"Cracks" in playback

[saintdufus]

I'm getting these tiny (but noticeable) "cracks" when I play back a certain section of my piece, i.e. the sound is crackling or cutting out for just the briefest of moments, disrupting the continuity.

Does anyone know why this is happening, or how to fix it?

[wcreed51]

We'll need to know something about your OS, your audio hardware, and what driver type you have selected in the Audio Setup.

[ghess1000]

Most likely you are overtaxing your computer. In the Preferences, click the audio tab and try increasing the buffer size and see if that helps.

[Wolfgang]

If you're on Windows, you probably don't have an ASIO compatible soundcard. Or you didn't configure it right.

[bkvam]

I'm getting something similar: I just installed EWQL, and the first couple of times I played the beginning of Holst's Jupiter that I originally entered for Notion's samples, it worked fine. But when I exported to a WAV file I noticed some static in the loud parts (looking at the WAV file in Audacity showed it was too loud).

So I went back and reduced the volume on all the instruments. But now every time I play it I start getting a lot of static and noise when the horns start playing (measure 9). It's unusable.

I'm using Windows 7, 16GB of RAM, EWQL Platinum, a generic audio card that's on my motherboard (using the Windows default audio driver), a normal hard disk (not particularly fast). Notion is only using 4GB of memory.

I'm aware of many reasons why this might be happening: some buffer setting not set right in EWQL's PLAY VST, not using an ASIO sound card, slow hard disk, etc.

What experience do others have others have in correcting this problem?

Can this be fixed by increasing some buffer size in the EWQL VST? Do I need to get a sound card? Is there a reliable ASIO driver that I can use for my generic sound card? Do I need to get a solid state drive and put the EWQL samples on that? I'd rather not charge off and buy a bunch of hardware that won't solve the problem.

Thanks for any advice.