digital burp? messes up new tracks.

[Guitar_Mc]

GJ, Fezz, anyone? I need some help.

I use Acid 4.0 on a Dell (2.4G Processor). And I have been running my Korg PX4 right in to the soundblaster.

First I lay down a base of rythm and drums, then when I play it back to record something over it, there is a very short pause or blip or something after around 20s or 30s. Since I am playing over what I hear, I just keep going. When I listen to my new track over the other tracks, they sinc up fine for those first 20s or 30s. After where the 'burp' was, it is out of sinc.

In addition to this, when I am just playing back the track (not recording) there are little pops or whatever, but if I bounce it all to one track and play it over Windows Media Player, it is smooth.

I don't think the glych is in the recordings or tracks, just in how the computer is playing it live through the software.

I don't know if there is something I should be looking for in the clock? Maybe a playback buffer? I'm not sure.

[Gravity Jim]

Does the "hiccup" present itself as silence or as a "pop?"

It sounds like a clocking problem... are you running a digital or analog output from the Pandora into the sound card?

[Guitar_Mc]

The 'hickup' when recording is silence.

I am running an analog signal from the Pandora, 1/4" analog out. It sounds clean over the computer speakers.

Once recorded, with the signal sufficiently low so that there is no clipping, when I play it back, it often has 'popping' in the guitar track. This may be an unrelated problem.

[Gravity Jim]

I think you're on the right track with the buffer thing... check your recording and playback buffers against teh documentation, or post the numbers here.....

[Guitar_Mc]

Cool, thanks GJ. I'll look through it some more tonight.

[pc]

I had a similar problem 18 months ago when the processor in my Gateway notebook started to have overheating problems. When the temperature sensors detected it getting too high, they'd automatically ramp back the clock speed. It would cause ProTools to crash completely each time.

I switched to a less intensive program (Sonar) and instead of crashes, it caused digital glitches such as pops or silences.

There was supposedly a way to shut down those sensors in the BIOS, but I figured it was a really bad idea and ended up getting a newer machine shortly thereafter.

All of that said, I'd definitely check buffer issues and maybe even resize the Swap File before other things.

[Guitar_Mc]

Quote by PC
resize the Swap File

What is the swap file?

[clayville]

This is a long shot... but last week when it was stinkin' bloody hot (instead of just bloody hot) I got a similar thing a few times. After chasing all sorts of things in my signal chain, I eventually convinced myself it was the window air-conditioner in the next room cycling on and off (old house, tired wiring).

[Guitar_Mc]

Is a swap file the paging file? If so, could changing it to a larger size help?

Clayville, My house is an old house too. I still have quite a bit of knob & tube wiring. But then again, I'm a guitarist, doesn't that make for 'vintage wiring'? And, any kind of wiring that has 'tube' in it has got to be better. If I got a power conditioner, or something, that would be too much like power 'modeling'.

[pc]

The Swap-File is a type of temporary file that programs write information into to store & retrieve it quickly so there is less tax on the hard drive needing to jump from place to place to retrieve data. It's akin to a "RAM disk" (sort of, but not really) in that it's acting like resident memory for programs to "Swap" info from.

Sometimes you'll see intensive programs like DA or DV will tell you to resize the swap file to a specific size.

The file is most likely called "pagefile" and is on the root directory (usually C:) on your HD. You can change its size in the system properties. Larger pagefiles make many math-intensive programs run faster, which is good for audio.

***HOWEVER*** larger page files ALSO cause far more read/write instances on the HD and therefore can glitch up smooth caching/writing of audio to the HD. When you find the System Pref tab to change the size of the Swap File, it will recommend it be a size in a certain mathematical proportion to the amount of RAM you have. If you have a health amount of RAM (say 750 M to 1 Gig), I'd recommend making the Swap File smaller than its default.

I'm going on 16-month old memory here, since I don't have to deal with that on my Mac now, but I read up a bunch about it using ask.com and FAQ sheets at Digidesign.com.

Hope that was more helpful than confusing.

[pc]

BTW, I found when using my Gateway's internal HD (and I only had 500 meg of RAM in that machine), a smaller pagefile was great. When using the external HD for the audio files, I found a larger pagefile added even more benefit than simply using the external HD (which is indeed a huge benefit).

[Guitar_Mc]

Thanks guys, I'll take a look at this stuff tonight. I'm also going to plug my computer in to a UPS to (sort of) conditon the power in case that is causing the problem.

[Gravity Jim]

Just so you know, Gee.... A standard computer UPS puts out a square wave that I guar-an-freakin'-TEE will screw up your audio. If the output of your UPS isn't a sine wave, then you're going to get digital noise, for sure. I've seen it and heard it. I was very disapppointed to learn that a UPS that won't screw up my studio cost 10 times what a standard "desktop" unit does. APC doesn't inform you of this until you've purchased the unit, plugged it, heard the crap, and then call them up, at which point, they say, "Uhhhhh, yeah... didigtal recording, you say? Wel..... you know what? Uh uh. Ain't gonna work. Sorry."

[pc]

Holy crap, I never knew that. I've been so close to buying an APC a dozen times now--so glad I didn't. I have a Furman unit I used to use in a gig-rack that does the trick now but obviously isn't a UPS, so I always planned to get one.

I love learnin' new stuff. Thanks Jim!

[Kap'n]

Thanks Jim!

+1.

