import process to check your take was ok. Hellish.

you have to do a whole import process to check your take was ok.

You should be able to do that right from the Tascam. You can even play the video along to check timing.

It won't help Windows users, but this is my answer for VO work:

viewtopic.php?f=21&t=134552&p=726795#p726795

This evening I swapped out the Ultralight mk4 audio interface for my rode NTG video mic which works as an audio interface and mic. It wouldn’t work with any of the buffer settings other than auto but there was no glitching at all. I decided to swap back to the MOTU interface, auto had been left on from the rode. It worked straight away without glitches.

*** just to clarify when I say buffer settings / auto I mean the buffer settings in the general preferences of Resolve ***

Not really sure what to take away from this. Auto didn’t work before on either of my MOTU interfaces. Perhaps the ‘Auto’ setting is only able to read and change the latency with some audio interfaces - changing the interface over seems to have jump started it into working. I’ll see over the next week if I can recreate any stuttering/glitching and then reset by swapping interfaces temporarily to test this theory.

I wonder if there is a list of supported sound interfaces or perhaps BM or forum members could do a poll?
I realise they want us to buy into their own fairlight console but most folks will be using third party or internal hardware so it might be useful to have a list of hardware that just works. This may be of interest to newer users.

[Shrinivas Ramani]

Hi

This is one of several fixes in Resolve 17 beta 9:

• Addressed an issue with intermittent audio recording issues with 44.1 KHz input devices on 48KHz timelines when using FlexBus.

Please let us know if you still see issues with recording with this version.

Regards
Shrinivas

Hi

This is one of several fixes in Resolve 17 beta 9:

• Addressed an issue with intermittent audio recording issues with 44.1 KHz input devices on 48KHz timelines when using FlexBus.

Please let us know if you still see issues with recording with this version.

Regards
Shrinivas

Yup, it's unusable.

My Focusrite Scarlett is set to 48KHz. I record on resolve. Constant popping and drop out / glitching. It's entirely useless.
This is on a Windows 10 machine, 9900 CPU, Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 gen 2. As other people have said, I currently need to record voiceovers in something else and then cut it all in, which makes ADR basically impossible to get right.

Hi

This is one of several fixes in Resolve 17 beta 9:

• Addressed an issue with intermittent audio recording issues with 44.1 KHz input devices on 48KHz timelines when using FlexBus.

Please let us know if you still see issues with recording with this version.

Regards
Shrinivas

Hi Shrinivas,

Thanks for writing. Yes I’m still having issues with this. I’ll do some more experimenting with other settings and interfaces tomorrow and report back to you. It looks to me like the buffer size selection seems to be broken somehow on my list try only AUTO would work.

Regards

Ed Rugman

you have to do a whole import process to check your take was ok.

You should be able to do that right from the Tascam. You can even play the video along to check timing.

I'm doing an entire VO to a script and importing; the problem is if I retake lines of scripts I have to go and cut the VO up to fit to the right space. I can't just run through a 6 minute script and then easily retake the lines - I have to record with the Tascam, then either plug in to retrieve the data or pop out the memory card. It makes the whole process 10 times slower and more laborious.

It's a shame that Fairlight is ostensibly useless apart from final compositing.

Hi

This is one of several fixes in Resolve 17 beta 9:

• Addressed an issue with intermittent audio recording issues with 44.1 KHz input devices on 48KHz timelines when using FlexBus.

Please let us know if you still see issues with recording with this version.

Regards
Shrinivas

Hello. Just confirming this issue is still occurring with the studio 7 b9 on windows 10 with a MOTU audio interface for me.

[Shrinivas Ramani]

Can you post details of your audio setup - interfaces, connection types, sampling rates, audio I/O configuration in Windows? Can you also include some info on whether you see this with certain codecs, effects and bus types?

Is there a reason you'd like to not set the buffer size to Auto?

Regards
Shrinivas

Can you post details of your audio setup - interfaces, connection types, sampling rates, audio I/O configuration in Windows? Can you also include some info on whether you see this with certain codecs, effects and bus types?

Is there a reason you'd like to not set the buffer size to Auto?

