FM3 as PC Audio Interface Noise & Issues

honditar

honditar

Member
Hey all, hoping I can get some wisdom from the gurus on this forum. Recently bought an FM9 to replace my FM3, so was really hoping to replace my home desk Axe FX II connected to my PC with the FM3. Yesterday, I spent multiple hours trying to diagnose issues I was having sending PC audio through the FM3 to my studio monitors that I never experienced with the Axe II.

So I have Out 1 L + R on FM3 going XLR's into my monitors - when I plug in my guitar and play through the FM3, everything works as expected flawlessly.

The issue arises when I playback audio from my PC (Spotify, Youtube etc.) which has the FM3 drivers installed, I notice some light distortion/crackling/clipping/noise on any track I play immediately and from monitoring the USB In meters on the FM3, after ~20-30 secs, they go to zero and I lose sound. I dug through a ton of threads on here where some people had similar issues with sound dropping out from the PC and having to reset the FM3 or usb connection every hour or so and similarly some about clipping. I tried many different things like switching from +4db setting to -10db as well as changing buffer size and nothing seemed to have any impact.

Also will note FM3 preset was about 75% and also tried switching to a blank preset to make sure CPU wasn't hitting any limits

At this point I'm about ready to just sell the FM3 and keep the Axe 2 for home use, but hoping to hear if anyone else has had this experience when trying to use the FM3 at home and found a way to resolve it or if I'm missing something obvious.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!
 
It's so hard to diagnose USB/computer issues because there are so many variables that can be different between us. I use my FM3 as an interface all the time and outside of correcting for latency, I've only had a single issue. The USB cable I was using was really long and working intermittently. After replacing it with one within recommended length, I haven't had the issue again. The usual suggestion is to make sure you're using a USB 2.0 port as they have less issues typically than other ports. Eliminate any USB hubs if those are in use as well.

If you bought from Fractal, highly suggest hitting them up for support so they can get you in the right direction.
 
DoctorJones said:
It's so hard to diagnose USB/computer issues because there are so many variables that can be different between us. I use my FM3 as an interface all the time and outside of correcting for latency, I've only had a single issue. The USB cable I was using was really long and working intermittently. After replacing it with one within recommended length, I haven't had the issue again. The usual suggestion is to make sure you're using a USB 2.0 port as they have less issues typically than other ports. Eliminate any USB hubs if those are in use as well.

If you bought from Fractal, highly suggest hitting them up for support so they can get you in the right direction.
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For sure definitely a tricky thing to diagnose with all the variables, tried with different/shorter usb b cables going direct into different usb 2.0 ports and even tried plugging the FM3 power adapter into different outlets in case there was some crazy grounding issue going on. Will try going the support route to see if they have any guidance!
 
If you want PC sound to come out the FM3 then the FM3 is the audio interface, and it therefore needs to be set up properly.

Did you download the separate PC USB drivers? Fractal put out an update to these only a week or two ago.

You'll need to go to the audio properties in Windows, and set this to be 48Khz and have the defaul device to be the FM3. Do the same for any audio applications if they will let you.

I did this in my PC, and have no problems with general Windows sounds (eg backing tracks from YouTube) coming out my FM3.
 
I checked and it was set to 48Khz. It's weird I plugged everything in again to give it another try today with the same cables and I'm no longer getting that clipping right away and then audio dropout after ~20secs - for the most part it seems a lot better. I am still hearing that slight crackle (not sure if it's clipping), but now only maybe once or twice over the course of a song playing. I followed that thread with the recent usb driver updates and installed them, but I didn't uninstall the previous drivers before doing so, potentially that might help to try removing the previous drivers altogether.
 
I spent a solid year troubleshooting usb ground loops when plugging my guitar into my interface. Lots of crackles, pops, and digital noise when using higher gain amps. I even tried a bunch of conditioners.

The only thing that helped, although expensive was the following...

https://ifi-audio.com/products/idefender-plus/

You also need a power it or it does nothing.

