Interesting problem with OB buffer safety margin

Elektron Gear Syntakt
#1

My Syntakt got here a couple of days ago and I have been having tons of fun on it.

I ran into an issue however that exclusively occurs when I have Syntakt via overbridge running in Logic as a plugin.

When it first connects the audio quality over a simply stereo out is straight terrible. Trigging any voice results in a crackly, highly distorted signal that stutters. It is essentially un-usable.

What’s really weird is that after a couple of minutes, Ill try again and the audio is perfect…for a bit. Then it will cycle back to disgusting noise on triggers, then Ill let it sit and its fine.

This happens on any voice, analog or digital and its totally intermittent.

To further tangle things, if I run the stereo out of the Syntakt straight in to a mixer there are no issues. There are also no issues if I use the Syntakt via overbridge as a stand alone.

So the issues is clearly related to my DAW logic…right? Just wondering if anyone else has had some similar problems or if anyone has insight on the situation.

#2

Have you tried a different buffer size with your DAW?

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#3

sure have!

Ill post an update. I have been messing with it a bit and perhaps may have discovered the issue.

I messed with the overbridge control panel and found that my “buffer safety margin” was set to the lowest value of “30”. When I slightly increased this value to “40” quality improves, at “50” the problem was solved.

It would seem that when running the Syntakt as a plugin via DAW I needed to make some adjustments as there was apparently some communication issues between the DAW and my Syntakt!

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#4

When I first started with OB, I remember having this kind of issue when the Buffer safety margin wasn’t at 100. So, yeah, good find.

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#5

It was just really weird to me and I didn’t even think to consider that at first.

My Digitakt was fine on the settings I had, so I incorrectly assumed that I wouldn’t even need to check that.

Oh well live and learn

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#6

Your Digitakt has 4 less Voices to transmit, if I compare them correctly. When Digitakt sends Audio on all Channels, that’s nearly 50% more Data on the Syntakt.

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#7

thats totally makes sense when I actually think about it.

I haven’t really used OB too much on Syntakt. I prefer to just take the line out direct. For me it keeps me creative, having the tactile touch and feel of using the hardware. I do like OB however once I have something going on the Syntakt to quickly try out different parameter changes if I want to drastically change something.

OB on Digitakt gets used a lot when I start something because it makes sample sorting 1000% easier and faster (for me) than on the box.