Digitial Distortion HELLLP!

  • Thread starter Thread starter lyghtgyrl
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lyghtgyrl

New member
just started using cakewalk musik maker. sound (even monitored sound from a mic or when i import an mp3) is distorted and weird sounding.

i'm not overloading on the v/u. could it be a soundcard problem? or a set up issue?


my mic input is straight into my pc and when i listen to the mic output on headphones it's not distorted.
 
Welcome to the board, lyghtgyrl :)

About your questions, you better write some detail about your spec (general comp setup, soundcard, windows version, what speaker monitor do you use, what mic, etc. It's impossible to help without knowing those info.

;)
Jaymz
 
THANKS JAYMZ

i'm using a compaq presario 2500 / 448 mb ram / pentium 4 2.3 ghz

sound card is conexant amc audio

mic is behringer b-1 / using behringer mic 100 preamp with phantom power.


if i monitor the signal off the mic bypassing the pc the signal is clear.

if i monitor the signal with pc in 'record' mode the sound is distorted.
if i import and mp3 file the same problem.
seems to be an issue with the audio conversion from analogue to digital and vice versa....
 
i take the output of the preamp and input via the laptop's line in.

before that i was using an edirol ua 1x usb audio interface. that didnt work at all!
 
Your PC seems having enough power. Since it's a laptop, I suspect it's audio card issue. What driver mode do you run? Have you tried increasing latency and/or playback buffer on Options --> Audio?

;)
Jaymz
 
I have a conexant card built into my laptop, and I must say it is the worst sound card I've ever dealt with, EVER. So regardless of whether or not it's the cause of the problem, I'd suggest getting an external card whenever you can afford it. If you take a look around on these forums you'll find tons of information on good cards.

Anyway, two things I would suggest checking. First off, is your main volume in cakewalk too far up? Try taking it down to about 30% and turning up your amplifier and see if that fixes it. I know you mentioned the V/U's aren't clipping, but sometimes I accidently set the master too high and completly forget about it.

The other thing is, is your output to your monitors coming from your headphone out? Headphone outs are powered outputs and many times preamplifiers don't like those at all and distort. If you don't have a line out on your computer, try going into your system properties for sound and taking down the volume as low as you can go while still getting sound. Then turn up your monitors again. If this fixes it, you can either leave it this way and lose a lot of sound range, or go buy an external card with a line out.

Hope this helps!
 
Oh and also I should probably ask if sounds distort out of your monitors outside of cakewalk (ie other programs)? Because if it doesn't, then the problem most likely isn't the headphone out, though you still shouldn't use it.
 
Imaduck said:
First off, is your main volume in cakewalk too far up?
Click to expand...
Never knew that there was a separate volume setting within Cakewalk... Is it just in Musik Maker or in most of their software. I'm using SONAR and find it's always WAY louder than most of my other sound-producing apps. Where is that control found? Thanks. :)
 
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