Nightmare strikes!

  • Thread starter Thread starter drewsmiles
  • Start date Start date
D

drewsmiles

New member
Hey everyone. I must apologise in advance for my lack of technical knowledge - I'm just a geezer wanting to make a demo......:eek:

So today, I got a knock on my door and it was the delivery guy giving me the ElectoVoice RE20 - I almost pissed myself. It truly has an amazing sound and looks the dog's bollocks too...

Unfortunately it was the moment I played back my first recording that the excitement went to hell. Whilst playing, there's an awful crackling sound over my voice, but when silent, the crackling is gone. I know it is not a problem with the RE20 or my audio interface because when I bypass the computer and go straight to my Hifi speakers, it sounds crystal clear. So it's definitely something to do with my computer, just not sure whether it's my software setup, or the hardware.

This is the setup I have - ElectroVoice RE20 goes into TASCAM US-144, which goes into computer via USB. Then the Line Out on the computer goes into the Line In on the TASCAM US-144, and the Line Out on the TASCAM US-144 goes into my Hifi's Line In......:eek:

I just checked the Hardware Manager on My Computer, the soundcard is called Realtek AC'97 Audio, but there's also another thing called Legacy Audio Drivers, and then obviously the TASCAM US-144 is listed also... I'm using Cakewalk SONAR v5 to record. I've tried messing around with the buffer thing in SONAR but it doesn't seem to make any difference to the crackling sound.

I'm sorry for this essay-type question, I'm just gutted that I can't record with my new mic!!! :mad:

Absolutely any help appreciated. Thanks guys :)
 
I'm sorry I can't help, but atleast I'm bumpin the question up to the top of the page...

I have heard that certain mics crackle with certain audio interfaces or soundcards (I think I read that somewhere) but I have no first hand knowledge...can anyone speak on it?
 
Wow, that's pretty hard to troubleshoot with just that info to go off of, but I'd say there's an excellent chance it's your soundcard. That is VERY far from a good sound card to record with. You might want to get a soundcard designed for recording from guitar center or sam ash or whatever is nearby you and replace it with one of those.

You should be able to get one for less than $100, and then if it doesn't fix the problem you coul just return it.
 
This is the setup I have - ElectroVoice RE20 goes into TASCAM US-144, which goes into computer via USB. Then the Line Out on the computer goes into the Line In on the TASCAM US-144, and the Line Out on the TASCAM US-144 goes into my Hifi's Line In......
Click to expand...


I'm not familiar with this unit, however looking at the owners manual , If I understand this correctly , This is a USB driven Sound Card ?
If so , try eliminating the the line out to the computer, and hook the line out of the Tascam to yourHiFi's line in.

Again, I might be wrong here, but the USB interface should act as the connection to your Tascam ( portable soundcard ? ) , in other words the USB
connection allows info ( data ,ie music ) to flow both ways , that is , into the computer, and out of the computer.

I hope this helps, and I hope that I'm not totally of base here.

Stephen
 
Right, okay, bit of a breakthrough, kind of. StephenEC, thank you for your help. So bearing in mind what ikijapan said about the soundcard being, well, shit, and what you said about eliminating the line out of Computer to TASCAM US-144, I did just that, and disabled the Realtek AC'97 soundcard in the device manager. The TASCAM is exactly that - a portable soundcard, and so now the sound is going directly to the TASCAM bypassing the computer soundcard, which has uncovered a different problem.

The crackling thing is now happening with all sounds on the computer, not just the playback of recordings. Which leads me to think it must be something to do with the USB connection??? Maybe???!!! Surely it can't be the actual audio interface because I've only had it for about a month it's pretty much brand new...... Might it have something to do with latency? Don't have the foggiest what latency is, but looking at the control panel of the audio interface, it's got options for audio performance - highest latency to lowest latency.........
 
StephenEC said:
I'm not familiar with this unit, however looking at the owners manual , If I understand this correctly , This is a USB driven Sound Card ?
If so , try eliminating the the line out to the computer, and hook the line out of the Tascam to yourHiFi's line in.

Again, I might be wrong here, but the USB interface should act as the connection to your Tascam ( portable soundcard ? ) , in other words the USB
connection allows info ( data ,ie music ) to flow both ways , that is , into the computer, and out of the computer.

I hope this helps, and I hope that I'm not totally of base here.

Stephen
Click to expand...




people like this are great, right or wrong, to go and take a look at the manual to try and help answer someone's question is the trait of a man of great virtue.
 
completely agree. mucho respecto. thanks mate ;)

i think ive come to the conlcusion it is to do with the latency, and my computer being too slow...... bummer.
 
Noise ... Awww Noise ,

It depends on alot of different issues , the noise can come so many different
areas, I'll give You another link to go read , He has alot of good ideas, and suggestions.

http://www.pcmus.com/TweakXP.htm


Stephen
 
Look again at the control panel and adjust the latency. You are probably running at too low a latency setting. This is the first place I would try, anyway.