Regards
Shrinivas

Hi Shrinivas,

It’s a MOTU ultralight 4 with the latest firmware update on USB 2 plugged into a usb 2 port on the back of a high spec Intel custom Scan 3XS studio machine.

Windows 10 v 2004. Sample rates of both 44.1 and 48khz have garbling as above in projects that are set to either 44.1 or 48. Changing the MOTU buffer size through all settings makes no difference in both sampling rate modes it still crackles and sounds like there are samples gapping. Configuration wise the MOTU is being used in windows I/O configuration as MOTU Ultralight 1-2 interface allowing 2 in and 2 out. It doesn’t work on the MOTU 1-24 Setting with davinci resolve studio. To confirm also, the audio interface works perfectly with windows, cubase, protools and various other audio recording applications and there is no hardware issue with mic / cable. I can record fine in other programs such as audacity from the interface without the garbling sound.

I changed the setting from auto in desperation to try to resolve why the audio is garbling. It affects recording onto any track both the real time monitoring and the recorded files have garbling on them. Audio samples are included on a link at the top of the forum post. It sounds like buffer issues or some sort of packet/stream loss of data to me.

As I have upgraded now to resolve studio is it possible to elevate this to a support request from a forum discussion? I would consider the recording of dialogue to picture essential for my current work.

Thank you
Kind regards,

Ed Rugman

For me, I have a bunch of connected things but the audio source is an AT2020 -> Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 v2 -> USB to PC.

Settings are 48khz for sample rate and 128 for block size (it doesn't do auto afaik).

When recording on 17.1.1 it's way less glitchy, but you'll hear dropout when recording or during playback.

Also, annoyingly, the latency is pretty high. Probably something like 250-400ms, so it makes recording tricky unless I listen directly to the monitor output from the Focusrite.

Another question I have is that when selecting audio inputs to patch in I only ever see the current windows record source - so I have to change windows' default from a headset mic to the Focusrite when using resolve. Is there a way to just see a list of record sources for the system and select the ones I need? (Similar to how DAWs work).

Simple answer: record audio outside of Resolve. We also learned the hard way: viewtopic.php?f=21&t=125332

[Shrinivas Ramani]

Hi Ed, Paul,

When you've had a chance to try out 17.1.1, can you highlight specific issues for recording and playback and include a link to a sample project and a log archive (from the Help menu)?

If your audio setup has changed from your descriptions above, please let us know about that too.

Thanks
Shrinivas

Hi Ed, Paul,

When you've had a chance to try out 17.1.1, can you highlight specific issues for recording and playback and include a link to a sample project and a log archive (from the Help menu)?

If your audio setup has changed from your descriptions above, please let us know about that too.

Thanks
Shrinivas

Hi Shrinivas. Certainly - I have just downloaded 17.1.1 and unfortunately the issue is still there.
Here is a link to a sample project file (set at 48k audio) with WAV audio sample files of voice.
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/hh85n6zhq2ew ... WCaRa?dl=0
I have included the log archive too. The audio setup is explained in the audio recordings in the project and I change sample rates on the audio interface inbetween some of the clips to show that the issue is still present. Setting the Audio interface to 44.1/48k makes no difference to the audio garbles. The windows 'sound control panel' is set appropriately to match the audio interface. Playback of audio is fine in my other projects - just issues with recording voiceovers into Resolve and the garbled sound is being recorded into the wav files.

Thanks,

Ed

Same probem here.

I have the same kind of issue with MOTU M4 on Fairlight (DR17 Ver.17.2.1 Build 12) and MOTU Driver 4.0.8.8030

My issue is the recorded voice has always small jitter (like zzz sound) whenever audio input has (not only voice, also when do MIC handling ).

When I change the Buffer size 2048, the voice had totally distorted no matter any Sample size.

I checked loopback audio from Sound property on windows10. it does not have any noise.
I recorded my voice with Ableton 10 Live. it does not have any noise.

My PC is
AMD Ryzen 5800x
TUF RTX3080
32GB Memory
ROG STRIX B550-I GAMING
Windows 10 Pro (built 19042.1052)