I started a new project with a vocal track; no problems. Then plugged in the headphones to hear the vocal while I added a wood flute accompaniment. When I played back both to see how it sounded, the flute track had random cracking sounds. These only happens while the flute is playing, with no relation to volume. Meters indicate I am not overloading the input. Can’t figure it out. Using version 1.3.3 on Windows XP and lots of memory, Audigy 4 soundcard, SM58 mic, etc. Attached a sound file named noise.zip.
noise.zip (181 KB)
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What happens if you turn playthrough (listen while you record) off and then record a random flute performance as a second track?
I bet it starts working. Your computer may not have enough moxie to play and record at the same time–and it could be due to almost anything. Fragmented hard drives? Drives too full? The system suddenly gets very, very busy when you need it to play and record at the same time. That’s not easy. I’m going with fragmentation.
Koz
I tried exporting the vocal track, and playing it with another piece of software into my headphones. While that was going on, I recorded a new take on the flute with Audacity. No noise! I’m surprised. With 3Mhz dual processors, 2GB RAM and an 80GB hard drive only half full, I expected Audacity could do something as straightforward as play on one thread and record on the other. Makes me wonder what kind of machine is required?
<<<Makes me wonder what kind of machine is required?>>>
Yours, but there’s something else broken. What was the other software package? The idea is not to hide anything until we fix this.
I also didn’t see the magic words, “I defragmented my hard drive and everything is OK now.”
Koz
Sorry, writing too fast. The defrag utility said the drive was just fine, but I let it go through half of a cycle anyway. If this happens again, I’ll do a full defrag and then try Audacity only again. To recreate the circumstances of the original glitch.
(The other software was Transcribe.)
Thanks.