Recording issues
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Posted on Oct 31, 2009 04:58 pm
Fragile
Member Since: Sep 30, 2009
When i'm recording i've been getting these weird sounds first, then the audio cuts out completely for a few milliseconds. Its really hard to describe, I might post a sample in my profile or something. I'm inclined to think my computer is a piece of shxt >:[ as during playback of music i get similar "cutting" out, but it feels less jerky and the noises are different.
Ah this is too weird to explain well. i'll just put something in my prof within an hour or so.
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Oct 31, 2009 07:00 pm Alright. Its under my music. It does sound a little different with the crappy mp3 converter i used (maybe cubase has one in it. I didn't really pay attention. I just exported to a file then downloaded a quick mp3 converter when i realized it had to be mp3 to upload on here).
Anyway, just a quick recording. You can hear me set my guitar down haha. But right around, idk 16 seconds or so it just skips :\ normally theres a little sound crunching before it skips too.
I really think its my laptop. Like i said, i get a similar sound during playback of any music i listen to.
Anyone had this happen before/ know a way of fixing it?
Oct 31, 2009 09:28 pm Update: The problem just got a thousand times worse. I'm hoping when i reboot it'll be back to where it used to be. But i noticed a new symptom. The transport bar had a red light sort of blinking, it said something about "ASIO time overload." Light research into cubases help section suggested the computers hard drive could be not supplying the data fast enough. Sound like a possibility?
Dematrixhttp://www.reverbnation.com/2ndgMember
Since: Nov 27, 2007
Oct 31, 2009 10:00 pm what is your "latency" set at? thats probably 98% of it.
not a problem really, just make the latency numbers in "devices" (cubase menu bar at top) bigger.
when recording have the numbers as small as possible and then on play back and for mixing etc make them bigger.
i just dont remember how to do it now using windows,im using a Mac.
what are the specs of your compy?
Oct 31, 2009 10:37 pm I believe when that recording was taken it was north of 4000 lol. I've tried adjusting that :\ But then again, taking a look in cubase maybe i didn't adjust it. I adjusted it on the control panel for Fast Track, not in cubase. I'll go do that now and see if anything fixes.
Hmm specs lets see.
HP Compaq 6715b laptop
2 GB ram
AMD turion(tm) 64 X2 Mobile TL -60 (2000Mhz)
XP SP3
Sound card is the fast track
50 gigs left on an 80 gig hd.
And the school put a TON of crap on here that slowed it way down :\
Dematrixhttp://www.reverbnation.com/2ndgMember
Since: Nov 27, 2007
Oct 31, 2009 11:03 pm change the latency then for sure, you got enough ram there.
Oct 31, 2009 11:20 pm I've been searching around in the pdf manuals for the past 45 mins ughh, I'll just ask you haha.
How the crap do you change the latency? I just cannot figure it out for the life of me. I'm guessing change the buffer size in device setup? I tried that but it cascaded me with error messages. I can try again though.
What would you suggest putting the latency at for now? Its around 300.
Also, in the control panel i noticed sync reference was on "direct sound output." Whats the difference?
One more; the card options. It says "full duplex" and "start input first." I really don't get what they do.
Edit: Wow.. Who woulda guessed. They have a seperate manual for this part.. DAMN IT!!!! haha wow i spent well over an hour looking for something when all i had to look for was a friggin' help button.
Dematrixhttp://www.reverbnation.com/2ndgMember
Since: Nov 27, 2007
Oct 31, 2009 11:44 pm there's a tutorial on this i think in tips up the top there ^
im not real sure now what the go is with all that coz im using a mac and they be a different setup.
so you are using the Asio driver yeah?
but yeah the buffer size is what you wanna change, if its having a whinge at 300 then make it bigger.
then you'll need to lower it again when recording or the timing might be a bit off (delay=latency)
having said that, regardless of what you need to run your computer on to get it to wrk for you properly, you can still move the your recorded waveform to match the roght timing in your project if you want.
eg, if you must run your compy at a pretty high latency to get it to work properly, then the timing of what you just recorded will be slightly out, so just drag that whole waveform until it sounds in time if youget what i mean?
but with 2 g ram you should be able to get the correct latency anyway.
what does your buffers say in .ms?
eg: in 8.123ms and, out 33.003ms
Nov 01, 2009 12:01 am Yeah, i've thought about doing the dragging technique. I might mess around in here and try to figure out the offsets or find out if they're automatic. That way i don't gotta drag each track.
