Buffer settings. The computer must receive, label, and archive incoming audio signal. There is a complex bit of time stamping and two way communication going on. The layman's (plain-talk) explanation for this goes like this...
Imagine one of those old movies where the town hall is on fire, the citizens form a bucket brigade so they can bring water to put out the fire.

Water is signal, the bucket holds the water, and the chain of humans try to quickly/carefully pass the bucket full of water to the next person with spilling any, the last person in the chain dumps the full bucket on the flames. If you attempt to put too much water in the bucket you get spillage (distortion). The small little droplets spilling out sound like clicks and pops, and big spills can sound like audio interruption.

No matter how powerful your computer, when you are ready to do music, put all other things that use audio and/or MIDI away. C'mon seriously, Skype. How do you have your computer set for audio? Skype require audio? Your music requires audio? Your computer does not have the brain, you do. Don't blame the computer! 🙂 It's just common sense to shut down non-essential stuff.

Back to putting out the fire. The Bucket Size is critical. You want to set the Buffer Size large enough so your computer can perform the brigade without spilling any water droplets (clicks/pops) but not so large that it delays putting out the fire. You need to optimize the Buffer Size so your computer can easily handle the flow (no spillage) and can do so with extremely little delay.

This does not mean setting the Buffer Size to minimum. Read carefully: it's about making the Buffer Size as minimum as possible without any clicks or pops.

And, yes it will be influenced by how much other stuff, other than music, you are doing. If you are not broadcasting your session on Skype, shut that down. It uses audio, no? Leave your anti-virus in place (no audio demand there) ... See how it works? Those things demanding your CPU's attention should not be allowed to interfere with your music making.

What is your Buffer Size setting currently?
In general, increase it until you no longer hear clicks and pops?
If this does not cure your problem - then let us know we'll move to stage two.

Buffers I understand as my day job is programming

I would not have thought Skype was interfering as it was not actively in use, but I admit it could be a factor

I can certainly play around with the settings. Buffer size is 512 samples if I read this correctly. It says latency is 17ms, and I believe a larger buffer size will increase latency

Skype? It may or may not be interfering, but you should know it matters not that you aren't actively using it, it reserves the resources, anyway.

Yes, the larger the Buffer Size, the larger the latency. But when working as a musician recording, overdubbing and playing back, you never really have to be downwind of this latency... Not when your synth is hardware!

Hardware can be monitored "direct" which is a "no latency" situation. So again the idea is to increase the Buffer Size to a value where there are no clicks and pops. Since you are already at 512 samples (there are typically 44,100 samples per second if you are operating at 44.1kHz... You have not told us anything about what you are doing in terms of sample rate). 4410 samples would be 100ms. 441 samples would be 10ms. Ideally you want to be less than 10ms, but under 20 is still workable. Above that causes laughter ...because you can't play if you are downwind of that much time.

(But with hardware, latency will only impact playback, again because hardware can be monitored without using the computer's audio pathway. Signal from your hardware synth goes direct to the outputs, no latency. You can choose to monitor yourself direct.)

If you increase the Buffer Size and still cannot get rid of the clicks and pops, please let us know... Because this could indicate a different problem all together. Please let us know. At 512 are you still getting clicks and pops?

It's not just Skype you should be looking at. Virtually anything running on your PC has the potential to contribute to poor audio performance at any given moment -- especially if such a process is misbehaving. So, use the windows task manager and see what's hogging your resources (CPU & memory). You may find a browser instance (Chrome, IE, Firefox) in the background that is sucking down your processing cycles. Just the other day, I was surprised to find that DropBox was heavily chewing on my CPU, resulting in bad audio performance when I was needing it.

What I'm getting at is, shut down any applications that don't directly contribute to the recording process first. As Bad Mister says, put those things away! Then, you'll be in a better position to evaluate and tweak your hardware settings. Does that mean you can never run other things at the same time? Not at all. But you need to get a feel for what programs may be problematic, and learn to keep them out of the picture during the often delicate recording process.

Just my few cents...

--John

I tried closing everything. I tried recording to another HD. I figured if 512 was causing so many problems, and I had not had problems in the past, this could be something new. I also noticed it glitch during playback.

So I rebooted, recorded a few minutes and it seemed fine.

