How do I kill the noise?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Motorbreath
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Motorbreath

Motorbreath

New member
Hi there,

I just bought a new PC. Athlon AXP1800, 256 MB RAM, nVidia Geforce2 Ti graphics. Great for Unreal Tourney, but I really wanted to be able to run ntrack.

I can run ntrack, but every track I record has some background noise there. In fact, my VU's show this noise too. I have screen shots at:

http://www.penguindude.com/ntrack

The soundcard is the onboard SIS chipset nastiness that I figured I would replace one day, but I didn't think I have to this soon.

After searching the forums at ntrack.com, I swapped mice, monitors, turned lights on and off, changed video acceleration, etc. as suggested. No dice.

So, I'm thinking it's time for a new soundcard. My concern is this: will I likely have this phantom noise problem with a new card? Could it be the CPU? I would hate to drop $300+ on a new soundcard and have the same problem. Everything was great with my previous PC, a Compaq Deskpro PII-600 with onboard sound. (In fact, if you browse my site, there are some mp3's of tunes I recorded with ntrack on my previous PC there. FWIW.)

At worst, I guess my wife and kids can have this new PC and I'll take the PII-600 back so I can record. :D

Any help or pointers in the right direction are appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Tony Gettig
http://www.penguindude.com
 
On the screen shot I looked at of the windows mixer, the line in volume was all the way down. How do you do your gain stageing? What do you use for a front end (mic pre, mic, etc)?
 
Oops. Forgot to post that info. :)

I have a 12 channel DOD analog board. I take the line out from that into the line in on the soundcard. It's always been kinda hot on the line input (same thing with SAW as with ntrack), and keeping the windows mixer all the way down has never been a problem. The only problem seems to be when I turn it up on the windows mixer. Too much clipping.

The only thing I've changed in my setup is the PC. Pretty much unplug from the old PC and plugin to the new one.

The sound sample I just put out there is a line out from my SR16, into the board, line out to the line in on the sound card. You can really hear the noise in the beginning and the end.

Oh yeah, the old PC was running Windows 2000, but my new PC won't. I can't get the video card to work for the life of me. And I'm a network engineer by trade! I've resorted to Win98 on the new PC.

Thanks tons!
 
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Actually, I just recorded a similar sample in SAW and the noise isn't there! In fact, if I open up each wave file in SAW and look at them visually, I can SEE the noise from the ntrack recorded wave file. Actually, with the volume way up, there's still an ever so slight amount of noise when recording with SAW (could just be my speakers), but nowhere near what there is when recording with ntrack.

Weird!
 
Hmmm. Try setting the fader for the line in on the windows mixer to max and reduce the level going into it at the mixer till you're not clipping the computer. This should improve your signal to noise ratio. Another question, does that mixer have inserts on the individual channels?
 
Hmmm. No difference changing the mixer and line settings. For kicks, I removed the line in patch cable from my soundcard. The VU meter didn't change. Makes me think it's something inside the case. But then again, why would SAW barely pick it up and ntrack seemingly brings that noise to the foreground?

When you say inserts, do you mean more than the regular old 1/4 inch and XLR inputs? That's all I have for each channel on the board.

My wifal unit is drooling over my fast PC, offering to give me the old one back tonight. :) I'm fending her off though, holding out for that 24 bit soundcard next week...

Thanks tons for the suggestions!
 
You say you're holding out for a 24bit soundcard "next week?" If you've got a new soundcard coming, then don't sweat this issue. It will probably disappear when you get your new card. (of course it may be replaced by OTHER problems, but....hehe)

Slackmaster 2000
 
Thanks for the good words and things to try. I am increasingly convinced that the next step needs to be that new soundcard.

Thanks again!

Tony
 
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