Dumb Question: Pops and cracks in my recording, using MAUDIO 44

[CoryBelcher]

I have a Delta 44, by M Audio... and all the sudden im getting these little pops and cracks in my recordings.

I know its not my recording program, Adobe Audition 1.5, so what can I do to my M Audio to make it stop??

Any help would be huge.

[fretlessrock]

What are you using for storage? It could be that you are recording to a drive with either insuffucuent write speed or one that has the OS on it, and the write lag is causing dropouts.

Could be other reasons but I would look into this and into your buffer settings.

[AndrewShirley]

Does your Delta-44 have the PCI card inside the computer? I have a Roland Vm3100Pro with RPC-1 card, which is basically the same thing as the PCI card used on the other MAudio configs. I had pops and crackles with my AMD-based machine, but since switching to Intel have had absolutely no problems. I tried 2 different AMD machines, one based on a VIA chip-set and the other on AMD's own, but had the exact same problem.

Make sure you have the latest and greatest MOBO drivers, especially for the chipset. I also found that (when I had the AMD) changing the DMA Buffer size to anything other than 384 would help some.

If you're using the USB version, then it may help if you could provide some machine specs.

- Andrew

[Dugz Ink]

Originally Posted by CoryBelcher

I have a Delta 44, by M Audio... and all the sudden im getting these little pops and cracks in my recordings.

The "all of the sudden" part caught my attention.

Was this system working properly at one time?

Check the M-Audio site to make sure you have the latest drivers.

Also, check to see if they recommend the MME or ASIO setting for your system. (That should be in their FAQ section... along with other settings.)

If you can't find the answers, check out Studio Central; it's a well respected forum that is dedicated to recording hardware, software, and techniques. I spend a lot of time there, and we get questions like this every week; I'm sure you'll find the answers... or somebody who can help you.

[geshel]

This started happening to me when I got a new video card (upgraded from ATI 9600 to x800). I got it to stop by using my primary drive (I have two S-ATA drives) instead of the secondary (which is now just sitting there doing nothing).

It wasn't so much a problem with the M-Audio as it was a general system / pci problem -- I'd get stutters and pops even when playing back mp3 files from that secondary drive, through my built-in sound card.

[Droog]

I may be way off here, but maybe take a look at your clock settings. Its possible that something got changed and your Delta is trying to sync its clock to a different source. I don't know if you have ever heard that, but a bad clock will make all kinds of pops and clicks.

[Oysterman]

If you use digital connections it could indeed be a clock/sync issue. But if it only happens during playback, and the clicks aren't there in the final mixes, you probably just have a cranky motherboard with a chipset that's not ideal for the task. It could click because it can't quite handle the massive data transfers that multitrack audio work may cause. If it's not the chipset, it could be some other similar conflict, like a video card or something. It's probably just an annoyance, and not harmful to your final product. I had this problem with my old VIA-equipped mobo, with two different sound cards.

But you need to test that to know for sure: do the clicks appear if you mix down the music to a CD and listen to it through another system? Are they being recorded?

[geshel]

Mine were being recorded.