Intermittent Audio when Recording LP

Audacity Help Forum Windows
1

I have done a search for this but didn’t find anyone with the same problem.

Setup: Audacity 2.0.2 on Windows 7, Creative SB Audigy sound card recording audio from turntable with phono pre-amp.

I am in the process of digitizing my LP library and this problem occurs fairly often. I have a saved setup that I open when I begin a session (attached screen shot shows the setup and the audio problem). When I start recording (either a New recording or an Append Record) I will occasionally see that the recorded signal has short gaps in the digitized waveform. These gaps can be a couple of microseconds to a few hundredths of a second. Often they are so small that they are invisible in the recorded waveform and I don’t realize I have a bad recording until I listen to the results.

Usually if I “Rescan Audio Devices” it will clear the problem but this may take 2 or 3 tries and sometimes it doesn’t work at all and I have to restart Audacity.

Any idea what might be causing this?
audacity_distortion.jpg

2

Is that the PCI version or USB?
What are the recording options in the Device Toolbar?

3

The Audigy is the PCI card with the front panel control assembly.

Record input choices are:

  • Analog Mix (Line/CD/Aux/PC)
  • Microsoft Sound Mapper - Input
  • “What U Hear” (Creative SB)
  • S/PDIF In (Creative SB)
  • CD Digital(Creative SB)
  • Microphone

As you can see I have selected Analog Mix as the input. If I recall correctly, when I began using Audacity I did try a bunch of different options and this was the one that seemed to work (other than the sound gap issue).

I have recorded about 50 albums using this configuration and most of the time it works fine. I have gotten into the habit of quickly magnifying the recorded signal waveform to verify a continuous waveform whenever I start a new recording. It’s a great set of tools but it would be nice if I could sort out this issue.

Jim

4

I don’t see anything obviously wrong.
Check which soundcard drivers you have and see what the most recent drivers are available for your sound card and operating system from the Creative web site http://support.creative.com/downloads/

5

Yeah, I have what I believe to be the latest drivers: Audigy_SupportPack_2_18_0001_W7.exe. These were installed not too long before I started the LP conversion project but seemed to work well.

Could be just a weird bug somewhere that causes the cyclic sound cutout. At least I have a work-around, like I said.

Jim

6

Sorry I can’t be more helpful, but please let us know if you discover a permanent solution to the issue.

7

The only suggestions I have are to try increasing the “Audio to buffer” in Audacity’s “Recording” Preferences (though this would be more likely to help with a USB device); and try the tips here:
http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Managing_Computer_Resources_and_Drivers .


Gale

8

One thing I noticed from your screenshot is you seem to have your project rate set to 48,000Hz. Not sure if this has anything to do with the dropouts but it might be worth setting this to a more standard 44,000Hz to see whether there is any improvement.