Somewhat Urgent Audio Problem (pleeze, pleeze help!)

D

djelf

New member
Hey, we have borrowed a decent board w/ outs for ch 1-8, and have to give it back, and are trying to get some decent recording done right now.

I hooked the ch1-8 out, 2 aux out, 2 mon out, to my MOTU 24i, into the computer, which is a 1.6g P4, MSI 850Pro, 768M RDRAM, XP Pro, Sonar 2 XL.

The first couple of takes went pretty well.

After that, all this popping comes in, mostly when there is a signal coming through the lines (i.e. when REC is on, but we're not playing, no pops).

I went through and checked and redid all the tweaks from musicXP, as well as some from computermusic.co.uk.
I sized my cache at 1158. I hid the level meters, played with number of playback buffers(?), latency slider back and forth. the dropout meter doesn't come on, but it's just that when I play back, there is all this popping.

I changed my audio file data to my F:/ drive.

please help with any ideas as to what this is. Now it's happening even with just the bass channel enabled.

could it be a power supply issue to either the soundcard or CPU?

I got some cords mixed up, so guessed which one is for MOTU, abnd which for my tower. Also, the card, CPU, a couple amps, are running off of the same two outlet wall, and the PA is running of of another.
 
c'mon people!?!

I'm pulling my hair out here, the bassist is all givin me dirty looks and sharpening his switch blade, and my girlfriend is reading the swingers section of the personals.

what are some simple things I may have missed?

Is it bad to have sonar not be on the C:/ drive w/ the OS?

Like I said, it didn't happen at first. Does that mean that (hope!) maybe my drivers/hardware at least have potential compatiability w/my cpu and os?

could it be just that I need to defrag my drive?
 
Check to see what the clock master is set to. It's either a clock issue or drivers most likely.
 
usually pops and clicks are from having latency set too low. check under audio and see. for your comp, it should probably be around 3-4 ms, but if you are doing lots of audio, it can go as high as 10+. no worries unless u are using some kinda DXi synth.

luck
 
since you are only getting pops when recording do this:

play your instruments while not recording. hear any pops?

put cakewalk into record but don't play anything. hear any pops?

put cakewalk into record and play. hear any pops?

if you have no pops when laying out, but you've got pops when playing the instruments, then either your soundcard is giving you problems or one of your instruments is spiking the digital 0. while recording be sure to view your cakewalk meters in peak and not RSM.

if you have pops when laying out, then take a look at your latency settings. for recording, set the latency high if you are not monitoring what you are recording through the software.

it is not unusual to have a separate drive for audio. that is the norm.

ps. also make sure that either your PC or your external D/A/D converter is set to master, but not both. I will usually set my Tango24 to master while recording, and then change the PC to the master when mixing.
 
crosstudio said:
if you have no pops when laying out, but you've got pops when playing the instruments, then either your soundcard is giving you problems or one of your instruments is spiking the digital 0. while recording be sure to view your cakewalk meters in peak and not RSM.

if you have pops when laying out, then take a look at your latency settings. for recording, set the latency high if you are not monitoring what you are recording through the software.

it is not unusual to have a separate drive for audio. that is the norm.

ps. also make sure that either your PC or your external D/A/D converter is set to master, but not both. I will usually set my Tango24 to master while recording, and then change the PC to the master when mixing. [/B]
Click to expand...

By "laying out", do you mean, rec but not playing? or playing but not rec?

what does "set to master" mean for the converter or soundcard? All that I know is the rec/playback timing setting, and the options for that are either my MOTU PCI-324 or SoundBlaster...
 
OK, I managed to at least minimize the glitch...maybe..after tweaking god knows what, I plugged the power supply into a different outlet, and the glitch went away (recorded 6 channels, bass and 5 drum mics no problem). So I thought, great, all I have to do is give the computer it's own outlet, and voila,...

but today I turned the PA on, guitar amps, on their own wall outlet, and the glitch came back...could it be a power issue, or is it a soundcard/cpu setup issue? please help..
 
Pops and glitches can come from a multitude of places. I would say from the evidence presented so far your main power supply is a major contributor.