Maybe worth a shot if you can order from somewhere that has a return policy.
 
Just to update thread, the audio dropout and crackling issues started happening today on PC

Decided to test connecting my macbook m1 pro to the fm3 and it has no audio playback issues, so this must be something related to the PC potentially the FM3 drivers

Does anyone know how to completely remove previous driver installation, so I can try installing the latest again?

Also reached out to support to see if they have any ideas
 
Boy_Narf said:
Go into device manager, find the driver, right click then uninstall, then reboot.
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I went through steps in here to uninstall: https://support.fractalaudio.com/en-US/windows-device-manager-housekeeping-286606

And then ran the driver as admin so it's on latest version (5.68) from this thread (https://forum.fractalaudio.com/threads/usb-audio-driver-update-for-axe-fx-iii-fm3-and-fm9.202435/) and even with cleaning up all the ghost devices it's unfortunately made no difference
 
Although I'm a diehard PC fan when it comes to audio stability mac just does it better.

I would suggest grabbing a 2 channel interface and plugging the fm3 in via xlr.

I've had nothing but issues with fm3 and usb/spdif audio. I now plug the fm3 into my studio capture and it's great. I'm unable to detect any audio difference between usb and going through the interface pres, plus don't have to worry about that usb recording latency thing on the fm3.
 
Boy_Narf said:
Although I'm a diehard PC fan when it comes to audio stability mac just does it better.

I would suggest grabbing a 2 channel interface and plugging the fm3 in via xlr.

I've had nothing but issues with fm3 and usb/spdif audio. I now plug the fm3 into my studio capture and it's great. I'm unable to detect any audio difference between usb and going through the interface pres, plus don't have to worry about that usb recording latency thing on the fm3.
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For sure makes sense I could see an interface helping in this case, unfortunately I only own a focusrite solo which is not worth plugging the FM3 into for mono-only. Looks like I'll likely be selling my FM3 and keeping Axe 2 for home office use. Thanks for your help!
 
There are a few Windows tweaks you can do ...

In power management find Advanced Settings -> Turn off hard drives never. Under USB settings, never suspend.

In Advanced System Settings, go to Advanced -> Performance -> Visual Effects, then choose Adjust for best performance. In Advanced in the same window, for Processor Scheduling, adjust for best performance of Background services.

See if those tweaks make any difference...
 
as others have said, PC/audio latency sometimes needs a bit of extra work, the quality of the audio interface drivers make a difference as well (I use an RME which has been rock solid)

are you using a laptop or a PC ?

there are various settings to play around with,

if you want to get a lot more specific and scientific about it you can use something called Latencymon
https://www.resplendence.com/latencymon

with everything plugged in, let it run on the desktop with no apps open, only Latencymon, and let it run /monitor for 5-10 minutes,

you can then see processes that are potentially causing issues and can help identify what might be causing the dropouts

quite often it's USB/power saving related but can be quite a few things , thankfully there are solutions based on what latencymon is reporting which can help to more easily identify the culprit(s) as it were
 
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Recorded a snippet of the crackling/popping that is happening when playing back USB audio (recorded as output of fm9 into an frfr): https://jumpshare.com/s/Ng3QuWuWYlLgHLXgQ2d0

It seems like this is an issue with some of the latest USB drivers from what I've seen from other threads - I just tried with my FM9 and it has the same issue as the FM3 with playback (audio doesn't seem to be dropping out completely though but the crackling is the same)

I made the tweaks doogz suggested above and also tried adjusting buffer size through axe fx control panel in bottom right of PC, but made no difference

Also tried installing fm9 drivers on a separate windows 11 laptop (main PC is a desktop) and the same crackling issues with a different/shorter usb cable

Probably will continue to just use the axe fx 2 since its drivers are stable and have never given me issues. I've seen another thread where someone was able to resolve with a full windows reinstall, but not worth the hassle if it might not even fix it. Contacted support but don't think there's much they can do in this situation.
 
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