I recently purchased a new Dell and upgraded to Sound Forge 14 Pro. There seems to be issues with quality/crackling of the audio. I've tried other device types/drivers but then get no audio. Dell support did go in and update my Realtek driver (Asio) which helped a lot but sound quality does not seem to be up to snuff. Has anyone else had this problem? Is it a Realtek problem, Dell problem or compatibility with Sound Forge? I'm at a loss!
Realtek is not really good enough for audio processing. But it can vary from computer to computer. On some it might work, on some you get the crackling.
One idea is to minimize your system load by stopping other background tasks. For example try to disable all network connections (Wlan, Internet) when you are working with Sound Forge. Another idea is to try different ASIO drivers. For example ASIO4All or the Fruity Loops ASIO driver. Or get an dedicated audio interface with ASIO driver support for your Dell.
I got a new Dell Alienware 2 weeks ago and the audio in SoundForge Pro 14 was awful. It played back at less than 50% speed and was distorted. All other audio programs like RX7 were fine.
I went to Realtek's website and downloaded the latest driver and the Realtek Audio Console. In SoundForge Pro 14 under Options/Preferences/Audio, a new entry appeared under 'Audio device type' that being Realtek ASIO. Selecting that as the audio device solved the problem. SF14 now works as expected.
This is just my experience - hope it works for you.
I recently purchased a new Dell and upgraded to Sound Forge 14 Pro. There seems to be issues with quality/crackling of the audio. I've tried other device types/drivers but then get no audio. Dell support did go in and update my Realtek driver (Asio) which helped a lot but sound quality does not seem to be up to snuff. Has anyone else had this problem? Is it a Realtek problem, Dell problem or compatibility with Sound Forge? I'm at a loss!
What do you mean by "helped a lot but sound quality does not seem to be up to snuff?" Did the crackling go away? Is the Realtek sound quality otherwise inferior to that of outboard interfaces? I've found that playback quality with Realtek depends on what's connected to it, but I would never record with it.
BTW, generally speaking, crackling is a recording issue, the result of deficient buffer size. Increasing the buffer size inside the program you're using should make the crackling go away.
I do not recall many reports of issues with Dell/Realtek . Does it render the crackling or is it just in preview. Some Dell PCs come with 'enhancement' utilities that can fork-up the sound, Try disabling it. My XPS 9550 came with a consumer Waves utility that screwed up the sound, (auto EQ and imaging), though it did not cause extraneous noises.
As @Poinzy stated, a buffer setting can cause preview abnormalities. Experiment with different playback buffer settings in "Options> Preferences> Audio"
The classic wave and sound mapper device drivers are usually trouble free.