Alesis MultiMix USB 16 2.0 Crackling on playback.. (repost in noob's..)

maffeyew

New member
I have already posted this once in the Alesis section a while back but the answers i got did not solve the problem and people seem to visit this part constantly.. so yeah!

When i try to playback anything from my laptop through the mixer it slowly develops this crackling sound..
My laptop is has an i5 processor and 6gig of ram so surely its not that?
I've checked the DPC latency thing and it is well under the 500 mark..
Turned off all other audio drivers, internet and i have reinstalled the drivers (64bit for Windows 7)
I have no idea what else i can do..
any suggestions?
somebody on the last forum said something about changing the bios but i have no clue about that so! :}
help! :(
 
Is this happening with normal audio like itunes etc, or just from your recording software?

What is your software?


If the problem is in recording software only, look for and increase your h/w buffer settings.


You talked about 'changing the bios'.
Do you mean disabling the onboard audio in bios? This isn't a bad idea if you don't plan on using it again.

Most computers tell you upon boot "Press f2 to enter setup", or something similar.

Do that and glance through the menus (WITHOUT CHANGING ANYTHING) until you find "onboard sound", then switch it to disabled.

Depending on your computer it might say onboard sound, or ac97, or azalia or something else.
Have a google if you're not sure.
 
Some things worth checking below:

1.) Are you using the correct ASIO drivers for your audio interface?
2.) Are you using the updated drivers for your audio interface?
3.) Does your audio interface connected to a dedicated USB controller? If you max out the USB controllers by connecting a lot of USB devices in one controller; then that severely restricts the bandwidth for USB audio.
4.) Are you using the correct USB version for your audio interface? If your audio interface specs states that you should be using USB 2.0, then do not connect it to USB 1.1 port.

These are the things that are worth checking. Probably the problem lies in any of the above checklist.
 
yeah this happens through everything, itunes, windows media player etc..
I will have a go at the bios when i get a chance! you can always get it back to how it was if i just enable it again?

and yes for the updated drivers, yes for the usb controller and yes for the cable! How do i know if i have the right asio driver? :S
 
There are two audio drivers commonly used in Windows. The first one is WDM which is the native Windows audio drivers. This is commonly used by consumer sound cards, etc.

However, professional audio drivers are commonly ASIO for low latency and dedicated audio processing. It is why when you install an external audio interface such as USB or Firewire, it includes a separate audio drivers meant to work only with that audio interface. So check in your Windows audio if it correctly detects your audio device (which is your audio interface both for playback and recording) as the official audio device of your computer. If not, it is still using WDM.

You do not have the right ASIO drivers if you install drivers which are not appropriate for your device. Check with the manufacturer website for updated and correct drivers. Sometimes I met several cases like this when installing drivers from CD (provided after purchase of audio interface) but the one in CD are not updated audio drivers.

On the other hand, I recently encounter this problem in my old computer specs which has been serving me for the past 7 years. It is a Windows XP SP3 OS and the hardware is pretty old but still powerful to handle audio. No matter what optimization has been implemented and driver updates, it did not solve the problem.

I resolved the issue myself by building a new computer (new hardware specs overall) with brand new OS installation. But I don't advise reinstalling your OS because this will not work for everyone
 
I will have a go at the bios when i get a chance! you can always get it back to how it was if i just enable it again?

and yes for the updated drivers, yes for the usb controller and yes for the cable! How do i know if i have the right asio driver? :S

Yes, you can enable it again if you need to. It's really just an on/off switch.

For drivers, the drivers for the maudio device need to be the correct ones, and will be listed on their website. Avid.com i guess.
Make sure you have the most recent ones that match your hardware and OS.

ASIO is generic. You don't have to find ASIO for maudio blah blah, just generic old asio.


I don't know if it's still current, but when i used windows ASIO4ALL was the one to get.
It has a little basic control panel so you know what's happening.
 
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