digital hell-please help!!

Y

yeahboye

New member
i am recording direct into my computer through my external sound card-creative's extigy. i use cool edit pro 2. my operating system is windows xp. my processor is amd thoroughbred. my motherboard is abit nf7. i am recording onto a maxtor 120 gig hard drive.
with this in mind, some help would be appreciated.
when i record, there are noticeable clicks, or pops on the recorded track.
this problem doesn't happen all the time, but enough to make me crazy!
if anyone know why this is happening, please respond.
perhaps a configuration problem, i dunno.
thanks
 
Could be a ton of things. Bad A/D converters, clipped signal going in, bad (or no) crossfading, your machine skipping on playback due to low resources, your machine skipping during tracking due to low resources...could just be a stereo plugin put on a mono track...I mean, the list of what can cause that is pretty long, so let's narrow it down some first.

1. do the clicks happen on playback in the same spot on the track everytime, or do the pops happen in different spots each time you play the track back

2. Can you see the distortion when you zoom in super close on the wave? Like any FLAT parts surrounded by normal curved peaks.

3. Do you have "limit playback to 16bit" checked in the OPTIONS section of CEP while playing back 24/32bit files? In other words, if you're recording in 32 bit, I think you have to playback in 32 bit also or else it gets ugly. If this is the problem, then the wave file itself shouldn't show any distortion. It's like when I accidentally try to load a 32bit file into Winamp...ick...but the file itself is actually fine.

4. does it happen more often when you have a bunch of tracks open and/or a lot of busses or "FX" on some tracks.

5. Do the clicks show up immediately after you track, or is does the file play okay for awhile and then start crapping out?

Answer those 5 and we'll figure it out. :D
 
thank you for the help, chris.
the pops happen on the same spot during playback, which leads me to believe that they exist on the recorded track.
no abnormal distortion exists.
i don't have limit playback to 16bit checked in options.
it happens horribly whether i have one track or 20 tracks open, with or without effects.
the clicks show up on 1st playback if there are any.
it doesn't happen everytime, though.
somebody else told me that it might be the buffer rate ar size.
is this a possibility?
my recoring and playback buffers are at 10.
rec. buffer size is 2 sec
playback buffer size is 1 sec.
any more suggestions?
thanks again.
tom
 
yeahboye said:
thank you for the help, chris.
the pops happen on the same spot during playback, which leads me to believe that they exist on the recorded track.
no abnormal distortion exists.
i don't have limit playback to 16bit checked in options.
it happens horribly whether i have one track or 20 tracks open, with or without effects.
the clicks show up on 1st playback if there are any.
it doesn't happen everytime, though.
somebody else told me that it might be the buffer rate ar size.
is this a possibility?
my recoring and playback buffers are at 10.
rec. buffer size is 2 sec
playback buffer size is 1 sec.
any more suggestions?
thanks again.
tom
Click to expand...
That's a good place to start, b/c it's super easy. Try making those buffers tiny...I have mine set to total buffer size of "2", using "8" buffers at 250ms...

but with your machine, you really shouldn't be having this problem. Oh, does it happen regardless of what your tracking, or does it always show up in say, a vocal track or always in a guitar track?

Last question before I start listing my guesses... do your wave forms have a visible bias (d/c offset). Like where there's more of the wave above or below the centerline...if so, I know what the deal is, if not, I won't bother with that rabbit trail. :D
 
hey chris, i believe i there is visible bias in the wave form when the pop happens. and this happens on any track, guitar vox, drums etc. so, if you have any more advice, i will be more than happy to hear it.
thanks,
tom
 
>>Bad A/D converters, clipped signal going in, bad (or no) crossfading, your machine skipping on playback due to low resources>>

I just had to register and put you two out of your misery.
None of the above is causing your problem.
Bad A/D converters aren't going to cause this at all. How do work that one out ?
There are widely known issues with this problem caused by Creative soundcards (Sblive the biggest culprit) and Via chipsets. The 'ticks' and 'pops' are created during the recording process and no amount of buffer size adjustment in your DAW software is gonna fix it. I suffered the very same problem a number of years back when I had an Sblive installed. I researched this problem extensively and the only solution was to ditch the Creative card and never look at that brand again.
Be aware though, that there is another culprit that can create this 'ticks' problem. Make sure you disable any PCI network cards and/or your motherboard network adaptor. 'Ticks' can be created during playback if these are enabled.

Cheers
 
jimbojo,
during extensive troubleshooting, i tried to record throught the extigy onto a 4 track, and there were no pops.
maybe the extigy only malfunctions when it is going digital in to the computer (usb2).
thanks for the suggestion.
anymore advice would be well received.
tom.
 
also, i tried recording through the sound card on my motherboard, and there were fewer, but still som pops. so i haven't necessarily isolated the extigy as the problem.
 
Tom,

Have you tried disabling the sound card on your MoBo?

I don't know if you can jumper your out or not on the MoBo. Check you manual.

hope this helps,

larry
 
If you're seeing the offset/bias, then it would be normal for there to be a POP at each spot where the waveform goes from being offset to centered, namely, at the beginning and ending of a track, and any place where you've punched in or comp'd tracks together. I have this revalver plugin that introduces pretty bad d/c offset for some reason, and the tracks sound like ass until I use the CENTER preset in the AMPLITUDE section to remove all the offset. Works like a charm. I have no idea why this mostly happens to me using a plugin, btw, b/c the normal situation is more like yours, i.e., that the offset occurs when converting from analog to digital...like tracking a guitar or vocal.

Oh, and all the stuff said by everybody else is probably more useful than anything I have to say, lol...but if you're actually seeing some offset, then I would expect there to be pops, so it at least makes sense to me.

Good luck
 
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