Pops/crackles when recording voice in 1.2.6 yet not in beta?

[thereformant]

Hi,

Really can't work this one out and need an answer pronto!!! Hope you guys can help!...

I use a Behringer FCA202 soundcard with Audacity version 1.2.6 (Behringer's Podcastudio package) and I persistently get pops and crackles within all recorded vocal audio. I can see mild spiking of the waveform as I talk into the mic. I have upgraded to beta version 1.3.8 and this problem doesn't exist. However, for a variety of reasons, I need to be using the stable version.

I've tried several things (changing latency, reducing mic vol input, changing frequency of recording, freeing up system resources, turning off antivirus etc) but nothing hashelp much. The latency at around 9.80 produces the best quality but recorded audio still crackles and pops and i consider it unusable. I retain the same audacity/soundcard settings in v1.3.9 and recording quality is perfect.

Can anyone help me with this?? The soundcard is shipped with v1.2.6 so its obviously tried and tested with that version, so I can't understand what i'm doing wrong. I can let you know details of other things (PC model/settings, mic & mixer model etc) if relevant.

Many thanks -hope to hear from you soon!

Joanne (thereformant).

[steve]

Audacity 1.2.6 was made to run on old hardware with old operating systems (1.2.6 is old) and does not always work so well on newer machines.

for a variety of reasons, I need to be using the stable version.

You also have one very good (overriding?) reason to use a more recent version.

[thereformant]

Thanks for the quick response. What version would you recommend? I've used 2 or 3 versions that follow 1.2.6 and they seem to crash too regularly or spring the 'orphaned blockfiles' message on you (which loses all recorded audio). Let me know your thoughts - thanks!

Joanne.

[steve]

As all the current work on Audacity 1.3 is being restricted to bug fixing (the run up to the release of the next "stable" release) I would suggest the most recent one that is available. I'm currently using "Audacity 1.3.10 alpha October 1st" and it's been great. The most recent release is here http://wiki.audacityteam.org/index.php? ... tly_Builds

I would not normally recommend "alpha" versions, but in this case the only difference between 1.3.9 beta and 1.3.10 alpha is that the latter has some extra bug fixes.

[kozikowski]

<<<I've used 2 or 3 versions that follow 1.2.6 and they seem to crash too regularly>>>

Audacity is a coal mine canary. When it croaks, you want to get out of that mine in a hurry. Audacity doesn't just crash for no good reason. Unstable machines get much worse when Audacity suddenly uses large amounts of memory, system resources, and drive space.

I know you freed up system resources, but did you error check and defragment your hard drive? Clicking and popping happens when the system can't keep up or drops bits in order to keep the real time playback on schedule. No version of Audacity will work into a badly fragmented hard drive.

Koz