Sorry--it's a cakewalk and SB Live problem (I know)

W

windowman

New member
Okay, SB Live ain't worth it's weight in pond-scum, I already know that.

I've been using Cool Edit 2000 with the 4 track plug-in for doing mixdowns which works great. I haven't used midi for anything and even if I did, I have the ASP driver for my SB card so things ought to stay in sync pretty well if I ever do.

The problem is...any of you who have ever used SB Live knows that it has a default recording bitrate of 48kb. Well, if you're using Cool Edit it's not a problem, you just record everything at 48kb and then convert the finished product to 44.1 when you're done.

However; I just got the el-cheapo 8 track version of Cakewalk Guitar Tracks 2. When I went to set the record default bitrate for it, it only records up to 44.1 !!! Which means...I"m feeding my cheesy soundcard a 44.1 bitrate signal which it will automatically convert to it's default setting of 48 but then Cakewalk takes it and converts it again to 44.1 !!! Get it? And no, it doesn't sound as good as recording at 48kb to begin with and then converting down like I do with CE-2000, at least not to my ears. And what's more important, if you don't record at 48kb with an SB Live card, things WILL NOT STAY IN SYNC! This is especially true of midi latency problems from what I hear.

Well, here's my question, if I spring a few bucks for the full-blown version of Cakewalk Guitar Studio will it be able to record at 48kb? Does anybody have it? Could you please check? I mean if it doesn't then I'll just have to keep 4-tracking with CE-2000 till spring when I can afford a better soundcard.

Also, some of you who have other types of Cakewalk studioware might check and see if any of it allows for recording at 48kb.

Thanks in advance.
 
I use a SBLive Value card on two different PCs, and it records just fine at 44.1 I have no clue where you got the idea it defaults to 48. Your defaults are all set through software, and I have never found anything in standard Windows that uses a rate higher than 44.1 I suspect the problem is in the default setup of your Cool Edit software
 
RWHite,

Check out the FAQs at Creative or at http://listen.to/sblive

Below is an excerpt from an article about the Live's EMU10K1 DSP chip from the latter website:

One goal of the EMU10K1 was to keep all internal processing in the digital domain and with as little quality loss as possible at every stage. This requires one fixed internal frequency with which all audio processing is done. Because of the DVD standard of 48 kHz (48000 samples per second), this frequency was chosen. This means that the chip must be able to convert the sample rate of other digital sources to 48 kHz. For example, the output of a CD player is 44.1 kHz. As a consequence of this, if you record the digital output from a CD-player, you will still not get a perfect digital copy of the track, since (assuming you record at 44.1 kHz) the signal is upsampled to 48 kHz only to be downsampled to the desired frequency when recording. However, one should keep in mind that even if the chip had a variable sample rate or a fixed rate at 44.1 kHz, you most likely still wouldn't be able to make perfect digital copies of a 44.1 kHz digital signal since the slightest difference in clock rates between the EMU10K1 and the other device would lead to a small amount of errors in the recorded signal. The only way to overcome this problem is to use one master clock signal, but this is both difficult and expensive and is only done in professional studios.
Click to expand...


Hope that helps shed some light on this issue.

-AlChuck
 
Windowman - I record at 44.1 both audio and midi without any sync problems. The advantage of the APS is the neat mixer and the ability to control L/R balance with descrete faders, plus the mic preamp control. It has also pissed off all the stupid games programmes for surround etc.

Check that you have the "use wave out position for timing" checked in the options/audio/device profiles page.

Cheers
john :)
 
False alarm--duh...

John,

I just got both the Cakewalk software and the ASP drivers this past week and didn't take the time to record any overdubs with the Cakewalk stuff yet. I knew that if I tried to record with Cool Edit at 44.1 that SBLive wouldn't stay in sync (with the old driver.) When I opened up the options window in Cakewalk and saw that it wouldn't record at 48kb, I assumed I was in for trouble. However, I didn't realize that this ASP driver had solved the sync problem at 48kb. I just thought people were using it to solve their midi latency problems. So...I screwed up.

I still think that Cool Edit sounds a little better when recording at 48kb and then converting to 44.1 at mixdown but it's not much better and maybe I'm just fooling my own ears. (You know you need help when you start providing your own delusions.) I've seen people prove through numbers that you actually lose something in the translation when you record at 48 and convert but a lot of people seem to think it sounds better.

Anyway, everything's working fine now.

Thanks to everyone that commented.

BTW, if you're using SBLive, it only has a s/n ratio somewhere between 70 and 72db depending on who you ask. I highly recommend getting Cool Edit2000 for 50 bucks and using the noise reducer on it, it works wonders. Not that a 70db noise floor is that bad anyway, but it's nice to have CE2000 for it's wav editing features too and it intergrates into Cakewalk very nicely. Cakewalk even automatically searched for it and listed it in the edit menu. I was quite surprised to see it there.

Thanks all.
 
I guess the key phrase there is "internal processing". I have never used the SBLive to record digital input (can't since the SB Values I have have no digital input) only analog signals. And they sample at 44.1 just fine.

I have also taken 24 bit 44.1 files (recorded through a Gadget Labs card and saved in a Cakewalk BUN file) and played them back on the SB Live and they sound almost identical. I assume Cakewalk does some sort of conversion on the fly in order to accomplish this.
 
RWhite,

Yeah, the whole situation is a bit whacky, if nobody had ever told me that the card had a 48kb default that can't be changed I would have never known it. I've never seen any statements aluring to that in the documentation that came with the card. They just don't tell you. I don't know that they keep that info from you on purpose though. I think they just figure that 90% or better of the people buying their cards are just regular computer users and gamers, and I suppose the way they make it works fine for them. They really should have given an option to change the recording bitrate though I think or mentioned that you can't on the outside of the box.

Also, until AlChuck mentioned that bit about DVD's having a 48kb standard as compared to 44.1 with regular CD's I had no idea they were different.

He aslo said: "One goal of the EMU10K1 was to keep all internal processing in the digital domain and with as little quality loss as possible at every stage. This requires one fixed internal frequency with which all audio processing is done."

I don't know anything about it but I have to wonder if Maybe there was some kind of cost consideration involved in that decision too. Maybe keeping things at one sample rate makes the card cheaper to produce or something.

Anyway, at least it works.
 
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