Not saying the other advice was not useful or helpful, but this may have been an exceptional kind of thing caused by, well you know how Windows can be, could be anything

Glad you got it working.

But you will not enlist me into believing it "could be anything"... I live my life finding the "anything", and thus far, I have a good track record in being able to find a reason for maladies be it on a Windows or Macintosh computer... Once you accept the fact that computers were not designed to do music, and you realize that very, very few things demand so much from a computer (specifically, in the area of doing things in TIMELY fashion) you can forgive it. But it is essential that you help it out by not over taxing it with stuff you DON'T need at the time you are doing music. Minimize CPU tasks so your computer is as completely a music device as is possible. There are many articles in the Music magazines about optimizing your Windows computer for music recording - if I find a recent one I'll come back and provide a link.

Close everything that is non-essential (but you can leave your Anti-virus stuff running - those rarely are problems unless you are asking it to do a weekly housekeeping task during your session) just stuff that is asking for resources you will need for your music. Do not have your computer searching for updates - when you agree to the EULA (the user's licence) recognize what you are agreeing to - if you have an option that says "search for updates - always" - well, don't be surprised when during the break at measures 33-34 if your computer figures, "Hey, let me search the internet for an update for that cooking software while there is a break..." You want your computer to pay close attention to WHAT you are doing NOW.

You cannot have it delivering notes late, 30ms late and you will have the feeling "Did I hear something glitch?" - when you have that feeling, you did hear something.

Let us know if you have issues.

A new issue I had...

With Windows 8, and a new PC I started using, I was getting audio dropouts using Moxf6 as primary audio interface. Audio drop outs in games, youtube, anything.

Did anyone run into, and resolve an issue like this?

Hi Michael,

For help with any computer related issue we need some specific information from you;
Computer Type/OS: Windows 8
Driver Name/Version: ?
Firmware Version of your MOXF: Current is 1.10

Please navigate to the following screen in Windows 8:
CONTROL PANEL > Hardware and Sound > Yamaha Steinberg USB Driver

Open that control panel and let us know what it reports. Specifically the version number... Current is 1.9.2
Also do you have any other Yamaha USB AUDIO drivers installed on this computer?

Yamaha/Steinberg Driver 1.9.2
Moxf6 Firmware 1.03

I don't believe I have other Yamaha USB audio drivers installed

Please check - otherwise we are just guessing with the scant information you have given us.

Moxf6 Firmware 1.03

Please update your MOXF, you are now out of date. The current version is 1.10
http://download.yamaha.com

With Windows 8, and a new PC I started using, I was getting audio dropouts using Moxf6 as primary audio interface. Audio drop outs in games, youtube, anything.

Does this new PC meet the specifications of the software (games, YouTube, anything...) that you are trying to run (we are sure it does, but it would help to eliminate this as a possibility.

Can you please describe, as much in detail as you can, your particular setup. We assume you have the MOXF connected to a pair of monitor speakers (although nothing in your posts, thus far, give us any clue as to how you are setup). No audio will appear at the computer's soundcard or its speakers. You asked if others have run into issues, and while I'm sure every scenario possible exists, by far, most people are able to get this running without incident.

What happens when you try to run Cubase?
Can you provide screenshots of your setup?
Go to CONTROL PANEL > SYSTEM and SECURITY > SYSTEM > DEVICE MANAGER > SOUNDS, VIDEO and GAME CONTROLLERA

With the MOXF connected via a USB cable (change cables, too, by the way) does the "Yamaha MOXF6/MOXF8" appear as a working properly device?
Let us know.

I will first install new firmware. Been trying, and when I hit rec, as prompted, it says no file. Not sure why it's not installing yet

Please read the firmware instructions included with the update download... You will discover that it does not LOAD this File, it does not play this file, at all.

Uzip the download file.
Place the 8L26OS.PGM file in the root directory of a USB stick you use with your MOX?
Power OFF the MOXF
Hold down the [LEVEL] meter button, as outlined in the instructions, power on the the MOXF. This places your MOXF in update mode.
Follow the instructions in the screen: press [REC]
The MOXF will do the rest.

When complete, the screen will say "Completed. Reboot MOXF6/8"

Exactly what I tried 🙂 I did read the instructions. It's not working, for some reason

I reformatted it, seems to be going now