Michael McBroom Posted January 18, 2021 Share Posted January 18, 2021 (edited) This is a topic I brought up maybe a couple years ago? But back then things weren't nearly as bad as they are now. So I thought I'd go ahead and mention it again, just in case somebody might have a bright idea or two why this is happening. First off, I think there's something about my computer that's causing this, but I don't have a good idea as to what the culprit is. The problem has to do with audio output. If I watch streaming video or if I play wave or MP3 files exterior to CW, everything sounds great. But when I play tunes within CW, both audio tracks and midi tracks have chronic distortion -- Rice Crispies everywhere. The kinda weird thing is, it varies. Sometimes it can be really bad -- bad enough where audio dropouts occur and it's impossible to get any work done. Other times it's rather light -- annoying but I've learned to work through it. And other times -- more rare than the others -- it behaves perfectly normally. This is an older system running Win7. I've tried to update it to Win10 but it errors out almost at the end of the installation process. So I continue to use Win7. I have a sound card that I really like -- it's always done a good job for me. But more recently I bought an audio interface, suspecting that the sound card might be the culprit. It wasn't. The problem exists with the audio interface as well. The problem first showed up a couple years ago, right about when I changed monitors to a LG 34" screen. Problem with this monitor is it is HDMI only, and my motherboard is old enough where it doesn't have an HDMI port. So I disabled the motherboard's video and installed a bare-bones card that has an HDMI port. I've always wondered if the card's audio might be corrupting CW's audio, so I did what I could to try and neutralize the problem. I went into Device Manager and disabled the card's audio. Unfortunately, this had no effect. About a month or so ago I bought a license for a cleaner sort of program called Restoro and ran it. It did what appeared to be a deep cleanse of my system and after it finished, I noticed that the distortion in CW was much less than it had previously been. Prior to running Restoro, the distortion was so heavy, CW had become unusable. So it helped some with whatever it did. One thing I did notice was that it seemed that, with each successive update my machine got from Micro$oft, the audio got worse. I'm not positive of this, but there's no question that things got worse over the past two years. With the current tune I'm working on, most of the tracks are MIDI -- there are only two audio tracks. The machine produces bursts of static every second or two. In CW, the little bars that correspond to the number of cores in my processor always jump whenever the distortion hits. It's worth noting that another piece of DAW software I use a lot -- Band in a Box -- has a similar problem. But it responds differently. If I've loaded a tune that is straight MIDI usually I don't get any distortion. But if I load a tune that has more than one audio track, I get distortion. Some tunes of mine are mostly audio tracks and they are heavily distorted. But usually within 8 bars or so the distortion disappears, and stays gone until I have to restart the tune. Then the cycle repeats. I'm convinced this same problem is affecting both DAWs, just each handles the problem differently. So anyway, there you have it. Excuse the length, but at least it's complete -- more or less. So, any ideas what might be the cause and a solution? Yeah, I know, buy a current motherboard and upgrade to Win10. That is definitely something that will happen in the near future. But until then, I'd sure like to solve this mystery. Edited January 18, 2021 by Michael McBroom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Vere Posted January 18, 2021 Share Posted January 18, 2021 (edited) It would be helpful for these issues Michael if you post your system specs and which audio interface you are using. And FYI I just installed W10 on a 2008 home built computer. It's only a duo core 2.60 and 8 GB of RAM. I upgraded to a 240 GB SSD I got for $48. I had to install W7 first because the MoBo didn't support boot from USB ports. I didn't do anything after installing W7 I just went directly to the USB drive install of W10 I had downloaded directly from MS site. Stupid thing is the file is just a few MB bigger than a DVD. The old beast is running as good as anything else I own but that's the big difference a SSD drive makes. I really don't need a 3rd computer but this was originally a $800 build with a Silverstone case. Been sitting there for years. But anyhow, the reason I posted all that is one solution to your issue would be a good fresh install of the OS as that rules out gremlins. And Cakewalk is optimized for W10,, Noel just mentioned in a thread about W7 support that very soon Cakewalk will not run on W7 as they have to move forward. Edited January 18, 2021 by John Vere 