Freezing during recording, resumes with a missing part

[papalokey]

I have tried 2 different laptops and reloaded my computer with nothing but Win7 and audacity on it. No Virus protection software and still experience a freezing during recording..

When recording, the screen stops moving during the recording and will resume when it seems when the song is softer.

When we play it back there is a big piece missing from the song, for example, at the 11 sec mark it will skip immediately to 1:33 in the song because it wasn't recording for the last 1:22 minutes. The bar doesn't move to 1:33, the bar is at the 12 second mark, but playing a later part of the song.

so imagine this, these are seconds of the playback, 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,1:33, 1:34 and so on.... the 1:33 and 1:34 plays back at the 12th and 13th second of the playback, understand? My wife said I should record it on video to show you the freezing up.

I'm sorry if this is confusing, but I can't find a better way to explain it. I hope someone understand this and can tell me what to do.


Thanks a bunch for reading this!

-Marc

[kozikowski]

I think we got it. Now slowly back away from the computer. What do you see? Someone singing into a USB microphone whose model number is... Have you tried singing into a different microphone like the laptop built-in? Are you recording YoutTube sound? Phonograph records?

Changing the computer was a good idea. When that didn't work, you need to change something else. We need to know the environment. Describe the show.

Koz

[papalokey]

I tried to updated it last night, but it wouldn't let me because it wasn't "approved" by the moderator.

Anyway, we are a band in a rehearsal room, using a Gear One MV1000 mic, plugged into a studio mp tube pre amp, then into the mic input on the laptop.

The quality is OK for what we are trying to do for now, but it seems that when the music gets real loud, audacity can't handle that much input, if that is even possible.

It isn't a USB mic.

Durring the playback on an mp3 it skips a large portion of the song instantly. the line moving across the audacity screen doesn't skip, it just freezes during the recording, then resumes and during that freeze it wasn't recording or even moving at all. So at the 13th second of the playback, we are hearing music that is in the 1:33 minute of the song.

Understand?

thanks.


-Marc

[papalokey]

http://papalaptop.papalokey.operaunite. ... e_sharing/
the password is audacity

here is a clip of the mp3, showing at the 5 & 1/4 second mark how it skips to a later part of the song.

-Marc

[steve]

The quality is OK for what we are trying to do for now, but it seems that when the music gets real loud, audacity can't handle that much input, if that is even possible.

I don't see why a really high level should cause Audacity to pause, but the recording level is far too high. Try turning down the pre-amp a lot. You should be aiming for a maximum peak level of about half the track height (rather than double the track height).

[papalokey]

The quality is OK for what we are trying to do for now, but it seems that when the music gets real loud, audacity can't handle that much input, if that is even possible.

I don't see why a really high level should cause Audacity to pause, but the recording level is far too high. Try turning down the pre-amp a lot. You should be aiming for a maximum peak level of about half the track height (rather than double the track height).

I will definitely try that and I also went to [preference] , [directories] and checked "record using RAM', so it doesn't have to wait for the HD.

We are going up there to test it here in a few and will let you know later today if it worked.

Thanks!!

-Marc

[kozikowski]

If you're on a laptop, RAM may cause more problems than it solves.

Audacity is a complete slave to the computer running it. If the computer or sound card stops providing a bitstream to record, Audacity will stop dead.

All that and you're using your computer wrong. You have an extreme example, but many people go through this. Your preamp is considered a high-level sound device even though it's not stereo. Have a read through this...

http://www.kozco.com/tech/audacity/wind ... rding.html

Koz

[papalokey]

thanks KOZ! I will check into getting something more professional.. We don't really care about exceptional sound right now, we just want something to hear.

When it freeezes up and resumes half way thru the song it is incredibly annoying..

I will buy a nicer setup but for now, we just want to hear it.

THanks so much for responding!

-Marc

[kozikowski]

You don't need to go nuts. The UCA-202 is $30 and should solve all of your immediate problems. Some of the sound cards at work are totally terrible, so we use these things a lot.

Koz