Subject:SForge causing pops?

Posted by: pbeshuk

Date:4/5/2004 7:07:13 AM

I have a large wave file that had quite a few pops in it. I listened to it very closely and repaired them all using the pencil tool. They were perfectly removed. Now when I open the file again more pops are there which I'm certain where not there before. I think they are in different places, but am not sure. I've never noticed this happening on any other file I use SForge on. Is it possible the act of opening a file can cause them? I'm using SF 6. thanks.

Subject:RE: SForge causing pops?

Reply by: Rednroll

Date:4/5/2004 8:36:26 AM

defragment your harddrive

Subject:RE: SForge causing pops?

Reply by: RikTheRik

Date:4/5/2004 12:29:42 PM

A fragmented harddrive shouldn't generate clicks. I am quite interested in this case because a friend of mine reported exactly the same issues.
The thing is that even is a harddrive is fragmented, the file should'nt be modified and such clicks shouldn't happen. Or else this means that there is a serious bug in SF6.

Subject:RE: SForge causing pops?

Reply by: Geoff_Wood

Date:4/5/2004 3:24:57 PM

No, it means that your drive (the file in question in particular) may be fragmented, and that your hardware and Windows cannot deliver the file to SF continuously at sufficient speed.

Or are you suggesting that there are new clicks visible in the displayed waveform that weren't there before ?

Before you make sweeping suggestions like " Or else this means that there is a serious bug in SF6 ? " it pays to clarify things like if they are visible in the displayed waveform, do they always occur at the same points in the file, etc.

geoff

Subject:RE: SForge causing pops?

Reply by: pbeshuk

Date:4/6/2004 10:14:29 AM

I'll study it further and see if I can prove it is happening for sure. The pops were visible in the waveform about 80% of the time. When they weren't, I think it was because they were at a such a low volume. There was not a lot of free space on my hard drive so I'll see what I can find out here.

Subject:RE: SForge causing pops?

Reply by: rraud

Date:4/7/2004 5:01:03 PM

In addition to the above,
- Make sure your PCI sound card and graphics card are not sharing the same IRQ.
- Try shutting down all non-essential application:; Screen savers, anti-viurs, etc. and see if that makes a difference.

Subject:RE: SForge causing pops?

Reply by: RikTheRik

Date:4/9/2004 9:50:28 AM

>defragment your harddrive

Thanks ! For my friend it worked !

Subject:RE: SForge causing pops?

Reply by: Rednroll

Date:4/9/2004 11:33:23 AM

Thanks for responding back. It was my original suspiction for the original post, because they said that it was a LARGE wave file. With a fragmented hard drive you're almost guaranteed that the large file is split up among different parts of the drive, thus the head of the hard drive has to jump rapidly from one location to another to make a continuous stream of audio. So seeing that the clicks moved in location, that was a good indication of a fragmented drive, that the jumping of the head would cause clicks due to the fragmentation and they most likely wouldn't be located in the same place everytime.

Subject:RE: SForge causing pops?

Reply by: pbeshuk

Date:4/9/2004 12:06:04 PM

I opened this file again and there are new pops which are clearly visible in the waveform. This is a large file 500+ MB. Most of my wave files are this big. When I invoke the Windows XP defragmenting program, it suggests this drive needs defragmenting. But when the defrag process is done, it says most of my files (including this problem one) could not be defragmented. It doesn't say why. I have all my audio files on a partition that is 35GB with 7GB free. Do I need more space to defrag such huge files?

Subject:RE: SForge causing pops?

Reply by: kryten

Date:4/9/2004 1:56:06 PM

The following is from the MS KB article 283080:

The volume must have at least 15 percent free space for Defrag to completely and adequately defragment it. Defrag uses this space as a sorting area for file fragments. If a volume has less than 15 percent free space, Defrag only partially defragments it.

Methinks you need a bit more room for it to work properly.

HTH

Subject:RE: SForge causing pops?

Reply by: msterlin

Date:4/10/2004 9:14:50 AM

Kryten is right, but there is a catch. The 15% rule is just a guideline - it may be possible to successfullly defrag when there is less than 15% free space. I just finished saving wavs from all my cds and could successfully defrag until now when i have only 4GB free out of 190Gb (2%). But that is because i defrag regularly, rather than wait until the drive is almost full.

If your drive was fully defragged before you saved the 500MB wav, 7GB would likely have been enough free space to defrag that one file. You would still get the warning about 15%, but you can click ok and it would likely succeed anyway. If you wait until your drive is almost full, then there will be a large number of files that are fragmented in addition to the new recording and there won't be enough free space to complete the defrag (remember it has to have some temp space to move the fragments around until they can be placed contiguously with the rest of the file they belong to).

If you record alot or save files over the network as I do, the drive will become fragmented easily because the pieces arrive in small chunks at a time. Delete files you don't need and defrag daily, especially before you attempt to record or save a large file.