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael McBroom Posted January 19, 2021 Author Share Posted January 19, 2021 Thanks for your response, John. As for system specs, here they are -- at least what I know of them. The MoBo I bought in 2009. It uses an AMD quad-core processor. The system has 16 GB of RAM and a couple of terabytes of hard drive space, about half of which has been filled, mostly with photos and videos. My music comprises 8 albums and occupies several dozen gigs with all the associated files that have been created over the years. This old system's processor runs at 3.4 GHz, and it's always been plenty for what i do, and honestly I'd rather not have to upgrade -- mostly because it has PCI slots and I have to have at least one regular PCI slot for my sound card. Music specific: the sound card is a M-Audio Delta 66 with accompanying OMNI I/O box (acts like a 4-channel mixer with a lot of other ins-outs). This card supports 24/96, has great AD and DA converters and has never let me down. This is actually my second one. I found an unused set, including the card and the OMNI box, drivers, cords, etc., on eBay recently for cheap, so I bought it. Mostly as a backup. The original I bought 20 years ago. A couple years ago, the OMNI box went south, and I was able to pick up the "new" set for what some folks want for just the OMNI box. I went ahead and installed the unused sound card along with the new box. When the box went south, I bought a Behringer UMC404 audio interface. This has worked well for the most part, but it isn't as good as that old Delta 66. But it got the job done until I found a replacement for the M-Audio gear. I have a couple of keyboards hooked up to the machine via their USB connectors, but I seldom use them. I'm a guitarist first and foremost. The one piece of external gear I use the most is my Roland GR-33 guitar synth. This has the round MIDI plugs, so I have to use the audio interface to get its signal into the computer because there is no MIDI interface with the M-Audio gear. The system has been running Win7 since inception and I suppose is quite rickety now, since it errors out when I try to install Win10 over it. This is what I'd like to do so I don't have to do a clean install and then reinstall dozens of programs, some of which have some rather annoying copyright protection schemes associated with them, which will no-doubt cause me to beat my head against a solid surface more than once. My copy of Win10 I downloaded directly from Micro$oft's website, then burned to DVD. It seems to behave normally -- until it errors out on install. Just as an aside here, when the distortion got so bad I wasn't able to use CW at all anymore, I moved my music production over to my laptop, also an oldie from 2009. It has "only" a dual-core processor, but its performance specs are as good as a lot of new ones. The good thing about it is, it's run CW and Band in a Box without any Rice Crispies at all. So at least I have a reliable backup. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno de Souza Lino Posted January 19, 2021 Share Posted January 19, 2021 People with AMD cpus seem to have issues with CbB constantly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abacab Posted January 19, 2021 Share Posted January 19, 2021 (edited) With all due respect, when attempting to run current software (ex: CbB) on 12 year old hardware it's probably an unrealistic expectation for it to run trouble free. If you wish to do that, you probably need to "freeze" your entire studio and stick to software and drivers that were written for that era, including the OS. Edited January 19, 2021 by abacab Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael McBroom Posted January 19, 2021 Author Share Posted January 19, 2021 I've thought of that. I've even tried running Sonar from a couple years ago to see if I'd get any different results. Nope. Same problems. Honestly I don't think it's the system hardware. I suspect either an earlier MS update or possibly my video card's audio conflicting -- but I've disabled its audio, both in the Device Manager and in the NVidia configuration utility. So I guess my theory about the HDMI card is probably not a good one. The problem suddenly appeared a couple years ago, and got steadily worse as the months passed -- which is why I suspect MS sabotage -- for my system at least. Maybe it is old and can't handle the new stuff MS tossed at it. But I will be so pissed if I buy a new MoBo and I still have the same problems. And WHY is this distortion happening only within my DAW software? That's what's got me stumped. