Audio breaks constantly

[u/Own-Experience8623]

Hello, I'm new to Reaper and I have this issue. So, I'm using Reaper, the audio sounds good, and then, after a minute or two, it just begins crashing and sounding awful, but the weird thing is that, if a go to the ASIO configuration part and go back without changing anything, it just sounds good again, but I have to do this like every two minutes. Please help. In the video, when I first reproduce the track, it sounds crappy, then I go to the asio configuration, get out, and it's all good.

[u/yellowmix]

As radian_ said, ASIO4All is being used. It uses the CPU to make up for the lack of a proper ASIO driver, so it can be very counter-productive. You should use the ASIO driver for your audio interface. If you do not have an audio interface or a proper ASIO driver, WASAPI is a more low-level audio system in Windows and will likely be a better experience.

If it's still breaking up, bring up the Performance Meter (ctrl-alt-P) and determine which plugins are creating overruns (xruns).

[u/Abogado_Diabolito → u/yellowmix]

WASAPI uses the global WIndows audio engine, Asio4all does not. Speaking of "low level".
Neither is going to fix the OPs problem, which is resulting from sample clock drift between USB in and HDMI out.

[u/OctoPhaseMod]

I could not clearly see the audio buffers but try to increase the ouput buffers perhaps?

[u/elevatedinagery1]

Uhhh

[u/SupportQuery]

If you don't need low latency, for monitoring through the DAW (playing a guitar modeller, playing a synth with a MIDI keyboard, etc.), just select WaveOut.

If you need low latency, get an audio interface that has an ASIO driver.

[u/radian_]

If you don't have a real interface with a proper ASIO driver, use WASAPI instead of ASIO4all 

[u/Abogado_Diabolito → u/radian_]

The root caause of the OPs problem is the sample clock drift between USB input and HDMI output in their setup. How exactly do you think WASAPI is going to help here (other than adding more latency, provided it works at all)?