Repeatative Popping sound? Can anyone advise?

[SiCology]

I'm fairly new to home recording and in need of some advice... Some months back I set up my PC to do basic recording, the basic setup was as follows:

Fairly basic PC with standard soundcard. Guitar Amp 'out' or 'headphone socket' plugged directly into the 'Line in' of the PC and I was using a copy of 'Cakewalk guitar tracks pro' to record with... It was a perfectly adequate setup for the basic recording/mixing I was attempting to do....

Anyways 2months into recording the bloody PC blew up and I lost all my tracks (note to self remember to BACK UP!) anyway I recently pucrchased a new PC much more powerful than the old piece of cr4p I had before... and with the same set up I attempted to record again. However whenever I play back anything I've recorded I get a repeatative popping or cracking throughout the track and I can't figure out why?!... the set up is exactly the same as before. I tried a copy of 'Cakewalk home studio 2' but the same thing occurs?

Any suggestions to what I'm doing wrong???

Si

Sforu247@yahoo.com

 

[manning1]

please list your pc confign in FULL. i'm a computer engr with a daw..
will try and help you.
make sure dma is enabled on your hard drives for starters.

 

[SiCology]

Ok thanks, not really tech minded but here goes:

AMD Athlon(tm) XP 3000+ 2.10Ghz, 512MB of RAM...
Running XP Professional Version 2002, Service Pack 2 installed....

Have 2 hard disks:
WDC WD136AA & WDC WD1600BB-00FTA0 (what ever that means)...

Sound Card:
I was using the standard mother board soundcard set up?, but recently installed a "C-Media CMI8738/C3DX 5.1ch PCI Sound card. However both have the same problem even though Cakewalk seemed to work fine with my previous PC which just contained the bog standard motherboard sound device?....

Have a bioware Motherboard, but unsure of the name etc...

and DMA, you'll need to explain as I've no clue what that is or how to turn it on.... (sorry)

Cheers mate, hope that helps a bit....

Si

 

[manning1]

heres my comments.
1. you have a fantastic pc. capable of anything.
prolly 60 tracks plus plus. i'm an amd man myself.
2. it prolly isnt set up right for pro recording.
you really SHOULD get a windows book. dma is very basic stuff. .
go into device mgr and hilite the drive , click on its properties and a dialog comes up with a tick box showing whether dma is enabled.
if using xp , it will say something like dma if available.
3. you really MUST get a proper pci sound card. the ones you have been using are only good for playing back windows squaks and sounds and not for proper recording. but before i suggest one please detail to me what you have in your pci slots. if you have any fancy network (for net hi speed),
or tv tuner cards or other cards PLEASE TELL ME. if you have oneof these there has been a long history of them disrupting the sound subsystem in pc's thus causing popping/drop outs etc. its best to disable in windows before you record and you will find these problems/anomolies disappear.
get back to me.
peace.

 

[SiCology]

I normally get around the lack of knowledge on the PC front as the old man builds them and can normally resolve any issues, however he has no clue about recording issues etc hence the Forum... However I'll start to read up!

Right in the IDE section in device manager it states:

DMA if available and running DMA ultra 5 on one drive and ultra 4 on the other.....

I do have Network Devices installed:

- Belkin Wireless 54mbps Desktop Adapter (which is disabled anyway)
-NVIDIA nForce MCP Networking Controller (enabled)

Also have a: 'ATI Technologies Inc. 3D RAGE II PCI' which is enabled...

Suggest away my friend....

Thanks again...

 

[SiCology]

Hmmmm here's another thing that may help..... If I export a project from Cakewalk into .Wav format and then play it back using media player or music match etc then it sounds perfectly fine, but playing it back in Cakewalk I get the popping sound?!?! how annoying....

 

[manning1]

suggestions..
1. try disabling in windows the network controller
2. only try disabling the ati rage IF you have other video support you can use
for example on the motherboard video that can be used.
tell your support person (old man ?) the big problem is a lot of network and fancy video gaming device interrupt from the main task of daw audio.
a RULE for a successfull daw recording wise.
dont put anything in a pci slot other than a proper sound card.
OR disable devices prior to recording - then turn them back on in windows AFTER recording. are you a gamer ? (thus the rage card ?) - if so a lot of fancy gaming cards CAN lock out the audio subsystem.
a WELL BEHAVED CARD is the matrox line from past experience.
but DONT disable the video card unless you have another video support feature eg..on board video on the mainboard.
hope all this helps. the idea is not to have ANY OTHER card dominating
the central task of recording and playback.
tell me how you get on. and peace.
ps...i personally use on the motherboard video. there have been loads and loads of cases where gaming on a daw plus trying to do professional recording just dont mix.

 

[apl]

Repetitive popping sound? When it stops, open the microwave door and let Mr. Redenbacher out!

 

[SiCology]

Sorted! Cheers for everyones advice........

Si

 

[manning1]

hey man , dont keep a comp engr in suspense...
what was it ? a pci card ?

 

[DigitalSmigital]

Yeah, what was it?

'headphone socket' plugged directly into the 'Line in' of the PC

????

I didn't think that a headphone out was a line level out.