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Byron Dickens Posted January 19, 2021 Share Posted January 19, 2021 Time to update the interface, too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno de Souza Lino Posted January 19, 2021 Share Posted January 19, 2021 (edited) 26 minutes ago, abacab said: With all due respect, when attempting to run current software (ex: CbB) on 12 year old hardware it's probably an unrealistic expectation for it to run trouble free. If you wish to do that, you probably need to "freeze" your entire studio and stick to software and drivers that were written for that era, including the OS. Isn't that how every single professional recording studio does it? Reliability over bleeding edge? The sad state of affairs that many people, including myself, cannot simply throw money at the problem and the device they have is also their daily driver, so you'd be putting yourself under risk of security vulnerabilities as a tradeoff for audio reliability. I know that's a #2 problem, but still. Software optimization is still important. Take Cakewalk's Linear Phase EQ and measure it against FabFilter's latest version of Pro Q 3, for example. While they both perform the same function and have very similar functionality, one of them is slow, unresponsive and can lead to instabilities while the other just works. And the one that works is Pro Q 3. Edited January 19, 2021 by Bruno de Souza Lino Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abacab Posted January 19, 2021 Share Posted January 19, 2021 2 minutes ago, Bruno de Souza Lino said: Isn't that how every single professional recording studio does it? Reliability over bleeding edge? I assume so. The main issues are: Drivers - the same drivers won't work forever as new versions of Windows are rolled out. I had to replace my M-Audio interface that was manufactured pre-acquisition by inMusic in 2012. The new owner never again updated the drivers for legacy M-Audio hardware. The old Win7 drivers sort of worked on Win10, but I got occasional blue screens. Now a paper weight. Microsoft libraries - Per Noel, CbB will eventually stop working on Win7, as newer versions of CbB roll out with dependencies on newer Windows 10 features. Testing - I doubt any developer will ever test for backward compatibility with systems that old. Or take a trouble ticket. YMMV. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno de Souza Lino Posted January 19, 2021 Share Posted January 19, 2021 (edited) 5 minutes ago, abacab said: Testing - I doubt any developer will ever test for backward compatibility with systems that old. Or take a trouble ticket. YMMV. I doubt any developer will test. Reminds me of a post from a surprised game dev looking at the Steam hardware survey and being confused that the vast majority of people don't use the latest and greatest graphics cards or 4K displays. And there's this Gearslutz anecdote in regards to Steinberg: Quote this is how bug reporting works at SB: user: I've discovered a bug SB: no you haven't - prove it user: here's an exact Repro SB: it's your hardware user2: I've got same issue SB: it's your plugins user3: I've got same issue SB:(sticking fingers in ears)...la la la la la la can't hear you user4: anybody there? SB: (several months later) there might be a small issue there but don't worry, that will be fixed in the next release SB: (several more months later) here's the latest update user: where's the bug fix ? SB: it will be in the next update repeat ad nauseum....... Edited January 19, 2021 by Bruno de Souza Lino 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abacab Posted January 19, 2021 Share Posted January 19, 2021 Developers have to draw the line somewhere. But I think it is fair that only the current OS gets vendor support. Once an OS hits end-of-life, devs typically cannot get any more software support for that from Microsoft. On your own at that point! Each publisher has their own criteria for that. Some are very flexible in that regard, but there is a cost to them for being nice. Bless their hearts! I have always been on a budget as far as technology goes, and build my own PCs. I try to stretch things out as far as I can, but there finally comes a breaking point. Sooner or later you have to upgrade. Or stand still, but if you do that, I wouldn't bother trying to run the latest software (or going online). 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Vere Posted January 19, 2021 Share Posted January 19, 2021 From day 1 Noel has said that CbB is optimized for W10. So there probably isn't a version of CbB that runs perfectly on W7. That said I have logged hours and days using CbB and W7 and a Tascam us1641 ( very old hardware) but this is only recording live bands. I don't do any VST work on that computer anymore. Just audio. I guess I could try it I haven't updated CbB since last June on that machine. So Michael you say it isn't the Hardware but it most defiantly is because that hardware is not going to run CbB the way it would with a new interface and W10 installed. You can most certainly run W10 on that machine unless there are unsupported components like Video cards. As @abacab has said your other option is to go back in time a few years and use software that supported W7 and the Delta driver. