Tracktion is Poppinng, Clicking, and Hiccupping

[Madguitrst]

Okay, I've got the pops and clicks thing going and some "hiccupping".

The pops can sometimes just occur during playback and not be recorded. Other times they are recorded and part of the wav, although I may not have heard it while recording.

The "hiccuping" is bacially the same thing, only it is recorded and the click track is thrown off too. Man, this is seriously screwing with my head.

This is occurring with a very limited number of tracks. Basically, the most I've laid down is six and am only listening back to one or two at a time.....and it occurs while only listening to one or recording one, such as the very first track of a porject.

My setup info:
Computer: Notebook Athlon 64 3000, 512 RAM, 40 gig HD at 5400 rpm (also have a 40GB USB2 HD at 7200rpm which I will probably dedicate to Tracktion).

Monitorng the RAM I see the majority of the RAM is being used at times during playback. I'm getting more RAM right away, just because it can't hurt; I hate getting dangerously close to the limits.

I have 3 USB2 port and am using them all.
1. keyboard (although I unpluffed it for kicks)
2. mouse (can do the same if I need to)
3. interface.
There is no PCMCIA card slot in my notebook (although the controllers are listed in my hardware).
I will probably look to not use the external keyboard, maybe not the mose, and try using the external HD through the USB.

Well, I will if it makes sense to anyway.

Interface: Tascam US-122 USB 2 - for now....just want to get my feet wet coming from a Roland VS platform. Also fo use with the notebook. I plan on using my tower and notebook. I will get a better interface before long.

FWIW, the buffer is set to 512.

This is really sucking the life out of my little project, which is to share a few tracks for a collaboration and can't do the way I'd like on a Roland VS1680. I was hoping it would lead to a permament PC (or Mac) setup.

Frustrating............

Any ideas or comments are greatly appreciated.

[jplanet]

It could be many things.

- Seems you're already aware that your hard drive speed isn't up to the job. I'm not sure if USB2 has enough bandwidth to effectively stream several audio tracks, can someone else verify this?

- Check to make sure that your paging file minimum size is set to the same as maximum size.

- Set your computer to reserve resources for background processes...

Just my 2 cents, you might have alreday covered these points...

[rpc9943]

look at your cpu meter and see if theres a "!"... if theres a "!" it means its your harddrive speed. It means it cant keep up.

RonC

[Madguitrst]

CPU is not being overtaxed at all. I did go ahead and remove the USB keyboard and mouse and hooked up a USB 2.0 7200 rpm drive.

Guess what? Still getting pops and clicks, etc.
I may pop the 7200 into the computer so as not to have to use the USB port.

I will go for more RAM as the RAM being used is often close to max. Does anyone think this could be the problem?

FWIW, I need a 1 GB stick as my computer has 256 MB of permanent RAM and one other slot that accepts up to 1 GB (it has 256 for a total of 512 now). The 1 GB sticks were nowhere to be found locally. I checked four stores and none had it. OF course Best Buy was running a sale for a good price ($89 after $30 rebate) but as usual probably only got a few in and they were gone (and their warehouse had none either boooo-hissss!). I should have just ordered online yesterday.

Thanks in advance.

[jplanet]

I recommend trying some of the references listed here:
http://www.bobhug.com/OptimizingXPforAudio.html

[valley]

I will go for more RAM as the RAM being used is often close to max. Does anyone think this could be the problem?

Myabe, maybe not. It certainly wont hurt though. Most DAWs like to be fed a lot of RAM, and Tracktion is definitely no exception to that.

Have you tried any tools like Double Dawg to stop your video card from stealing unecessary bus bandwidth? Many people have reported that such tools have workedf wonders for them.

[rpc9943]

heres the thing. i use a 500mhz laptop 256mb ram winxp sp2... no problems like you described. Im thinking its got to be your tascam interface.

RonC

[darcyb62]

I currently use a US122 on Athlon 64 desktop and at times I can run into similar problems. I find that if I increase the the buffer to 1024 it will usually stop the problem from occuring, however running at 512 usually works.
Keep in mind that the US122 is USB1 device and not USB2 and is sensitive to anything else on the USB bus. I think the manual states that using a mouse and keyboard shouldn't cause problems but using a USB hard drive probably will.

[Lunch Money]

I'm running into similar problems, and I'm not using USB at all. My system literally hasn't changed since the last time Tracktion worked fine for me. I haven't done any re-installs, changed hardware, or anything. The video card is the same, with the same settings. The only thing that has changed is Tracktion.

Playback is pop, click, and hiccup-tastic.

[valley]

I'm guessing you have checked your PC for viruses, spyware, etc that could be affecting performance, and that you have run defrag?

[Lunch Money]

Viruses yes, defrag yes, spyware no. Been a while since I checked for spyware. Off to do so.

Greg

[valley]

I'm always highly dubious of the "nothing changed" line. Computers really are pretty causal. If truly nothing is changed then it is safe to assume that, hardware failure aside, no changes will be observed.

If an application begins to behave in a new and unexpected manner, something somewhere *did* change. The tricky part is always working out *what* though.

Whenever I encounter these kinds of things, I usually start by documenting every event that I can recall that happened during the last known good period. Anything from a system crash, to a virus checker update may be relevant.

Then I start working through them looking to see if any of them are subject to testing that could eliminate them from the suspect list.

[Madguitrst]

Interesting....all of it.

I'm gettng more RAM because it is worth the $110 or so just t be sure.

I routinely do defrag, virus scans, and spyware scanes.....so yes, that's covered.

rpc - I was thinking it might be the US-122.

Darcy -I have the buffer at 256 (I think) and was considering changing that tonight on my tests).
Damned.....I thought I checked and it was USB 2.0.....I don't know how I could've missed that....but it's not the first mistake I ever made. Well, it's a temporary interface, but I was hoping to at least use it for a couple of very simple projects.

You know, I just looked at the online Tascam literature and they mention problems with chipsets and recommend Intel. Maybe AMD is a bad fit. hhmmm....

JPlanet, thanks very much for the links!
Excellent stuff.

Lunch....that just sucks.......makes ya wonder......

Thanks again everyone

[valley]

You know, I just looked at the online Tascam literature and they mention problems with chipsets and recommend Intel. Maybe AMD is a bad fit. hhmmm....

It's probably worth checking the date on that literature. A long while back there were a particular class of VIA chipsets form AMD processors that frankly sucked in general, and especially for audio work. Any chipset newer than or including the VIA KT333, or nVidia nForce2 series, should be absolutely fine.

IIRC the only really dodgy chipset was the KT266A.

[darcyb62]

You know... I've just started to see these problems again, not on a frequent basis but on occasional basis. I thought it might be due to the fact that I have started to work on larger projects, but it is somewhat coincidental to installing the latest version of T2.

Anybody have thoughts on this?

Madguitrst: I can work at 256 as long as I keep the number plugins down (depending on the type of plugin). I find that the latency at 512 is workable, when I get a lot of stuff going on I will go to 1024 but that's typically in finishing up the project and all I need is the playback capability (i.e. no more recording). My MB has nvidia chip set and i don't think that's an issue. I do believe there are issues with the Tascam drivers though.