I am digitizing cassette tapes using a Harmon/Kardon TD4800 cassette deck, a Parasound Zphono USB preamplifier, and Audacity 2,4,2 on a laptop running Windows 10 Pro 64Bit ver:1909. The problemsI am having are strange "hiccups"during playback. These are not dropouts. Dropout detection is on and these events happen in areas not identified by dropout detection.What is really strange is that, if I replay a passage where the hiccup has occurred immediately after the event happens, the passage plays normally with no hesitation, so I don’t know what’s causing the problem or what to do to fix it.
The good-ish news is the sound files are probably fine if the playback damage moves around. It’s a little awkward, but play the sound files on Something Else to confirm that.
Are you using Cloud Storage, Google Cloud, On-Line Storage or some other combination? Audacity doesn’t get along very well with those. Audacity wants to stream your show to you perfectly with no gaps, no damage, and no holes in the data. Cloud Storage wants to wait for direction traffic-copping, collision detection, internet path negotiation and whether or not your neighbor is downloading HiDef “adult entertainment.” Not a good marriage.
Companies are really eager to get you into the cloud so they can bill you when you run out of your free license.
Let us know.
Koz
Doesn’t have to be internet. You can have problems like that with home network storage. Like a hard drive stack in the laundry room that everybody in the house uses. That’s less likely to create problems like stuttering, but the possibility doesn’t go away.
Koz
I think I have solved the problem. I’m recording directly onto my hard drive. Yesterday, I notice the same “stuttering” while listening to a YouTube video, and realized the problem was not in Audacity, the cassette deck or the Parasound preamp. On a hunch, I rebooted my computer and replayed the digitized tape with Audacity and the problem was gone. I’m not sure what triggered it, but I now know how to make it go away. And thanks for replying so quickly. I really appreciate it.
Windows 10 Pro, v 1909, build 18363.1198 in a Dell 3050 (i5-7500T, 8GB RAM, 256 GB SSD).
I experienced the playback hiccups with Audacity 2.4.2. Went to an ancient laptop running Windows 10 Home and Audacity 2.3.0: NO HICCUPS. Returned to this computer and installed Audacity 2.3.0: THE HICCUPS RETURNED. I have recordings of the playback of a recording of a tuner A440 for each of these cases, made with a Zoom H2n digital recorder, if anyone is interested.
After tearing my hair out over several weeks of this, on Nov 10th I received the latest update to Windows 10 Pro, a fairly major update I believe. So I tried playing the recording with the still-installed Audacity 2.3.0, and–NO HICCUPS! Re-installed Audacity 2.4.2 and THE HICCUPS ARE REALLY GONE.
Conclusion: THE PROBLEM WAS WITH Windows 10 pro.