Skips in Playback -- Soundcard issue???

  • Thread starter Thread starter gmiller1122
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gmiller1122

gmiller1122

Addled but happy
I have been using nTrack for a few months now. At first, it worked really well. Yesterday, it began skipping during playback/recording. Per the advice of nTrack help, I increased the buffers (right?), rendered some tracks (in this particular song, there are now 4 mono tracks), and have messed w/just about every setting on my pc . Guess what? It still skips.

Is this a soundcard problem?

I have an HP Pavillion w/64 RAM, 10.0 gb hard drive, and a pentium 3. The OS is Windows 98.

I have no idea what the soundcard is. It is the one that came with the PC. (probably a sound blaster? how do I find this out? it is nowhere in my pc manuals).

I know, I know...I'll probably need to upgrade, and that's ok...

HOWEVER, I am not so serious about this to want to buy THE big $ soundcard. I am not at all a computer or recording whiz -- I like to mess around w/home recording for fun only. Plus, we have a baby on the way and I can't / won't spend a lot of money. :D

Also, my sound preferences are very minimal. I really can't tell the friggin' difference. I just want this thing to work. I record only one instrument at a time, I do not use MIDI, and run everything through a mixer first. Therefore, I don't need 10 inputs, etc.

I've read in many places that I should not need 24 bit, that 16 is fine.

Any suggestions?

Thanks.
 
Ok, I've done some research. The following are in my price range and seem to have what I'm looking for...

Turtle Beach Santa Cruz - $60 at CompUSA

Sound Blaster Live, 5.1 - $70

...but, will these help my situation? Explain, w'out getting too technical, how these are any better than the sound card that came w/ my PC.


CORRECTION: In my previous post, I said I had a pentium 3 -- I have a pentium celeron (600mhz).
 
I have been having the same problem with CoolEdit.............so far the only advice I have been given is to upgrade my RAM memory.

In the past it wasn't an issue as my PC (Celeron 400, 96 Mb Ram)wasn't part of my recording chain, but now that I have connected it for final mixdown/CD burning this problem has arisen. Fortunately someone has offered me a PIII 667 cpu with motherboard free, so as of this morning I start building up a PC just for recording.

Just look at a RAM upgrade before you spend money on a soundcard........chances are your PC has the soundcard built in to the motherboard.

:cool:
 
chances are your PC has the soundcard built in to the motherboard.

I noticed that, after I posted the question. I don't think I could update the soundcard if I wanted to!

I also noticed that it's only one song that is skipping. Maybe it's corrupt.

I have cleaned out a lot of programs I never use, and nTrack seems to be working much better.

Thanks for the insight!
 
there are few other things that will cause this problem...
is your hard disk a 7200 rpm?
how many mhz is your cpu?
sound blaster cards aren't very good for complex recording applications. I have found that if I add effects while recording the track as opposed to patching effects afterwards works much better. I have managed to get 17 tracks to playback. I also find that n-tracks is only good for recording line in to wave files. I usually import the waves into cakewalk to do mixdown.
 
gmiller1122 said:
chances are your PC has the soundcard built in to the motherboard.

I noticed that, after I posted the question. I don't think I could update the soundcard if I wanted to!

Click to expand...

You can still upgrade if you want to. The onboard sound can be disabled either in your bios or a jumper on the motherboard.
 
Cap,

how many mhz is your cpu?

600...intel celeron

I have found that if I add effects while recording the track as opposed to patching effects afterwards works much better.

yeah, i've noticed that the post-recording effects dramatically increase the size of the wave files.

I usually import the waves into cakewalk to do mixdown.

ok, but why not just use cakewalk for both?

thanks for the insights!

;)
 
I reckon another hard disk (preferably a fast one) will help skipping issues more than another soundcard...that's been my experience anyway.

Nathan
 
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