Even your a/c or your fridge/freezer kicking can (and frequently does) affect your recording. Yoiur audio cables should be well away from your computer, especially your monitor.

Best of luck.
 
looks like you got the audio glitch squared away.

After getting into the "belden jungle vines" a few times I started writing my wire routing on a notepad, that way if I change anything, I know where it goes to get it back right. Also, a lil piece of tape wrapped around each end of the cord with a number on it helps too.
 
Paul881 said:
Pops and glitches can come from a multitude of places. I would say from the evidence presented so far your main power supply is a major contributor.

Even your a/c or your fridge/freezer kicking can (and frequently does) affect your recording. Yoiur audio cables should be well away from your computer, especially your monitor.

Best of luck.
Click to expand...

yup, I had that problem with a small freezer in the garage next to my room clicking on and off and affecting my PC. Getting the computer on a separate breaker and using a line condintioning filter helps.
 
before you do all this other stuff try this:

1) what is your buffer size set to? try setting it to the safest position posible (all the way to the right).

options --> audio --> general

2) what is your i/o buffer size set to? you may have to play around with it but always set it to a power of two. mine is currenlty set to 1024 for both my desktop (running with a Frontier Design WaveCenter) and laptop (running Tascam US-428).

options --> audio --> advanced

3) CHECK TO SEE IF YOUR SOUNDCARD IS SHARING IR/Q WITH ANY OTHER PERIPHERAL. this one is a biggie. i've got both my desktop and laptop set up so that the peripherals all have their IR/Q assigned to them by the bios at startup instead of letting windows handle it.
 
thanks a bunch, folks.

So, I have checked my MOTU for IRQ conflicts, and it said there were none...does that mean that it has it's own IRQ, or just that windows doesn't think there's a problem? I'm not sure how to look at IRQ assignments...

So, setting buffers high like that is okay? are there any negative side-effects? I think Sonar was set at 64, and the MOTU at 256, but I'll give em a big boost. Latency I had set at 270 for a while, even thought the slider went to 2.7.

I guess I'm gonna change places and see if that helps, bring everything to a different house. I don't think I have the resources to do electrical revamping, but what is this line conditioner that was mentioned?

again, thanks a lot.
 
A power filter protects your machine from power surges, clicks and buzzes and the dirty noise that hums about on mains borne electrics. If your fridge doesn't get ya, your neighbours fridge might:) You can get em any decent computer store or the like.
 
okay, one last question for now...what does "set to master" mean for the pc? is that the playback and recording master in audio options? cuz if so, my only options given are SBLive or PCI-324 (MOTU)...how do you set it to pc, for what, when?

thanks for all the feedback
 
my WaveCenter card has a break out box which is the Tango24. so, i can either set things so that the break out box controls the timing or the PC controls the timing. your sound card may not have that option. if not, then be sure to set the record timing master to the card doing the recording, and the playback master to the card you use to monitor.

just because windows hasn't detected a problem doesn't mean there isn't one. it just means the problem isn't bad enough to lock up your system.

goto:
control panel --> system --> hardware --> device manager

then:
view --> resources by type

then select Interrupt Request. it will show you what peripherals are assigned to each IRQ. if you keep getting dropouts and glitches despite giving the system the most cautious of settings, then look into separating your soundcard(s) IR/Q from other peripherals.
 
I had a pain installing my Delta 66 and had pops/clicks. Someone from Norway helped me on this forum. As per his advise, I had to re-assign the IRQs manually, which meant I had to reload the drivers for Win2000. After that and some further tweeking the pops went away.

Even if no conflict are shown, it's best to re-assign the IRQs manually. But this can be risky. Make sure you have important data saved before attempting this. If I remember right, assuming you have win2000/XP: go into "control panel"--->"system"-----------> "devicemanager"----->"computer"----->. Here it will say something like ACPI mode. select this, right mouse click and unistall the driver and reload the driver in normal mode. The drivers should already be on your new computer. It will just be assigned differently. If its succesfully re-installed, under "computer" you should see "standard PC".

Good luck!
 
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