HELP!! Digi 002 rack audio playback

[TomcatMF2]

I have a P4 2.4GHz on an Asus P4G8X deluxe motherboard with 512MB of RAM, 2 hard drives (30GB, 200GB) and a Soundblaster Audigy soundcard. I've recorded a single track @ 96KHz and 48KHz sample rates. Whenever I play it back I hear a pop every second or so. When I change the settings on the DAE the sound cuts in and out avery few seconds. I've already tried disabling the network card and all background programs and I still get the same result. Any suggestions, solutions?

[Cliffy_Boy]

popping sounds like a digital input issue. Are you recording from the spdif or analog? If digital, check the wordclock. You didn't mention if the recording has the pops or is it the playback only. Do the pops appear randomly or exactly at the same place. If always at the same place, these could be spikes from overloading the input. Let us know.

[TomcatMF2]

I'm recording from the mic input of port 1. I don't think its audio spikes because the VU meter on the mixer never peaks, and I'm not recording at a very high volume. It looks like some sort of buffer issue, because when I change the DAE settings the poping becomes 1 or 2 second dropouts at regular intervals. I'm using a WD 200GB hard drive with 8MB buffer with a 40GB partition formatted to degidesegns specs.
I also get the long drops if I fast forward to or even start from the middle of the recording.

[Rail Jon Rogut]

In the Session Setup Window (Ctrl+2) make sure the clock is set to internal.

What is your buffer size and CPU usage set to? Set them to 1024 samples and 85% respectively.. and keep the DAE buffer setting at the default 2.

With these settings, if you still have issues, then check if your FireWire card is sharing an IRQ in your Device Manager.

Which FireWire card are you using, you can't use the SoundBlaster FireWire ports -- in fact they should be disabled?

Rail

[JPS]

I have gotten some distortion at 96K when the buffer rate is low, 64 for sure has given distortion. I was actually quite surprized because I had never heard distortion in PTLE when using the 001. I use Sonar occasionally and run accross it more often. Moving the buffer beyond 256 mostly eliminated the problem at 96K, but I don't use these settings often. I don't recall having problems at 48K, but I usually don't go below 128 buffer and keep the CPU set to 85% as Rail recommends. I have an Asus P4C800 mobo and P4 2.8 ghz CPU, which has worked well for me.

[TomcatMF2]

I was using the on board fire wire port on my motherboard at first, but I hadn't disabled the soundblaster ones. I also tried the soundblaster port after disabling the onboard port in my BIOS. Maybe its my SB card interfering. The clock is set to internal, and I am using 85% CPU with 1024 samples. I get the pops at the DAE default level 2, and it gets the worse cutouts at other settings. Man this thing is picky. Maybe I should get a Mac, but that is very expensive.

[Rail Jon Rogut]

I'd highly recommend an Adaptec 4300 FireWire card (or any other supported card), and disabling the Sound Blaster and built in FireWire until you get that working well.. then you can try reenabling them if you need them.

I remember helping out someone else where the Sound Blaster card caused them grief.. see this thread.

Rail

[TomcatMF2]

I solved the problem. I had to change my ATA/IDE hardware driver to Standard IDE 2 disk controller in the hardware mangement window so that I could enable the DMA mode on my hard drive. Once I did that it started working perfectly! Thanks for all you help.