[Gravity Jim]

Yep. I bought one of the really big APC Back-Ups units, plugged in nothing but my computer, monitor and printer, and suddenly there was nasty digital noise on every channel of my digital console. Called APC, they said, "Yep, they do that... you need a (model name here) that outputs a true sine wave. Only a gazillion bucks."

I think the price of true sine wave UPS's is coming down, thanks in part to greater demand in the home theater market.

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/power/ext...cOutput-c.html

Note this article points out that cheaper UPS's output square waves, full of noisy harmonics. A so-called "modified sine wave" does too, but not as bad. In either case, a really cheap UPS will run off wall current, so you get a sine wave until the batteries kick in.. BUT a UPS that passes wall current until failure doesn't react fast enough to prevent a computer from re-setting in the event of a momentary outage (by far the most common problem around here). So, you get a nice sine wave, but the damn thing won't keep you from losing your work (that's why I could never use the APC Back-Ups Office... nice clean power til the power company hit a blip, and then my computer went off and the battery kicked in just in time to find the computer off, so it would sit there and buzz an alarm.

Thanks, APC... I don't need the alarm, I KNOW the computer went off!

[Guitar_Mc]

Quote by PC
I'm going on 16-month old memory here, since I don't have to deal with that on my Mac now

So do you mean that you do not have to deal with glytches in your music recording due to a newer computer, or because it is a Mac?

Do Macs work better with processing music and video, or do both types of systems (PC and Mac) have problems and must be set up correctly?


By the way, I messed with my audio buffer last night and my paging file and I could not get the 'gapping' to stop. I think I am going to run a PC Pitstop to see if there is a bunch of stuff running in the background that I do not need. There are a ton of 'processes' running. I just don't know which ones I can safely shut down.

[pc]

So do you mean that you do not have to deal with glytches in your music recording due to a newer computer, or because it is a Mac?

Do Macs work better with processing music and video, or do both types of systems (PC and Mac) have problems and must be set up correctly?

Because it's a Mac. No screwing with swap files/pagefiles on a Mac.

Macs were definitely the pick of the litter for video audio for a long time. In my opinion, having worked extensively with both since the 80s, they are still better. My years working with an extremely stable Win98 system and then later a fairly stable XP system were still fraught with problems caused by other programs/processes.

That said, I will also offer that PCs can work exactly as well as a Mac for audio IF (Big 'if') you have a machine dedicated to audio and only audio. Too many processes interfere with the way PCs handle audio.

My Mac has never--NEVER--crashed with ProTools since I got it in May of '05, and it's also the machine I do all my other work on, including surfing TFF. And no, I'm knocking on wood now. I'm that confident.

[Gravity Jim]

I'm also a Mac fan and felt that Windows had caught up pretty completely until the advent of OSX. Now, again as in the old days, there is no comparison. OSX's memory protection schemes are so bullet-proof that OS crashes are a thing of the past, configuration is a breeze, and dual-processor threading works like magic..

I actually can surf TFF, check my e-mail and bounce a file to disc from Digital Performer while Toast is burning a CD AND the CD label is printing, and not one of those processes even slows down. No joke... I do it all the time. My dual G5 has been running over a year without a single OS crash or restart.

[clayville]

+1 on all this Mac love.

I was a Mac guy "back in the day" from a Mac II on through the first PowerMacs and loved 'em. Had to switch to the Dark Side to keep up with the bozos in Corporate finance, and frankly couldn't friggin' believe the clunky, balky, half-baked software and hardware that holds the dominant market share. Why would so many people/sheep willingly put up with such crap, I wondered.... (oops... that's all like the kryptonite of online forum rant topics, isn't it? sorry...)

Anyway, very, very happy to be "back" and my stuff (at home surfitude, e-mail and music) all works flawlessly -- and at the same time.

[Guitar_Mc]

Well, I have defragged, removed spyware, removed adware, checked for viruses, etc. etc.

I even uninstalled ACID and reinstalled it.

I still have some gapping going on when I use ACID pro 4.0.
I don't when I am just playing songs in itunes or mediaplayer.

Is there anything else to check?

The only thing I can think of that might still be an issue is the second hard drive I installed. The normal one is a 30 gig and I added a 250 gig. Could the additional hard drive be too much for the system to handle smoothly?

Man I just know I'm gonna end up buying a Mac. Damnit! You guys have already cost me too much in GAS. My wife will kill me.

[Guitar_Mc]

Thanks Fezz, I've messed with the buffer a bunch. It just won't go away completely. Does your computer use multiple hard drives?

[Guitar_Mc]

Thanks guys,

I think I got it.

When I added my second hard drive, I reorganized my files. I just forgot that I had my drums in a different location on the 'C' drive.

Anyway, it ended up that my ACID Pro song files (as well as the individual vocal and guitar tracks) were all on one drive, while my directory will all of my drum loops and individual drum wav files were on the other.

Each one of my songs was pulling part of its info from two seperate hard drives.

I put them both on the original drive and deleted backup copies from the other. Then when I opened a song, it searched and found the only location for each track and drum file. Once the tracks were remapped correctly and all parts of the song were on the same drive, it seams to work fine.

Fezz, it was your answer about using a second hard drive...

Yes, but I only use it for storage and backup.

that led me to relocating everything back to the 'C' drive, which is when I discovered what I did.

I'm a dumbass!!!!!

[Guitar_Mc]

I just wanted to give you guys an update. I have now used the software several times now, and it is working great.

GJ,pc,Clay,Kap'n&Fezz - Thanks again for all of your help.

Now you guys are stuck listening to me in the jamzone.

[Gravity Jim]

Alright now! Rock, rock on.