And i believe i'm using the ASIO driver. Never really adjusted anything, but i think it uses that automatically. The driver for Fast Track goes dormant when Cubase is on, like you can't adjust it anymore.
The buffer is at 2048, I'm probably gonna massively increase that and play around trying to get the latency down a little without glitching.
in:300-330ish. It varies
out: 46.440. That seems to stay pretty constant.
Eh, how high do you think i should go? As you said, i can always move the waveform back and if i ever figure out this offset thingamajig i don't even have to do the work. (assuming offset does what i think it does, and moves the waveform back the 300ms or so that its delayed)
Edit: I noticed i'm able to choose either cubases driver or the m-audio driver. Any idea which you think might be better? They both say ASIO. If you're not sure thats fine, i'll experiment.
Dematrixhttp://www.reverbnation.com/2ndgMember
Since: Nov 27, 2007
Nov 01, 2009 01:22 am use the M-audio one.
you should be able to get your latency pretty good with 2gig ram.
300 i think is way to big, you need to make it smaller to get better timing, but the compy shouldnt be having whinge on that setting so you must have too many Insert FX going on somewhere.
mostly always wanna use "send" FX, instead of "insert FX" they chew cpu like nothing else.
in all seriousness, as im just starting to do myself, try not to use many FX until you start mixing, wait till you ve recorded your tracks first, puttin on a few FX here and there is cool, like compression or reverb but not too much as it does chew cpu, using a few as send fx shouldnt be an issue though.
your compy will like you for it, basicly you'll be more inlcined not have droputs or cpu related issues that way.
inserts and midi chew big time, if your using a midi drum program, once youve got the drums how you want them, convert those drums to audio from midi. it takes heaps off the performance metre.
good way to check where your compys at is, under the device menu in cubase, click on "performance metre" that'll tell you how close you are to having a crash or a dropout thingy.
when you make your latency numbers bigger the metre will go down also.
Nov 01, 2009 07:54 am the bxtchy thing is, this was the first track i recorded lol. And it was dry. No effects. No midi. I actually think its not the CPU's fault, rather the drivers or harddrive (the "ASIO time overload" light comes on, not the CPU one. Research in cubase manual suggested the harddrive is too slow. Which may or may not be true though.)
That being said, everything you just told me is still extremely useful, and i had no idea about any of it lol. I'll keep that in mind.
Alight, i'm gonna shut up and go test this crap. :] hopefully it was just the latency issue destroying this recording. If thats not it all thats left to do is smash lappy >:) (i may reformat again next week just for the heck of it. This thing has been so slow thanks to all the added software and controls)
CptTrippsCzar of Turd PolishMember
Since: Jun 20, 2006
Nov 05, 2009 01:43 pm Fast track is two channels so I doubt the hard drive, CPU, or ram are the culprit.
With that setup you should be able to get your buffer down to 256 or 128, hear no audible latency and not have to slide anything. Anything higher than 512 you will start to notice, the higher you go the more latency you will get. High buffer settings are for mixdown.
My first thing would be conflicts. Are you running virus protection in real time scan mode while tracking? Do you have apps running that are not needed?
And one thing I always throw out as I have seen it a couple times. Disable your wireless NIC (mine has a switch on the front of my laptop), if I don't I get dropouts every 15 or so seconds.
Nov 05, 2009 06:30 pm I'm 90 % certain that its just all the junky programs the school puts on this computer (i technically don't own it). And there's probably dozens running in the background.
Maybe it'd be worth my time to shut down as many as i can, but they might do really weird things like crash my system just b.c. the school likes to keep an eye on me or something. Who knows.
Once i get a new computer i'm imagining the problem will go away.
