Delay control snap/crackle.

[av8en1]

When adjusting the delay on a mix to a zone fill I’ve noticed a loud snap/crackle on the channel, on multiple occasions. QSC K’s with no other processing in line. Any one else observed this bad behavior?

[Dick Rees]

Does this happen when adjusting delay in Qu-mix? Does noise occur when making other changes using that same encoder? Is the crackling dependent on the speed of twisting the encoder knob? If you move any/all of your interconnect cables does the noise happen? Is the noise also in the headphones when you solo things?

[Anonymous]

Trying to work out what I expect to hear.

If you increase the delay then the mixer has to decide what to send to the output for the delta between the current and desired delay – any of the reasonable options I can think of could sound like crackling if you do it repeatedly.

If you decrease the delay then it’s a bit easier to decide what to send, but the effect could be the same.

I assume the delay is changed as you rotate the encoder, and therefore each ms (or whatever the resolution) is being “lost” sequentially…

[mervaka]

It’s a jump in time. I’d expect the waveform to jump accordingly, which could generate the clicks you can hear, depending on the difference at the two points.

[av8en1]

Thanks all for your replies/questions.

I will pay attention to where I’m hearing the snap/click, but I believe it only happens in the mix being delayed by rotation of the encoder.

No other use of this encoder (the main below of the primary display) has any unwanted result.

I like the hypothesis that the click results from the jump in time. Folks using Protools advocate using a fade at the beginning & end when you clip a track to avoid clicks. This could be analogous to clipping a track, only without a fade?

I’ll be sure to NOT adjust the delay when live.

[Anonymous]

Fortunately adjusting the delay is basically a setup task…

[SteffenR]

the behavior is the same on all digital devices with stepped delay control… decrease the steps the noise becomes lower, increase the steps the noise becomes louder
in iLive you can set to mute the output during delay change… sometimes good, sometimes not…

As Bob wrote it’s a setup task… with no audio present it should not crackle

[Author]

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