Cannot get a skip-free recording out of Audacity...

[twothousandgt]

Any help is greatly appreciated, I'm pulling my hair out over here...

My PC setup:
ASUS M2N-SLI Deluxe
AMD Athlon64 X2 4600+
2GB Corsair XMS2
ASUS GeForce 8500GT (irrelevant)

The important bits:
NI Audio Kontrol 1
Pioneer DJM-300-S
Soundmax HD Audio sound card (onboard)

I am routing via the AK1 to the mixer, then via RCA -> 1/8" to the line-in on the onboard sound card, and my "monitors" are Altec Lansing POS speakers attached to the line-out on the soundcard.

The issue is I cannot record in Audacity (tried both 1.2.6 and 1.3.4) without skipping. I have tried the various solutions mentioned in this thread, including:

- Disabling software playthrough
- Adjusting the quality settings (only tried 32 bit vs 16 bit, all @ 44.1)
- Enabling (in 1.3.4) "Hold recorded data in memory until recording is stopped..."
- Reducing the size of the program window
- Zooming the timescale out to 60+ minutes
- Disabling *EVERYTHING*; At one point I even literally killed explorer.exe and ran JUST Audacity/Traktor 3/Task Manager.

Note: It's a fresh install (4 days old) of WinXP SP2 and I defrag with JKDefrag on a regular basis. I am dual booting, so this install has Traktor/AK1 software/up-to-date hardware drivers and that's it.

All of which really only resulted in a decrease in the frequency of the skipping, not a complete cure. After troubleshooting for the last two days, all I can really say is:

- This is happening during the capture and not a side-effect of the export process.
- Windows Sound Recorder records perfectly from line-in
- The CPU is *barely* ticking over, even during the "heaviest" usage. Not a hardware performance issue.

I honestly have no idea what to do next. I've tried looking for a more basic audio recorder, as I'm not planing to do any post-production, but haven't found anything yet. I really just want a recorder for the mixer's output (i.e. line-in on my sound card).

And for Koz...here is your Doorknob moment: I also have a RCA -> 1/4" balanced input on the AK1 which I have *not* tested. It would seem to me that since the AK1 is already pushing out two 192k/24-bit channels over USB that it's doing enough work as is. Thoughts?

[twothousandgt]

I've just tried taking Traktor out of the loop and playing an audio file by going Winamp -> AK1 channel 1 -> mixer -> line-in -> audacity. Still getting the skipping...it's almost certainly an Audacity and/or soundcard issue. Since Windows Sound Recorder performs flawlessly, I am almost positive it's Audacity...

Next I'm going to try wringing out the various quality and latency options in Audacity...

[steve]

At this stage I think you need to break it down to one thing at a time:

1) External audio source (from tape player or similar) into soundcard - record in Audacity.
Does that record without skips or glitches?

2) Winamp straight into Audacity (setting your record input to "stereo mix")
Does that record without skips or glitches?

3)You're wanting to use the AK1 as an output and the Soundmax as your input?
Winamp out through the AK1 - AK1 analogue out into Soundmax line in.
Does that record without skips or glitches?

[twothousandgt]

First, thanks for the help Steve

1) External audio source (from tape player or similar) into soundcard - record in Audacity.
Does that record without skips or glitches?

I tried iPod -> Soundmax Line-In -> Audacity and still got skipping.

Next I tried same path, but to another audio recorder (REAPER, don't ask...it records more than 60 seconds and it's free-for-now) and I am still getting the skipping. This is starting to feel more like it might be disk write issue. That or something about the Soundmax line-in. I have a WD 74GB Raptor so I'm leaning more to the latter. I'm still open to possibilies considering I was so sure it wasn't a hardware issue and now it almost certiainly is.

3)You're wanting to use the AK1 as an output and the Soundmax as your input? Winamp out through the AK1 - AK1 analogue out into Soundmax line in. Does that record without skips or glitches?

I am trying iPod -> AK1 input -> Audacity now, but wanted to post this new info first. If that works and doesn't have any performance drawbacks when using it with Traktor (i.e. AK1 doing two channels out AND one input channel to Audacity) then I'm set...

Thanks again for the assistance!

[twothousandgt]

...and it works flawlessly. Only problem with the AK1 input is that it's mono, and therefore useless. But hey, at least it's not the hard drive

So basically now it's down to something with recording the Soundmax line-in. Straight playback out of the soundcard line out -> pc speakers doesn't produce any skipping. I think I can wing it from here, but do you have any ideas as to why recording on the Soundmax line-in would cause skipping?

[twothousandgt]

Fixed!

Installed a PCI SoundBlast Live I had laying around. Mixer -> SBL Line-In -> Audacity = PERFECT!

In the end, I'm really happy it wasn't Audacity. It's a great program, and the support people get in this forum is fantastic. Thanks again!

[steve]

Congratulations - the on-board sound card looked to be the weak point in the system, which is why I suggested that you tested that first - and Bingo ! Merry Christmas!

You will get much better quality with the SBLive as well, just watch out for the built in "enhancements" (such as EAX) which can make things sound different to the way they should.

When you've got to grips with your set-up, you may be interested at looking at the Kx Project ( http://kxproject.lugosoft.com/index.php?skip=1 ) - they make (free) alternative drivers that work with many SBLive cards, which are more complicated to use, but offer fantastic routing possibilities for musicians.

Another little tip is that many of the SBLive cards (EMU10K1 and EMU10K2-based soundcards) have slightly better sound quality on the "rear speaker" outputs than the "front speaker" outputs (because they bypass some of the "audio enhancement" circuitry.