Cubase Problem, clipping comes and goes, help appreciated!

R

rnelson

New member
Hi guys,

I'm having a big problem with cubase SX3. I'm using an EMU1616m soundcard to record. My pc is a intel centrino 2.0ghz with 1gb of RAM. Running windows XP sp3. (just updated to sp3 about a week ago)

The problem I'm having is a variation of the classic clicks and pops/clipping/distortion problem that usually happens when a system is running low in resources. However the weird thing is that while I've had that problem before, I always knew it was due to a number of plugs being used which my system couldnt handle, the actual audio files did not have a problem.

Now, yesterday I was trying to record 6 channels at once for the first time, (most i've done is 2 or 3) and I get a crackling/clipping noise that comes and goes. The recording is fine for a couple of seconds, then it clips and pops for a couple of seconds and so on.

I monitored my system performance throughout the recording and the cpu maxed at 41% and actually averaged at about 30%, also my ram maxed at around 420mb (out of 1GB). So no spikes at all, and the cpu monitor in the cubase transport did not spike at all either.

I played back some of the files in windows media player afterwards and they actually had the clipping in them, so its not a playback problem, its most likely something going wrong while I record.

So what could this be? Anybody have any ideas?

If you need any more info please let me know.
 
I believe 96, not at home right now so i'm not 100% cause I only ran a short test last night and dont know what I had it at when i opened cubase.

Do you think 96 might be too much for my system to handle?

edit: I do know the 1616m was running at 96 but not sure about cubase.

thanks
 
That would be the first thing I would check (assuming all your levels are not clipping at the input)

Turn it down to 44.1 and see if that fixes it.
 
Also you might want to clean all the spyware off your computer though sampling at 96 is likely the big problem.
 
HI guys, it worked perfectly in 44.1kz although for some reason I do think that was the default I was using last night as well. So I guess that might have been the problem or otherwise it got fixed by itself.

As far as spyware goes, my pc is 100% spyware free, I have about 6 or 7 cleaners, registry checkers, spyware finders that are supposed to be the best, and I also optimize my pc to run on as little memory as possible, (about 250 mb out of 1 gb, and 400mb when recording these 6 tracks in cubase).

On that note, Im planning on recording about 14 tracks in some time (havent bought the inputs yet, but will soon), do you guys think my pc (mentioned on first post) can handle it? If not, will adding more ram help or is recording more cpu based (i know that synths and vsts are very memory intensive)?

If anybody has any experience with recording that many tracks with a similarly not-so-powerful pc, please let me know.

Thanks guys.
 
Well it seems to be working beautifully (and without too much cpu overhead) with what I have right now which is at about 5ms input latency and 6ms out. I think it might've just been the sample rate as stated before.

What do you guys usually set your latency at?

What do you guys think about changing it for editing as opposed to recording(in order to get more plug-ins and such)?

I've heard a lot of people do this but just wondering is it was standard practice or not.

Thanks
 
rnelson said:
Well it seems to be working beautifully (and without too much cpu overhead) with what I have right now which is at about 5 in 6 out. I think it might've just been the sample rate as stated before.

What do you guys usually set your latency at?
Click to expand...

Depends on your computers power. I normally run it as low as possible. If it starts to crack and pop, then increase it a little. Repeat until the project is artifact free.

rnelson said:
What do you guys think about changing it for editing as opposed to recording(in order to get more plugs in and such)?

I've heard a lot of people do this but just wondering is it was standard practice or not.

Thanks
Click to expand...

Because my PC is low spec (well, comparitively anyway) I run the latency lower for recording so that I can monitor myself and actually play properly - as a result of this I normally just run 1 or 2 instruments alongside it because any more and popping would occur. Once all the recording is done, i bang it up to the max to remove all artifacts. Mix. Export. Rock.
 
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