Firebox making pops/clicks

S

SKYflyer

New member
I just received my Firebox yesterday, and I got a chance to try it out today. When I recorded in Cakewalk and played the audio back, it was full of pops. I tried everything suggested in the manual; the latency is set to the highest setting (25 ms), and I set the CPU setting to Lowest. All this to no avail. I doubt this would be a cause of the problem, but I may as well mention it: I recorded audio using the Firebox, and I exported it to a .wav in Cakewalk, which I played using my computer's built in Soundblaster Audio Card. I also tried recording with the Firebox and playing the audio back within Cakewalk (without exporting it to .wav or anything) using the built in Soundblaster card. The reason I am not using the Firebox outputs to playback any of the audio is because I currently lack any devices with a 1/4 inch input, and the Firebox only has 1/4 inch outputs. Also, the blue light indicating word clock synch is a constant blue.

In another thread about this same problem it was suggested that to fix the problem, one should download a microsoft patch to fix firewire problems. I downloaded this patch, but it did not help.

My computer specs:
1.8 Ghz pentium
768 MB RAM
20 gig HD with 650 MB freespace @ 7200 RPM

Thanks for any help guys, I hope I can get my Firebox working properly.

EDIT: I just tried recording the audio data onto my ipod rather than the built in hard drive. This resulted in significantly fewer pops, however there were still occasionally pops. Does this mean that maybe my hard drive is too full and is fragmented or something? But then again, can one record from a firebox to an external hard drive succesfully? If so, I wonder why even while recording onto my ipod (which has ~20 gigs of free space and is connected via USB) there were still occasional pops...
 
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I have a Firebox that runs fine. You are right about conflicts with firewire devices and Windows. To be honest, I remember having to do a bit of stuffing around. I used to get 'out of data' errors and stuff like that. You should contact Presonus because I found they were pretty prompt and helpful. Sorry I can't talk you through exactly what I had to do to get it set up perfectly. It was a while ago.
 
I had that problem with a Delta 44 and I had to reinstall XP. That might be your only option. The registry can get full of crap over time and needs a cleanout
 
search the web for info on optimizing XP for audio recording. there are a few settings you can change in XP that may provide a cleaner signal for you. I have a computer that's slightly slower than yours, and I can record 4 tracks simultaneously, and monitor up to 18 tracks or so with no clicks with my latency set to about 6ms.

Of course, make sure you have the newest drivers and that they're actually selected in Cakewalk, you may also want to try another program like Cubase or Audacity to see if you still have the same issues.

The only other thing that I'd point out, is that you really don't have much hard drive space left. Even with a 7200 hard drive your C drive may be struggling to put that new data into free available space. If you can't get a new drive and set it up as a slave, or external drive, run a defrag to get your data on the drive cleaned up. That may help a little, but any serious music recording you're going to do, you're going to need a LOT more free space than 650MB.

Hope all this helps!
 
Put the CPU control back to Medium, not Low.
Check CPU usage in playback/record and make sure average is not above 50%
 
yeah those tweaking tips could help a little but seriously they arnt gonna add up to a whole lot, and considering i have a 1.8 ghz processor which is way above the reqs that shouldnt be the problem. My suspicion now for the cause of the pops is my HD is a bit low on free space. I'll get a new one soon and put it in my computer and get back to you guys on if that helped the performance.

I freed up some more space so i have 2.93 gigs free now, but pops still happen. Also, I tried using the Cubase LE software that was bundled with the Firebox but it had the same pops as cakewalk.
 
SKYflyer said:
yeah those tweaking tips could help a little but seriously they arnt gonna add up to a whole lot, and considering i have a 1.8 ghz processor which is way above the reqs that shouldnt be the problem. My suspicion now for the cause of the pops is my HD is a bit low on free space. I'll get a new one soon and put it in my computer and get back to you guys on if that helped the performance.

I freed up some more space so i have 2.93 gigs free now, but pops still happen. Also, I tried using the Cubase LE software that was bundled with the Firebox but it had the same pops as cakewalk.
Click to expand...

Give them a try. Seriously. ALSO - make sure your ethernet adapter (if you use high speed) is disabled. I had some pops on another machine, had no idea what it was, then I disabled my wireless connection - all better. LOTS of things can cause the pops, sometimes it's a matter of process and elimination.

And check the link above, it's great, I printed out some of the lists and keep them handy to kill certain processes, or modify settings.

Good luck!
 
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