I have recently purchased the ezcap cassette to computer transfer system. I am using Audacity and have notice an electronic popping sound inserted within the audio recording. It only lasts a few seconds, but if I am not physically monitoring the recording, I wouldn’t know it is there. I don’t know what is causing it, therefore, don’t know how to fix the problem. Can anyone help?
The suggestions on [u]this page[/u] may help.
It’s probably “buffer overflow” which relates to the fact that Windows is a multitasking operating system and it’s always doing stuff in the background even if you are only running one application. The audio stream into the computer at a constant rate and it goes into a buffer (like a holding tank). When the operating system gets around to it, it reads the buffer in a quick burst. If it doesn’t get around to reading the buffer in time, you get buffer overflow and a “glitch”.
The buffer also acts as a delay (latency) which can be a problem if you are monitoring yourself through headphones while recording. But when you are recording a tape, latency is not an issue and there’s no downside to a bigger buffer.
There’s also a playback buffer, and in that case the danger is buffer underflow (where the buffer “runs dry” before the operating system gets around to re-filling it).