Can't seem to get rid of crackling input/output when recording.

BarryCreed

Hey guys, Sorry to bother ye with this. I bet the solution is simple.

Firstly, my laptop has enough memory in it to be able to cope with what I'm trying to do. (Win XP os)

I'm using an edirol ua25 with ableton, and I only get the cracking sound when I'm recording audio parts through the edirol. e.g. guitar etc..I record them dry, and add effects later. I have no problem recording midi keyboard or midi drums etc. Maybe that's because I change my audio preference back to ASIO4ALL drivers...

So, it must be the edirol. CPU usage is around 40-50% when I'm recording audio. It doesn't crackle much on playback when I'm using the edirol drivers, and doesn't crackle on playback when I'm using the ASIO4ALL drivers.

I went through the ableton help section to change settings in order to help the CPU. Still no luck. It's now crashed a few times. I reinstalled the UA25 drivers. No luck. I only had a basic guitar track, midi drum track, and midi keyboard track recorded, and was layering some more acoustic on it, and the crackling was noticeable, followed by it crashing when I went to listen to it. it eventually crashed the laptop..
I wasn't using a whole lot of effects, just some e.q. and chorus on a few tracks. If it can't take a few tracks, what hope is there for a larger song.

I'm sure it's something simple, but it's doing my head in... I got cakewalk with the edirol and a newer version of it with the edirol pc50. I'm wondering if I should install this instead of ableton (mate gave me a copy of ableton).

Sure, I'd lose what I have already saved, but so be it. Cheers if you can help

PaulBrewer

I'm going to post first then read the original post ..... Buffer size problem?

PaulBrewer

Yep!

BarryCreed

Hello,

Thanks for that.
Ok, so you have narrowed it down for me. I can check when I get home. So, should the buffer size always be set to certain size? I'll google buffer size to find out more...

PaulBrewer

Just try increasing it and see does the problem go away.

BarryCreed

I will do. cheers

i57dwun4yb1pt8

are you recording to the laptop internal drive ? this needs to be a 7200 rpm and you need to record to a seperate partion ( not c; )

better to record to an external drive like a usb or firewaire 7200 rpm .

BarryCreed

DaDumTish wrote: »

are you recording to the laptop internal drive ? this needs to be a 7200 rpm and you need to record to a seperate partion ( not c; )

better to record to an external drive like a usb or firewaire 7200 rpm .

you may have lost me a bit there. So what you are saying is to save the track to , say, an external hard drive while I am recording?
I have a decent one, so I could do that.

How would I check to see if the internal drive is 7200 rpm (just check the system properties?)

Dravokivich

There's another possiblity,

Have ya checked the leads you are using? Sometimes they can crackle as you've described when the soldering is dodgy or there's a rip within the insulation.

Erm.. Side note Midi is not going to cause any issues as its sorta of playing back from a pre recorded / synth Sound Bank.

Drav!

BarryCreed

no worries with my leads. I did check them as well..

i57dwun4yb1pt8

id say you d have to check you laptop model online to see what drive is in it .

5400 rpms struggle to play back and record wavs ( more than 2 or 3 ) at the same time .

and really struggle if you are recording and playing from the c drive .

better to edit your DAW properties to record / save projects to another partion - pref on an external drive if possible. ( thats 7200 rpm )

BarryCreed

yup external hard drive is 7200 rpm. I might start doing that just to rule it out happening in future.

Off topic, should I keep ableton or use the bundled sonar LE I got with my edirol pc50. Ableton is probably better for extras (it's my mates copy...).

I'm still open to persuasion about what I use...

dav nagle

I bet 1 million it is your buffer!

BarryCreed

:o:o

don't laugh

BarryCreed

update:

Ableton kept crashing on me, so I installed SOnar LE instead and it seems to be working fine at the moment. No hassles. However.........

when I'm using the edirol ua25, the sound seems to only come from the left headphone. I checked stereo settings etc, and it seems when I have to choose the drivers (edirol ones), in the driver settings panel, there's an "L" at the end of the edirol driver description which would suggest a "left" speaker setting. I'm shtumped again.....:o

BarryCreed

sorted. fixed. grandest..