Feedback/stuttering/static for longer recordings

[Cuga]

I have done a lot of searching on this site and I believe I am experiencing problems that are similar to the experience of several others. After I have been recording for some time (say, for one album side), I begin to get terrible feedback, etc. I am running on Vista, 4Gb of RAM, 50% free space on a 300 Gb HD, Intel Core 2 Quad CPU, [email protected] Yes, I defragment frequently and seem to have plenty of hard disk space. 44100 Hz, 16-bit sampling.

I originally used an Ion Audio input through a USB port. I experienced the feedback problem and, hacing read this forum, concluded that it must be the USB input. So I connected instead to the line-in. Same feedback problem. Again, this only began to be a problem after some time passes with one side of a recording.

I experience the problem with both vinyl and cassette inputs. I have tried to limit the computer's functionb only to Audacity, and have set the priority to high. Still, it seems to be a problem.

What does anyone think?

[Gale Andrews]

I have done a lot of searching on this site and I believe I am experiencing problems that are similar to the experience of several others. After I have been recording for some time (say, for one album side), I begin to get terrible feedback, etc. I am running on Vista, 4Gb of RAM, 50% free space on a 300 Gb HD, Intel Core 2 Quad CPU, [email protected] Yes, I defragment frequently and seem to have plenty of hard disk space. 44100 Hz, 16-bit sampling.

I originally used an Ion Audio input through a USB port. I experienced the feedback problem and, hacing read this forum, concluded that it must be the USB input. So I connected instead to the line-in. Same feedback problem. Again, this only began to be a problem after some time passes with one side of a recording.

So you disconnected the USB cable - how exactly are you running the RCA cables into the line-in? One of the common reasons for distortion with USB turntables is a bad cartridge/headshell connection:
http://audacityteam.org/wiki/index.php? ... hite_Noise


Gale

[Cuga]

Thanks for the response. My USB turntable also has RCA line-out which I have adapted and input directly to the line-in on my computer's sound card. Thus, I can bypass the USB if I like.

I understand what you're saying about the cartrudge, but I don't think that's the problem. Here's why. First, there is a line-in jack on my Ion turntable, which is there to allow cassette tapes (or any other input) to utlize the Ion to convert analog sound to digital. Unfortunately, the same distortion happens when I use that line-in which, of course, has nothing to do with the cartridge/stylus.

Second, the Ion came with other software with which I do not experience the same distortion problem. However, it does not have the same controls that I would like to have with Audacity.

[Gale Andrews]

...The Ion came with other software with which I do not experience the same distortion problem.

So you have the same distortion occurring (only after recording for a while), and you get it both when recording LPs over USB, and cassettes over USB (via the Ion line-in). That still makes some sense (the problem could be the analog > digital converter in the Ion). Then you also get the distortion when recording LPs over RCA (the Ion is still the common denominator, could be some kind of faulty amplification stage?). Do you get the same distortion if you go straight from cassette to computer line-in, so completely bypassing anything to do with the Ion?

What do you mean by "feedback" - an echo of the recording following behind? Are there dropouts on the recorded waveform?

And what version of Audacity are you using? If you are using some version of Beta before 1.3.7, try 1.3.7. If you are using 1.3.7, you could try selecting the DirectSound devices in the Audio I/O Preferences instead of MME, or try 1.2.6 (though I have heard of something similar with an Ion turntable and 1.2.6 which was cured by using 1.3.7).

All these different Audacity versions have different version of our PortAudio audio I/O library, which might make a difference.

Gale

[Cuga]

Thanks. I can send you a clip of what I am talking about. But I am certain that this is not a cartridge problem but an Audacity problem. I connected a second (non-Ion) turntable and the problem persists.

I am using version 1.3.7. The stuttering seems to stop when I stop recording and then start again; it clears the deck, it seems. I just do not underrstand why it seems to bottleneck.

[Gale Andrews]

Thanks. I can send you a clip of what I am talking about. But I am certain that this is not a cartridge problem but an Audacity problem. I connected a second (non-Ion) turntable and the problem persists.

I am using version 1.3.7. The stuttering seems to stop when I stop recording and then start again; it clears the deck, it seems. I just do not underrstand why it seems to bottleneck.

If the stuttering is dropouts in the waveform, the computer may not be fast enough to keep up with writing the recording (do you have DMA enabled?) or anti-virus scanning may be interrupting it. The other programs which you say record OK may only be recording in 16-bit quality which takes half the processing of Audacity's 32-bit default quality. See if this page helps you manage computer resources better.

Also in the Audio I/O Preferences in 1.3.7, try increasing the "Audio to buffer" value which gives the sound more time to travel through.

If you want to post a short file with an example of the problem, please upload it to http://www.yousendit.com/ or a similar service and post a link to it here.

Thanks


Gale