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael McBroom Posted January 19, 2021 Author Share Posted January 19, 2021 1 hour ago, John Vere said: So Michael you say it isn't the Hardware but it most defiantly is because that hardware is not going to run CbB the way it would with a new interface and W10 installed. You can most certainly run W10 on that machine unless there are unsupported components like Video cards. As @abacab has said your other option is to go back in time a few years and use software that supported W7 and the Delta driver. Heh, going back in time a few years don't sound so bad. But regarding your first comment above, if it were just hardware with CWbBL, then why do I have the same problem with Sonar? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abacab Posted January 19, 2021 Share Posted January 19, 2021 (edited) Best to wipe the hard drive and start with a clean install of Win 7. Then run LatencyMon. Next install only your audio drivers and a DAW. Try to use only your on-board graphics if possible. See if the audio runs cleaner that way. Then try adding your GPU. Audio still clean? Then add one thing at a time until your system is whole again. Or until you get rice crispies again. In that case, run LatencyMon again. You probably have a driver causing your audio issues. Edited January 19, 2021 by abacab 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Vere Posted January 19, 2021 Share Posted January 19, 2021 55 minutes ago, abacab said: Best to wipe the hard drive and start with a clean install of Win 7. Then run LatencyMon. Next install only your audio drivers and a DAW. Try to use only your on-board graphics if possible. See if the audio runs cleaner that way. Then try adding your GPU. Audio still clean? Then add one thing at a time until your system is whole again. Or until you get rice crispies again. In that case, run LatencyMon again. You probably have a driver causing your audio issues. And better yet install a SSD drive for the OS! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abacab Posted January 19, 2021 Share Posted January 19, 2021 48 minutes ago, John Vere said: And better yet install a SSD drive for the OS! That would give the computer a new lease on life! Plus it would preserve the existing build on the old drive, as a fall back, if needed. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Vere Posted January 19, 2021 Share Posted January 19, 2021 So there you go. I think that might be a simple plan. Pull that old drive and install new SSD. I just paid less than $100 for a 480 Install a fresh copy of windows 7 and see if all the issues go away. It is nice to keep those old pci cards alive but I noticed over time on the forum people reported that they can go south on you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abacab Posted January 19, 2021 Share Posted January 19, 2021 (edited) I used to own an M-Audio Delta 44. The PCI card eventually started giving out. Or my motherboard stopped getting along with it, not sure which. So I switched to an M-Audio FireWire 410, but since Win10, started having issues with that. Had to retire it. But I do miss the old M-Audio company, which was originally Midiman. Now loving my 3rd gen Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 USB! Solid, compact, and reliable! A nice piece of audio engineering! Edited January 19, 2021 by abacab Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Vere Posted January 19, 2021 Share Posted January 19, 2021 I have a new appreciation for Focusrite. I think I bought my 6i6 in 2014. It had some minor issues with the drivers at first but they soon fixed them with updates. It's been a very reliable interface and I can't think of any time it didn't run smoothly. It has exactly the features I needed. Then they go and update the drivers which was totally un expected. Tascam did the same with my us1641. it was over 8 years old and they updated the driver. Now those are good companies. I am regretting buying the Motu M4. It is nothing special at all and basically not much of an upgrade from my Scarlett 1st gen. I should have bought the 8i6. But I do like these meters on the front and so far it's behaving itself after I bought a PCIe USB 3 card and a better power supply just to power it up properly. So anybody looking at interfaces be warned- demand that it comes with the option to use a proper power supply. Especially if your using Phantom powered mikes. Either that or make sure your computer has USB 3 ports and a good power supply. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Vere Posted January 20, 2021 Share Posted January 20, 2021 Lots of old threads about pops and crackles on Delta 66. Just a few there were 1,000 more ha ha.. http://forum.cakewalk.com/Clicks-and-pops-in-Sonar-Pro-with-legacy-audio-card-MAudio-Delta-66-m3638625.aspx http://forum.cakewalk.com/Delta-66-and-cracklesizzle-Producer-85X-m1998799.aspx http://forum.cakewalk.com/The-dreaded-quotcrackle-and-popquot-on-a-beefy-system-yes-another-one-of-these-m2228016.aspx http://forum.cakewalk.com/Popping-m3042287.aspx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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