Help! Computer Recording guru's!

[sambencuda]

[img]/images/graemlins/help.gif[/img]

Ok, here's the deal. The mother board went on my 1.8 P4 Dell so I bought a new box and I'm having problems with recording live audio. Recording MIDI works great and as a matter of fact I'm getting almost no latency at all. I'll try and give as much info as possible. Here's the story....

First off, this is what I'm using for hardware.
Dell Demension 4400 2.8ghz P4HT 800 front side bus 768k RAM
The stock audio and video is integrated with the mother board. I used the video card from my old machine though (Nvidia GeForce Mx/MX 400 64 megs).

Delta Audiophile 2496 with the latest drivers installed.
Roland D-20
Alesis Sr-16
PODxt

Here's the software I use.

Cubase SX 2.2.0 build 33
Fruity loops V 4.1
and a shitload of other VST plugins.

everything worked great in the old machine, but I'm getting the infamous pops and clicks while recording and playing back audio on the new machine. Cubase support was no help at all. Delta support suggested that the the 2496 was sharing and IRQ assignment with another resource. This is not the case. The audiophile is assigned to IRQ 22 all by itself. I've gone through all of the typical procedures for eliminating memory hogs (virus protection, MS messenger, printer software, lowering the graphics accelerator, etc) and I still cannot get this thing to sync up and eliminate these pops and clicks. I also have Sonar which I don't use that often, but I did a quick test and I can record audio fine there so this does not seem to be a problem The 2496. Sounds more like something with Cubase, but I can't imagine what.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. This is driving me frickin crazy! [img]/images/graemlins/sick.gif[/img]

Thanks

[Shawn]

Re: Help! Computer Recording guru\'s!

Its the Dell hunk o'crap. The scourge of the planet.


Shawn

[OnlineStageGear]

Re: Help! Computer Recording guru\'s!

Integrated sound on Motherboard’s are notoriously horrible. They are OK for some playback, but that is about it. Maybe you need the sound card from your old machine. Popping in the Video card from your old machine more than likely automatically disabled the onboard Video, but you may have to go into the BIOS and disable the onboard sound to add a new card.

Matt

[OnlineStageGear]

Re: Help! Computer Recording guru\'s!

I just remembered, I had a PC in one time with a similiar problem with Fruity Loops. Everything sounded like ass. Once I formatted it and reloaded Frootyloops, it was ok.

[Cleveland Metal]

Re: Help! Computer Recording guru\'s!

See the latest strongbad email for help with your Dell...

[img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] JK

[jgcable]

Re: Help! Computer Recording guru\'s!

I think it is the onboard audio too. I get the same problem on my Laptop with onboard audio but all my home PC's with stand alone sound cards work great.

[sambencuda]

Re: Help! Computer Recording guru\'s!

Alright, Alright! Everybody doesn't like Dell. [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]
I'll try and install the old soundcard into one of the PCI slots and use that for the general sound for the PC and see if that works. Makes sense I guess. I should test it first by making the 2496 the main sound device.

Stay tuned......

[Shotgun]

Re: Help! Computer Recording guru\'s!

I like dell. A lot.

Try the AP 2496. I use Sonar, so I can't help you with Cubase, but what you've described sounds like what happens to sonar users when their latency settings (from within Sonar's tools/options) are incorrectly set.

Good luck, let us know how it turns out.

Keith

[Cleveland Metal]

Re: Help! Computer Recording guru\'s!

I was just being silly. I'm sure they're fine computers. Somewhat proprietary as afr as components, but I'm sure they work ok.

[Dreamland_Rebel]

Re: Help! Computer Recording guru\'s!

first off, pro sounds cards don't necessarily like to work with some onboard sound cards. (i know mine doesn't)so right click "my computer" and go to properties. find your "device manager", find your on board sound card, highlight that card, right click and dissable.

then go to http://musicxp.net/ and go to tool tips and do pretty much everything that it says; if you want to run pro audio on a windows platform.

make sure you have dell's latest motherboard drivers and Audiophile's latest drivers.

if you do all this and it doesn't work. try messing with latency and buffer size in your Audiophile manager and/or your recording software. reading the tech support on M-Audio's site might be helpfull aswell.

good luck. i think you should be able to work this out with those tools.

if not, then it's most likely a dell hardware issue.

~JW

[Dreamland_Rebel]

Re: Help! Computer Recording guru\'s!

oh, aslo a note to all windows XP users. there is a GREAT tool called XP-Antispy that totally gives you more computing power. check it out - its totally safe and gives explanations of each of its options.

http://xp-antispy.org/

[axeman81]

Re: Help! Computer Recording guru\'s!

let me get this right...you have the AP 2496 and you were trying to make it work with ONBOARD audio ??? [img]/images/graemlins/nono.gif[/img]
and btw Dell is by far the better OEM rather than IBM, HP, Packard-Bell or any other. I prefer to build my own boxes, but if I wasn't able to do that I'd by Dell as well (sounds like a commercial [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img])

Anyway to the point: if you get pops and clicks on recorded audio then there is a good chance you have the latency set too low. You can adjust this in the M Audio Delta Control Panel's "hardware settings" tab, DMA buffer size.

Also it is in my experience very, VERY benificial to keep your system on one physical hard drive and record to another physical hard drive, no matter how much cpu, ram, whatever you got, doing this will tremendously increase your computer's recording performance.

good luck,

- Rune.

[sambencuda]

Re: Help! Computer Recording guru\'s!

[ QUOTE ]
let me get this right...you have the AP 2496 and you were trying to make it work with ONBOARD audio ???

[/ QUOTE ]

Not with it. I use the AP for recording only through cubase. The onboard is used for the regular CPU stuff, CD ROM and PC sounds. I tried disabling the onboard, still pops and clicks.

[ QUOTE ]
if you get pops and clicks on recorded audio then there is a good chance you have the latency set too low. You can adjust this in the M Audio Delta Control Panel's "hardware settings" tab, DMA buffer size.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thats was my first thought as well and I adjusted the DMA buffer size to the highest setting (even though that would create a lot of latency). Still poping and clicking.

[ QUOTE ]
Also it is in my experience very, VERY benificial to keep your system on one physical hard drive and record to another physical hard drive, no matter how much cpu, ram, whatever you got, doing this will tremendously increase your computer's recording performance.

[/ QUOTE ]

My OS and everything else is on a 40 gig drive, but I record to a seperate 100 gig drive.

Looks like great minds think alike Rune!

Dreamland Rebel, Thanks for the website link. I've gone though a few of the XP optimization tips and tricks on the Delta site, but I went through it quick. I'll give it another go and see what happens.

Thanks for the help guys!

[jgcable]

Re: Help! Computer Recording guru\'s!

I think it has something to do with the Dell motherboard. I have 2 Dells with onboard audio. They both click and pop. One is a laptop and one is a desktop. I have 3 home builts with Asus and other high end boards without onboard audio and video and they all work flawlessly.

[Shotgun]

Re: Help! Computer Recording guru\'s!

Does cubase let you pick the master clock device, and is that set to the AP?