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  #1  
Old 03-28-2006, 09:39 PM
KingFish KingFish is offline
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Default Mbox Distortion / Garble on recorded Audio.

Trying to troubleshoot a problem over the phone with a client of the studio, who's running an

HP xw4100
3.0 ghz P4
875p chipset
2gb Kingston Ram


I set the system up at the studio for her with an Mbox, and recorded blank audio on 32 tracks for 10 minutes at Low buffers (256), and loaded a pretty large session from the studio drive, to test playback.

It was a "Quick and dirty test" but no buffer errors, it played well, responded great, and I sent her home.

She's been telling me that the audio "OCCASIONALLY" (About 30 - 40% of the time) gets "Really distorted" -

And I found. through experimenting with her on the phone... that the audio, was clean through the pre-amps, and even clean, monitoring "Through pro-tools while recording" (monitoring with the track un-muted, and mix knob all the way to "Playback")

However.... when playing back... the audio is severely distorted (Crapping out, not really "Distorted)... exporting the audio file, shows that it's the "FILE" that's distorted, NOT Pro-Tools DAE.

Here's a WAV example 1.2 mb
Same File Zipped
I figured for sure, we'd hear it crapping out "Through Pro-tools" As it was going down.... but it was clean.

The only Answerbase entry I found even close to a description was THIS which is NOT relevant, considering we're completely up to date with SP2, and PTLE 7.1

It's not even really a "Distortion" it sounds more to me like a SERIOUS "Clock conflict", Interference, or Disk write error. I have of course checked all her audio playback settings, made sure she cranked her buffers up, and was on Internal clock.

Swapped USB Ports, Swapped USB cables, Ran through ALL of the "Reccomended troubleshooting tips" from the troubleshooting thread here on the DUC, not leaving anything out.

I traded M-Boxes with her, took hers home... it works fine on my system, mine craps out on hers.

This "Crap out" is only 1 out of appox every 7 - 10 "times hitting record"

She ONLY has the M-Box, Mouse, Monitor, Keyboard connected when we're doing these tests.

To eliminate it being a "Software, or driver conflict" I walked her through making a ghost image of her HD, we re-formatted, and re-installed "Just Windows, and Pro-Tools"

It worked for a few hours... we thought we "Had it" - then... the phone rang.... it was back.

She's going to bring her Tower over here, at some point over the next few days, so... I thought I'd post this here... to collect some thoughts on some other things to try / ideas out ther...

So far, as well as all of the above... I've had her

-- pull her Ram, "She has 2 / 1gb sticks" trying it with 1 stick at a time.
-- we've tried several different Hard drives to record to.
-- Flashed the latest Bios
-- Re Installed XP SP2 / PT LE 7.1
-- Tried an earlier version of Pro-tools (6.9)
-- Tried asio recording in 3rd party app (Cakewalk Sonar) - Crapped out intermittently, like in PTLE

Everything else on this system, works like a breeze, the system flies, and performs really well, other USB periferals seem to work great, scanners and printers etc...

My "Theory" is that as others have discussed in here... she may need a powered USB hub, I'm going to try that with her when she brings her machine over, however I'm a little skeptical about this, because, if the USB was underpowered, listening through the Armed track in Pro-tools, should have you "Hearing these artifacts in realtime" shouldn't it ???

I'm really at a loss - any other thoughts out there ?
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  #2  
Old 03-28-2006, 11:09 PM
vocalvoodoo's Avatar
vocalvoodoo vocalvoodoo is offline
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Default Re: Mbox Distortion / Garble on recorded Audio.

On my Mbox, I get a VERY similar distortion sound if I have the hardware buffer set to 128. I think the Mbox only supports a 256 buffer even though you can set it to 128. Could that be the problem? If not, that's only suggestion I have.

Hope that helps.
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  #3  
Old 03-28-2006, 11:23 PM
KingFish KingFish is offline
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Default Re: Mbox Distortion / Garble on recorded Audio.

Thanks for your reply... However, no... as stated above, I've got her cranking her HW Buffers (1024) to do these tests, but yes... you're right, it sounds as though you'd suspect the buffers being too low, even more so then "Clock conflict" as I stated above.

Any other thoughts out there ?
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  #4  
Old 03-29-2006, 01:08 AM
Stiff Stiff is offline
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Default Re: Mbox Distortion / Garble on recorded Audio.

Hey David,

I don't know if this is any help, but sometimes when I record stuff like guitars the tracks get very distorted when listening back. Usually I just close and open PTLE and it works fine. I THINK the distortion occurs when I have forgot to turn of some Norton app.
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  #5  
Old 03-29-2006, 07:29 AM
AlexLakis AlexLakis is offline
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Default Re: Mbox Distortion / Garble on recorded Audio.

Hmmm, kinda sounds like a clocking issue, but that does sound pretty wicked. Does she have a friend with another Mbox she could try out? It might just be a bum Mbox...

P.S. I assume there's no other onboard soundcard that's causing conflicts here?
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  #6  
Old 03-29-2006, 09:05 AM
KingFish KingFish is offline
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Default Re: Mbox Distortion / Garble on recorded Audio.

Stiff... hard to tell if this "Goes away" from re-booting, or killing 3rd party apps, as it's intermittent, and only happens 1 out of every 7 or so recordings.

Mentioned in original post : "This problem occurs with nothing but WinXP SP2 and PTLE 7.1 installed.

