Studio Engineers and Gurus..need your help - crackling will not stop no matter what!

[spectorbass83]

I did post in this forum about crackle/pop issues several months ago..Luckily the problem went away, but it's back!
I've been having 'pop and crackle' issues for the past few months with my DAW.

My band has recorded a 4 song demo without any problems, but this issue seems to come and go. Lately I haven't been able to make it go away no matter what tweak I do to my PC or what suggestions others have given me.

What I have noticed is that when I am recording a part, the PC's hard drive activity light will flash brightly as the audio has a crackling noise. I use input monitoring to monitor this through my sequencer. I have tried both my
copy of Sonar and the trial of Adobe Audition 2.0. It happens on both pieces of software. I have tried experimenting with different latency settings, different IO Buffer sizes, and different sampling rates. What's weird is that when there
is a low level in the signal (waiting to start playing while recording) there is no crackling. The level is at -67Dbfs at times like this, but as the playing starts and the levels gets louder the crackling level will rise with the signal.
I am not clipping. The levels peg at -18dBfs. I am fairly certain it has to do with my harddrive...

This is my setup:
3.0Ghz P4
1GB RAM
ASUS mobo
2x 200GB HD (Maxtor and Western Digital)
Delta 1010 audio interface

What I have changed since my last attempt at recording (when it did work pretty
well):
- sound card bit rate from 44.1 to 96khz.
- sound card sample bit from 16 to 24 in Sonar.
- Changed page file size from 800Mb to 1534Mb. Would this even matter that
much??

Nothing else was changed when this started. I have done all of the automatic checks such as checking cables, mixer inputs, interface inputs, etc. No dice.
Any help is welcomed.

 

[spectorbass83]

Bump...Anybody?

 

[Rick Brienzo]

I use two Delta 1010's and have had the same problems in the past. This is some stuff that worked for me.

1. Check to see if there's an update available for the software device driver of your sound card.
Most sound card manufacturers have internet sites where free driver updates can be downloaded and installed, to find out what soundcard you have look in device manager or look in multimedia audio properties.

2. Make sure that no other programs/tasks are active on your computer while you are recording.
The activity of other programs/tasks could have a significant impact on the response time of the recording process, causing clicks, short skips and pops.
Do not forget about the tasks sitting in the system tray of Windows, this is where the windows clock is displayed at the bottom right hand of the screen. Usually this is where programs like email programs, peer to peer, internet and virus scanners are active. Also, if you have a continuous Internet connection through cable or ADSL for example, disconnecting it whilst you are recording may also help. Pressing CTRL+ALT+DEL then clicking on Task Manager will show you the list of programs running on your computer.

3. Check the hard disk light on your computer.
While recording the hard disk light should blink shortly every 2 to 3 seconds. If the disk light blinks constantly and/or if you constantly hear hard disk activity while you are recording then the speed of your hard disk could be the problem.
What might help then is to de-fragment your hard disk. This can be done with the hard disk de-fragmentation tool that comes with Windows which can be found in Windows Start button / Programs / Accessories / System Tools
If your computer has more than one disk installed, then you may try to select another disk where temporary recordings will be saved. See Temporary files in the help for more information.

4. If you experience this problem too often, then please select a lower recording sound quality.

 

[spectorbass83]

All networking services/printer spooling, etc are disabled for the audio
hardware profile.
All devices that are un-used are disabled.

Harddrive is defragged often. A third-party defragging utility is something I
will try later on this week when I have a chance to download a trial of
PerfectDisk or Diskeeper.

There is nothing but my clock (which isn't even synced to the net anymore) and
the delta control panel in the system tray. Within task manager, there are
under 20 processes in the 'processes' tab running on startup and when recording.
NOTHING is running in the 'applications' tab but the sequencer at recording
time.

This PC honestly seems to have it easy and is never pushed very hard except when
recording some audio.