Firepod distortion

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drumsbreathe

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I am currently using an HP laptop running XP sp2 in conjunction with a Firepod, and am experiencing some bizarre results. Any audio signal played by the computer and monitored via the Firepod, sounds entirely distorted. Similarly tempos are entirely lost(songs play slower and at inconsistent speeds). Distortion is even present when monitoring a mic processed through cubase. This thread was previously started in The Rack forum, but I need as much help as I can get.

Cheers
 
Sounds like your sample rates are set the same. Like, you have it set for something different on your card than what Cubase says....as for the distortion, not sure. This might cure it as well.
 
As far as changes to sample rates, I set the firepod's via the software control panel, and cubase's in the project setup tab, both to 44.1khz. Should this be sufficient?
 
Do you have all the latest drivers for everything?
 
Does it happen all the time or just some of the time? Meaning, can you work for a while and its fine and then it goes to crap or is it crap constantly.

If its crap some of the time, I can help, but not solve, your problem. If its crap all the time, I haven't a clue.

6
 
All drivers are up to date. On this system, the signal is always crap. But please, share any ideas you may have.
 
Well, I don't know how much how can help. I have a similar problem with my FW410 where it just sounds like a robot taking a crap about every 10 minutes. So far, the steps I have taken to improve, but not fix, my problem have been:

Disable all networking devices: modems, LAN cards, wireless cards and etc.

Disable everything on msconfig start up programs (other than those needed for audio)

Disable internal soundcard.

Check www.musicxp.com for tuning tips too.

Check your IRQ settings. Start>Run>MSINFO32>Hardware Resources>IRQs to see if your sound card is conflicting with any other devices.

Check your hardware buffer in whatever program you are using too. Set it to 512 if it isn't already.

I hope some of this helps.
6
 
How many background processes have you got running?

How much memory in the laptop?

What's the firepod latency set to? Have you tried increasing it?
 
roughly 35 processes, 1024mb system memory, I have tried all latency values with no results.
 
Pardon my ignorance, but where would I find this info?
 
35 processes seems like an awefully high number to me, on mine I've got around like 25 processes running. Do you get on the internet with that machine. Do you have anti-virus installed? If you get on the internet alot, you might have some spyware (especially if this problem hasn't always been there). Are you using the 4-pin firewire input on the HP, or are you going through a PCMCIA Firewire Card? Check that out and post again.
 
drumsbreathe said:
Pardon my ignorance, but where would I find this info?
Click to expand...


You can check in your recording program under setup (or something similar) or if the Presonus is anything like M-Auido, its also listed under set up on the mixer screen of the presonus. With a gig of ram, you should be able to set it to 2048.

You may have to take a walk thru the manual to find out how to increase it with the presonus, as I am not familar with them.

6
 
This computer is used to access the internet, does have a firewall, and I often run ad-aware to rid the system of any spyware. The laptop is brand new, and the problem has present since day 1. I am using a PCMCIA dedicated firewire card, used only for the firepod, as suggested by presonus. The card, cable and firepod have worked on an older toshiba laptop, so they are not at fault. The only software settings that are offered for the firepod are Sample rate(set the same as sample rate in recording software) clock source(set as internal, recording software set to firepod clock) Latency and CPU Speed. All of these settings have been tried with no results. I am currently using Cubase LE for recording. Anything played through any program and monitored through the firepod becomes distorted, and slows down dramatically. Thanks everyone for the help, I will try to eliminate the extra processes, and see if that works. Could it be the card reader? Should I go buy a 6pin to 4pin firewire cable and try it with the HP's own firewire port?
 
Does your HP have the ATI-Mobility Radeon 9000 Video. I know that it says on Presonus's website about major compatibility issues with this graphics chip.
 
Disable Windows Firewall...or at least make sure it doesn't monitor 1394 controllers.
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