Guitar Showdown :Round 1

Zoso · Post by **Zoso** » Wed Jan 05, 2005 6:14 pm

WDM should still work fine. ASIO is just a little more efficient in that it bypasses the Windows kernel mixer nad interatcs directly with your card. But it is not a big enough difference that it should matter when recording two tracks with no effects. But I would definitely get the latest drivers for the cards, regardless of what they are. My other suggestion at this point would be to make sure you have no background programs or tasks running when you are recording. This usually means disabling anti-virus programs and software firewalls while you are recording, along with any other tasks you have running, like automatic updates and such. In fact, I usually disconnect from the internet while recording just to make sure. If I think of anything else, I'll let you know.

Flames1950 · Post by **Flames1950** » Wed Jan 05, 2005 10:35 pm

I reinstalled Windows XP a couple of months ago on this machine and forgot to go through the services and disable some of the extra crap that starts automatically that I don't use. Forgot to shut down System Restore too, since that uses disk space somewhat dynamically it may have given me disk error problems.

Zoso · Post by **Zoso** » Thu Jan 06, 2005 8:36 pm

They have some good tips about reducing dropout at cakewalk.com. Or at least they used to. Let me know if you have any improvement after you tweak Windows again.

Flames1950 · Post by **Flames1950** » Sat Jan 08, 2005 11:45 pm

Managed to get home early this morning from work, before the wife and baby got home, so I went down to do some Windows tweaking and try recording again.
I'll admit I was using that machine to get online, etc. so I uninstalled a number of programs, went through the services that started automatically and disabled a number of 'em, uninstalled the modem, the antivirus, defragged the drives, and set down to see if it would record better....
The first try was almost promising, when I had managed to get forty seconds in with no dropout before I botched a chord. Until I played it back. The sound is there fine but there's a horrid digital clicking noise on top of it. So I tried again, and dropout'ed within fifteen seconds, with the same obnoxious clicking over the top of what little got recorded.
I still need to download fresh drivers, but I've been putting it off since the driver downloads total about forty meg between the sound card and audio interface and I'm on dial-up.
There's still more suggestions in Cakewalk's help pages. I didn't see anything pertinent on their website offhand. Any other ideas would be mucho helpful-o.

5150loveeddie · Post by **5150loveeddie** » Sun Jan 09, 2005 12:35 am

Flames try to reduce your total resources demand with "enditall2" it is a great little program that shut downs everything you don't need and free up all your PC resources for video editing recording etc it might work. Here's a link and it is free:

http://www.docsdownloads.com/Tier1/enditall.htm

Zoso · Post by **Zoso** » Sun Jan 09, 2005 5:49 am

To be honest, it sounds like your sound card(s) and not Sonar or your PC. With your system you should be able to record two dry tracks WHILE you are running programs in the background, much less if you have everything shut down. As far as the digital distortion, you should open the Windows mixer and check the input levels of your sound card while you are playing, sending it signal, etc. You can be clipping the sound card input but not be clipping the input in Sonar. I know that sounds weird, but since the audio passes through the Windows mixer first, it can happen. You can adjust the card's input there if it is where the problem is. Hope this helps. I would definitely get the new drivers as well, as sometimes that can make all the difference.
Also, are you using a mic pre to send the signal to the card's input, or do the soundcards have built in pre's in them?

Flames1950 · Post by **Flames1950** » Sun Jan 09, 2005 11:51 am

The funny thing is the audio doesn't sound distorted at all, it's just got that damn clicking on top of it. Stupid as it may sound, I might have to check and see if the metronome got turned on by default or something. Also may have to check IRQ's and potentially scrap the extra Creative Audigy soundcard, or the network connection to the file/print server I run in my house ('cause that's the kind of sicko I am, I wired the whole place for cat 5 ethernet!!)

Zoso · Post by **Zoso** » Mon Jan 10, 2005 1:33 am

The metronome shouldn't actually record, just playback for timing purposes. The clicking could also be bad converters in the card or a problem with sampling, if it's not distortion. Going to just one card may do the trick, as they may be having problems syncing to each other. Sorry, I should have thought of that before and suggested you try it.

Keep me posted and I'll try to see if I can remember anything else. I've been using Cakewalk stuff for about ten years now, so I've had to do my fair share of troubleshooting. Problem is remembering it all.