Are you using ASIO drivers? If not, and if none came with the Tascam, you may want to try ASIO4ALL (google it) which is an ASIO driver that should work.
 
oh man now I'm going to have to study up on what drivers I will need for whatever particular soundcard I choose...and how to install them...:mad:
 
Are you sure you're not overdriving the input to your stereo when you're playing the tracks back?
 
people like this are great, right or wrong, to go and take a look at the manual to try and help answer someone's question is the trait of a man of great virtue.
Click to expand...


pacman , not great virtue ,just trying to give back , I lurked here and other sites , reading and learning, and I'm still learning.
There are very KNOWLEDGEABLE people on this BBS, and I appreciate them,
even though they might not know it.( hear that suckin' sound . . . lol )

Stephen
 
drewsmiles said:
The crackling thing is now happening with all sounds on the computer, not just the playback of recordings. Which leads me to think it must be something to do with the USB connection??? Maybe???!!! Surely it can't be the actual audio interface because I've only had it for about a month it's pretty much brand new...... Might it have something to do with latency? Don't have the foggiest what latency is, but looking at the control panel of the audio interface, it's got options for audio performance - highest latency to lowest latency.........
Click to expand...

USB audio (is broken by design and) is very sensitive to CPU load. The first thing I'd do is check for viruses, etc., as those can introduce significant bursty CPU overhead that can interfere with audio. If you're on a network, try yanking the cord, as you might also be getting hammered by some worm trying to hack your box.

The second thing you should do is look for any IRQ conflicts with your USB ports. If anything is sharing an IRQ with your USB controller, you'll need to resolve that conflict.

Finally, since that's a USB 1.1 interface, if you have an Intel motherboard, you might try getting an OHCI USB card. It can significantly reduce the CPU requirements for USB 1.0/1.1 devices. If it's somebody else's motherboard, you probably already have an OHCI controller.

Beyond that... this is one of those things that they don't tell you before you buy a USB interface: USB audio isn't the most reliable way of getting sound into and out of your system.... If none of the tips that other folks in here have provided help, you might consider selling it on eBay and getting a FireWire interface....
 
Are you using ASIO drivers? [/QUOTE said:
That's where I would start. Yes, the us-144 does come with them.

what is your specs on your computer (ram, cpu speed)? is your usb connections 1.1 or 2.0? The Tascam interface is 1.1 and 2.0 I believe. I am guessing that the latency is set too low. I would recommend something like 1024 if you have a slow computer. I used the us-122 for years without problems, except when i had the latency too low. You have the newer version of mine. It creates a crackly/grainy/terrible sound if the latency is set too low. Try downloading the newest drivers and see if that helps also.


-Lee
Click to expand...
 
Miracle Strikes!

Right, so in my quest to get this bad boy RE20 working, I decided to uninstall then reinstall the driver for the TASCAM US-144. Something that I completely forgot I even did was that I reinstalled my computer last week, and having done so, I decided that rather than installing the driver from the provided CD, I would download and install the updated driver... You know how you do it - you make clean fresh computer and think, I'll install all the latest stuff on it... Maybe not such a good idea in this case??? :confused:

So yesterday when I uninstalled the driver, I decided to install from the CD instead of the update, and what happens? It works! :eek:

I just don't get it... Surely, you'd think that an updated driver would be LESS prone to problems???

So thank you to everyone who offered advice - much appreciated. I'm sure I'll bore you lot senseless in the near future with my recording questions... :rolleyes:

PS - RE20 - definitely the dogs bollocks.
 
drewsmiles said:
Right, so in my quest to get this bad boy RE20 working, I decided to uninstall then reinstall the driver for the TASCAM US-144. Something that I completely forgot I even did was that I reinstalled my computer last week, and having done so, I decided that rather than installing the driver from the provided CD, I would download and install the updated driver... You know how you do it - you make clean fresh computer and think, I'll install all the latest stuff on it... Maybe not such a good idea in this case??? :confused:

So yesterday when I uninstalled the driver, I decided to install from the CD instead of the update, and what happens? It works! :eek:

I just don't get it... Surely, you'd think that an updated driver would be LESS prone to problems???

So thank you to everyone who offered advice - much appreciated. I'm sure I'll bore you lot senseless in the near future with my recording questions... :rolleyes:

PS - RE20 - definitely the dogs bollocks.
Click to expand...


jesus christ man, what the fuggin fukkk!?! daws sucks and should be outlawed punishable by death to any computer engineer or soft designer that dares to make a product that would risk the life of the best recording medium of all time: BEAUTIFUL ANALOG TAPE
 
pacman9000 said:
jesus christ man, what the fuggin fukkk!?! daws sucks and should be outlawed punishable by death to any computer engineer or soft designer that dares to make a product that would risk the life of the best recording medium of all time: BEAUTIFUL ANALOG TAPE
Click to expand...

Whatever, dude, if you had to maintain and set up analog deck you'd be in here crying about how hard it is and asking why can't someone make your life easier.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top