Alex - as mentioned in original post, we swapped Mboxes. Hers worked fine on my system, mine, still gave this "Crap out" every few times at recording on her system.

The Internal Sound-card is disabled in the bios.
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  #7  
Old 03-29-2006, 09:44 AM
AlexLakis AlexLakis is offline
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Default Re: Mbox Distortion / Garble on recorded Audio.

Oops, sorry! Must've missed that.

Man, if it's intermitant, that's a nightmare...

How hot does the system get? Is it overheating, perhaps?

How about the hard drive? Is it defragmented? I've had some pretty weird stuff happen when recording to harddrives that were fragmented/didn't have enough space on them, etc. It's a longshot, but it might help.

I'm sure you've thought of all these things all ready, tho. Are HP systems still coming with everything integrated onto the motherboard? Can you swap out parts? Specifically the motherboard itself? Sounds like a hardware issue to me...

Sorry I can't be of more help! Looks like you've got a real stinker on your hands!
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  #8  
Old 03-29-2006, 02:42 PM
KingFish KingFish is offline
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Default Re: Mbox Distortion / Garble on recorded Audio.

The Tower is over here now, and the first thing I recorded, turned to this garbled crap file.... then... I can't make it happen again, I've been recording, punching in and out, as well as start / stop recording , 50 or 60 individual takes, without it happening again.

I've loaded the machine down with USB peripherals, set the buffers too low, loaded several other apps..... and I can't make it fail.

the second I send her home with this.... it's gonna crap out on her again... 30 takes from now... 100 takes from now.... who knows?

She records hour long interviews for an internet radio show, and has gotten to the END of the interview, to play the file back, completely garbled like the above example.

That's a SCAREY thought, not like little 15 second passes becoming corrupt.

If I'd let the 1st record run for an hour today, it would have all been garbled.

She says that it never happens, "INTO" a file... when it happens... it's the whole take, whole audio file.... when it doesn't happen, all audio takes / whole files, are clean.

if she's recording on several (2) tracks - BOTH tracks are corrupt, for "That pass"

this is a REALLY frustrating one !
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  #9  
Old 03-29-2006, 06:08 PM
Skyflash Skyflash is offline
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Default Re: Mbox Distortion / Garble on recorded Audio.

Hey I've had a similar problem with my Mbox PTLE 7.1 recently last week.
I was recording bass. I ran through a few times and decided I had
the part nailed so I recorded a few takes. On the final and best take
of the bunch, I was horrified to find the part was distorting exactly
like you have mentioned. I thought it was maybe a converter thing
or maybe a buffer issue,but like you said it does it at every buffer setting.
I closed the session and went out for a bite to eat and came back
to a freashly booted PC to find that everything was working normal

My system is old..

P4 1.8
512 RAM
separate drives ect...

this system ran SOLID it seemed up to at least 7.0,but I'm begining to
wonder if it was something post 7.0(ie a CS update,that is also included in 7.1?)
This was a freashly installed partition and I went back recently to check
everything and I did mysteriously find my Advanced Settings in the windows
"System" setup in the control panel were somehow switched back,or did'nt save
the first time around when tweeking things. Check "background services" and
"adjust for best performance" if they are'nt already. Also check to make sure
your system restore is shut off. Some other applications switch this back on
when you are installing things to watch out. I should also mention that any open
windows were really sluggish in PT and switching things back to how they should be
fixed this also. I guess that was my first clue.

I have yet to really test things since discovering these things,but so far
things appear to be back to normal. I guess I'll find out when I go to re-track that
bass part

Not sure if your expirience with this is the same or not. I thought I'd chime in
anyway and let ya knwo it was happening to me too. I'll report back to let ya know
how things are going.

-Brian
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  #10  
Old 03-29-2006, 06:53 PM
KingFish KingFish is offline
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Default Re: Mbox Distortion / Garble on recorded Audio.

My best guess thus far, for the fact as mentioned above, that this happens with the audio recorded through the Mbox / Asio / Cakewalk - Sonar 4, as well As PT LE 6.9 - NOT just PT LE 7.1 - is that it is a USB Power issue with the motherboard.

I've eliminated the hardware, by swapping my Mbox for hers, LE for Cakewalk, Freshly installed XP SP2, new usb cables, tried different USB ports.

This has been happening for a month, and over the phone, I have tried everything listed in the initial post.

Part of my concern, is that this machine is "Recommended" by Digi.

I want to be sure that this isn't something that happens to others, with the same machine.... if so.... did a powered USB hub help ?

She just left here... has been here for 8 hours, we've been recording audio, pretty much non stop, on a freshly installed XP SP2 PTLE 7.1 and out of well over 100 takes.... 2 were corrupt.... the very first thing we recorded, and about the 70th.

I couldn't make it happen again.

She says, there are "Good days" when nothing happens at all, and bad days, where, out of the blue, not changing a thing, a recording, in the middle of recording several files, 1 will be unusable, like the example file I linked to. and some days... it happens more then once.

to test the USB connection, and see if it error'd out... I copied close to 100gb of data from 1 USB drive, to another USB drive.

it took a while, but never stalled, or seemed to slow down, it steadily, copied the data. Certainly alot more USB stress then a lil ol' Mbox.

I'm at a loss, this machine rocks in every way.

Any other thoughts out there ?

Rail, you still around these parts buddy ?
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