buzz when recording bass in audacity

[steve]

That is because if you had looked carefully, you would have seen that the said track (in the video) was not at the default zoom level.

I only had a quick glance at it and didn't notice the zoom level. My main concern was with glaukopes's question.

The problem you describe is still different from the topic in hand, so could you copy your last posted and make it a new topic. Please include as clear a mental picture as possible of your set-up and your method - remember we're working blind, so a clear and accurate picture can often help reveal the cause of a problem.

[glaukopes]

I tried turning Audacity's playback volume down, but I still heard the buzz. I tried using both the mixer toolbar in Audacity and Windows Vista's audio mixer. They're both connected though--moving one moves the other to the exact same position. I tried lowering the volume as low as it could possibly go while still putting out sound. I had to crank my speakers up really loud to hear the audio, but the buzz was still there.

I don't know if this information helps, but:
1) I'm using Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit
2) I'm using the SupremeFX sound card that came with my Asus Striker Extreme motherboard. It uses the ADI 1988b audio codec and SoundMAX drivers/software.
3) I'm using the 6.10.2.6260 version of the SoundMAX drivers.

[steve]

I'm afraid you've got me beat on this one glaukopes.
You say that a recording from Audacity play with a buzz in Audacity, but when played back in a media player on the same machine, same headphones/speakers, same sound card and same drivers, that it plays without the buzz. Sorry, I can't explain it - it should sound the same. Why there should be a problem playing back through Audacity I can't explain - When it comes to playback it doesn't do anything different from any other audio player.

The only suggestions that I can think of are
(1) Try Audacity 1.3.5 - it's a lot more up to date than Audacity 1.2.6, so if it's some strange driver conflict or something, then Audacity 1.3.5 might work better,
(2) Double check all of the audio related settings in the Windows Control Panel - I don't use Vista myself, but I know that it is capable of doing very weird things.

[glaukopes]

Thanks for your effort. I did try 1.3.5 with no success.

Here's what I ended up doing. For some reason I couldn't uninstall my sound card driver or move back to the previous version. So I went ahead and just reinstalled the operating system and installed an older driver. This seems to have solved the problem. I tried moving to the newer version again just to see if I could verify that that was the problem, and yes it caused the buzz to come back. Unfortunately the older driver causes other problems with another program, so I guess I have to pick my poison. I don't think Asus is going to release any new driver versions since all the current drivers were released shortly after the board was released two years ago.

With both Creative and Asus having bad driver support, who do I turn to for audio in the future?

[steve]

So I went ahead and just reinstalled the operating system and installed an older driver. This seems to have solved the problem. I tried moving to the newer version again just to see if I could verify that that was the problem, and yes it caused the buzz to come back.

So it seems it was a driver issue all along - very strange, but thanks for the info.

With both Creative and Asus having bad driver support, who do I turn to for audio in the future?

Perhaps Microsoft will bring out some drivers? OK, I'm just being silly now.

It would be interesting to see if it worked with Linux. If you fancy trying that, you could download,for example, Ubuntu or Knoppix. Once these are burned to CD you can boot your computer directly from the CD and run Linux without needing to install it (although it will run rather slowly because everything is read off the CD, which is a lot slower than reading from a hard disk drive).

Downloading Ubuntu or Knoppix is a BIG download (about 600MB) but if you've not used Linux before you may find it an interesting experiment.

[manguiko]

I have a suggestion, based on my own experience, and on some of what is described.
Perhaps it might apply.

When I monitor with my earphones, I do HEAR SOUNDS that ARE NOT discernible when using speakers.

The reason may be either at the high frequency, or at the low frequency, depends on the contents of the source, and specially when live playing of instruments that produce much richer frequency range than most recordings.

The earphones usually can produce HIGHER frequencies much better than speakers, but can choke or distort when playing LOW frequencies. When they can not handle EITHER, they can sound like problem noise. Speakers, on the other hand, are more 'noble' in that they just don't respond in such cases, where the source IS calling for those sounds.

With better earphones, one can hear the correct sounds.

Now, why in Audacity, and why not in Vista recorder, or other?
THAT could well be because Audacity has a BETTER fidelity of recording THOSE more demanding sounds than the Vista recorder, which simply does not record them well.

You do say that with speakers the problem is not there. That's why this explanation might apply.

you can then filter out the input, or see if your earphones might have a problem. Perhaps, also, your speakers are much better quality than your earphones?

Good luck.