My Cakewalk has gone to static?

[Alanfc]

I am freaking out here

One moment i'm using the Cakewalk Home Studio XL (using Edirol UA-5 USB) and everything is fine and then, I close out of something, pick up my guitar to do somehting new and........
No sound from my instrument. The peak light is working on the Edirol , like the Edirol soundcard is getting input, but not registering in Cakwalk when a track was armed. Fine, I save, close out, exit from Cakewalk. Turn off the Edirol as usual, then shut down computer to restart and try again.
I get in to Cakewalk again, and again no input into Cakewalk when the track is armed. But then theres no sound coming from my headphones when I play my instrument either. But the Edirol is registering input/peak light when I test it; Damn,
THEN I go into one of my projects to see if its the soundcard, or Cakewalk.----- I open up the project, press play, and POW! Static like a radio, really really loud , I mean I had to practically throw off my headphones. I try another project - POW- static again. I close out of the projects, exit from Cakewalk and try the whole process again. three more times with the same results.
Wave profiler in Cakewalk says the Edirol is working properly. Windows device manager says the Edirol is working properly.
What is this ? Anyone else ever have this happen ?
I have not yet tried to uninstall/re-isntall the driver for Edirol/MME. I can't right now - its stupidly late here. BUT every Windows and Cakewalk test says its working right? Anyway I don't want to rant pathetically here.

Just need to know if anyone else has had this and what they did about it . Here it is again, buried above in the ranting:

"I open up the project, press play, and POW! Static like a radio, really really loud ".

I am calling Cakewalk and Edirol tommorrow, but if anyone can shed light on this I would greatly appreciate it
thanks

[moskus]

What is your latency and have you set the buffer-setting correctly? Sounds like problems I was having with my Inca88, until I figured out that I needed to specify a low buffersetting to experience low latency...

[Alanfc]

Moskus

the thing is, is that one moment it was working normally and one moment is was giving me this problem

I had been using my setup the same way for months now. Its almost like my soundcard freaked out and stopped communicating with Cakewalk. I tested the card out doing ohter things, like getting audio media, etc fromthe internet and it worked
?
Thanks

[moskus]

Things like this happens. It's computers, you know...

Does the Edirol have a Control Panel? If so, check the settings there.

[Alanfc]

Hi Moskus

so basically its trial and error, like uninstall and re-install the driver for the Edirol?

Is it ever possible that a circuit or something could've gotten "fried" or broken in the soundcard? I don't know if this is even a possibility -
Thanks

[moskus]

I don't know... If you haven't done anything special, then it not should happen. Have you installed anything new from (for example) Windows Update?

[Alanfc]

Moskus

No- I haven't done anything out of the ordinary. No Windows updates, etc. Nothing

Thanks for everything

[moskus]

Hmmm... sounds strange. My soundcard took a dive when I updated the drivers to my NIC. Then I rolled them back, and everything went back to normal. (What did I say, it's computers ).

Did it happen during recording?

[Alanfc]

It happened after closing one project and then starting another, so I didn't happen in the middle of an active recording process

[moskus]

Then I would do as you suggested. Re-install the drivers!

[Alanfc]

Yes indeed
I am rushing home at lunchtime to do this. (2 whole hours away from now). Luckily only a 15 min. drive

Thanks for your help

[Torpid-x]

Just curious

Does your instrument play nomally with cakewalk closed (monitoring through your pc). You mentioned internet playback etc. but what about the instrument.

It sounds to me like your getting severe clipping from your input, but I don't know.

[Alanfc]

Torpid-x

No the insturment didn't come through like it normally does, even when Cakewalk is not open.

Is that a clue?

Thanks

[Torpid-x]

Yes that's a clue !!!!

Next question, when playing with cakewalk open, is the meter pinned in the red?

you may have your input so hot that your output can't handle it and cuts off, recording just clipping.

[Alanfc]

After the static incident, there was no more recording . I could get no signal to input. It was flat regardless of the input setting I tried. Like it wasn't even recognizing the Edirol. Before the incident, the levels were all ok at -12 db to -6 db or so.

I can't even get playback of existing files now. Thats the thing. I just get harsh painful static

[Torpid-x]

That doesn't sound good.

I'll wait till you get home and try it, but double check all your settings, windows mixer, control panel. then try recording into windows recorder. that's another clue.

You may have blown something in the hardware.

ps. also try reinstalling the drivers, uninstall the old ones first!!!

[Alanfc]

This problem has been solved! It was a soundcard driver conflict (or something like that)

I did it with a 45 min. online support session with EDIROL. (They are great to work with.) They changed me over to WDM driver, which I had tried to do myself a few months ago but had messed up somehow. Maybe the wreckage of my several attempts at it had finally caught up with me, after all these months of smooth-sailing with the MME driver.. And then the guy went into my Cakewalk and reconfigured everything for me too. Online remotely. While I was on the celphone with him the whole time. The guy was controlling my computer and moving my mouse around, doing all this stuff, from his desk 1200 miles away in Bellingham WA !!?? Wow. And stayed on the phone with me while I tested it out.
That kind of service is suprising in this day & age.

Now everything is solved. The whole process was pretty fascinating to ME atleast.

Thanks to everyone for their help. I tend to freak when it comes to computer problems

[James Argo]

The guy was controlling my computer and moving my mouse around, doing all this stuff, from his desk 1200 miles away in Bellingham WA !!?? Wow.

...are you sure he was in Bellingham ? He could be in Norway, UK, Australia, or even Indonesia... hhmmm
























Kiddin' Congrats!! Glad to hear your problem is solved.

Jaymz

[moskus]

Originally posted by James Argo
[BHe could be in Norway[/B]

Yeah, he could...

[BluesMeister]

Originally posted by James Argo
He could be in Norway, UK, Australia, or even Indonesia...

No no no! It wasn't me! I'm too busy working...

--
BluesMeister

[Paul881]

And it couldn't be me cos I don't know jack s**t about anything

[moskus]

You got that right!

[Alanfc]

Yes I am thrilled.

But, now with the new WDM I have dropouts during recording. I never had that with the MME driver. Anyway I'm not so worried because Cakewalk has a whole novel in their CD help/tutorial on it. I also remember seeing alot of posts here with people talking about it.

The Cakewalk "novel" on Dropouts has alot of trial and error solutions. I sure do love long sessions of trial and error.

yippee



Thanks to everyone for their comments

[moskus]

I think you have set the latency too low. Set it to a higher value in Options -> Audio.