Subject:Do any Tech support people read this? If so please READ THIS! BIG recording problem.

Posted by: bastaad525

Date:1/23/2002 3:26:09 PM

When recording into Acid, something is happening that is causing whatever it is I'm recording to get kinda cut off or to skip for a split second. It's hard to explain but when playing back the track after recording it sounds almost exactly the same as if the track I recorded were skipping (similar to when having RAM problems, for instance). I've messed with all the settings I can that have anything to do with recording, and also with playback such as the playback buffer. This problem is happening in Acid Music 2.0 AND in Acid Pro 3.0. I know it's a problem happening during the actual recording process because I can then take the track I recorded and listen to it in any other .wav player (Windows Media, Soundforge etc.) and it will still be messed up. It records almost perfectly except for at about 20-40 (usually right around 25) seconds of recording it skips 2 or 3 times and then seems to record fine after that. There is no indication of a problem during recording everything seems to be doing what it's supposed to be doing but when I play back the track there is the skip, and is also shorter than what I recorded (record 40 seconds, file ends up being 38 seconds long). The problem only occurs on new tracks I record in acid, anything I import plays back with no probs. It's definately an acid problem though because I can record in other applications such as Cubase, Soundforge and Vegas w/o any problems. I've gone thru and made sure I had all current drivers for my soundcard, motherboard etc. and have actually tried out FOUR different drivers for my sound card and messed with all the settings on it with no luck. I've gone thru and done scandisks and defrags on both hard drives. I aslo tried recording thru mic in as opposed to the line in, and also tried the mic in and line in on the built in soundcard that came with the new motherboard ( I think it's designated an AC97? it's on a VIA motherboard). I've tried changing the tracks from one shots to loops to disk based... recording in mono and stereo, different bit and sample rates, recording to both of my hard drives, and to different directories on each hard drive. I've also tried uninstalling and reinstalling both versions of Acid that I own several times as well as upgrading to the latest builds of each with no luck. PLEASE if anyone can help me with any suggestions or can think of anything I missed (I mean I've gone thru EVERY setting I could...) please let me know! I've emailed tech support and haven't gotten a response yet and have tried calling the 900 # but it keeps saying all rep's are busy call back later. HELLLP MEEEEEE

Subject:RE: Do any Tech support people read this? If so please READ THIS! BIG recording problem.

Reply by: bastaad525

Date:1/23/2002 4:48:42 PM

Maaan... I've been trying to get thru on the Technical Support line for HOURS now with no luck... that's pretty shabby considering that you get charged so much to call it. What's going on SF??? $300 is a bit too much to pay for a product that won't work right and now I can't even get support to fix the problem?

Subject:RE: Do any Tech support people read this? If so please READ THIS! BIG recording problem.

Reply by: bastaad525

Date:1/23/2002 5:08:54 PM

I forgot to repost my system info, here it is:

Athlon XP 1500+ running on Epox VIA based motherboard
512MB RAM
30 MB total hard drive space
Soundblaster PCI128D

Subject:RE: Do any Tech support people read this? If so please READ THIS! BIG recording problem.

Reply by: Staxir

Date:1/24/2002 5:18:17 AM

Try setting your DMA setting to 32 or 64kb
to do this.. open windows control panel, click on "system" then "device manager", "system devices" then "Direct Memory Access Controller" . Click on "settings" and you will see a "reserve DMA Buffer" checkbox.. check it and reserve 32 or 64kb of memory for the DMA Buffer.. this should get rid of the clicking noises..(64kb is the maximum allowed).

Subject:RE: Do any Tech support people read this? If so please READ THIS! BIG recording problem.

Reply by: sdavmor

Date:1/25/2002 11:27:45 AM

Interesting. I checked my DMA controller under *System* on my XP Pro machine. No such checkbox shows up. Any thoughts?

Cheers,
Steven Davies-Morris -- a 21st century schizoid man
http://systemstheory.net

Subject:RE: Do any Tech support people read this? If so please READ THIS! BIG recording problem.

Reply by: Staxir

Date:1/25/2002 8:55:00 PM

i wasn't aware that windows xp didn't have this setting, it can also be changed in the system.ini file under the [386enh] section by adding DMABuffers=32 or DMABuffers=64 option. that is if it has this particular file...

Subject:RE: Do any Tech support people read this? If so please READ THIS! BIG recording problem.

Reply by: sqig

Date:1/26/2002 2:30:31 PM

Thankyou Staxir......I've been having similiar recording problems from the get go and your solution has worked.Nobody has mentioned this magical DMA location before...Thanks again.

Subject:RE: Do any Tech support people read this? If so please READ THIS! BIG recording problem.

Reply by: bastaad525

Date:1/26/2002 5:57:40 PM

I checked this setting out and actually... it already WAS set to 64kb... so unfortunately I'm still screwed
:( ... sent an email to tech support and STILL haven't recieved a reply and gave up trying to get thru on their 900# after 1,000 "busy please try back later" messages....

Subject:RE: Do any Tech support people read this? If so please READ THIS! BIG recording problem.

Reply by: SonicJG

Date:1/27/2002 1:19:32 PM

Did you get a chance to flash your BIOS to the latest revision? It's listed as a known-issue in the ACID 3.0 readme that some VIA chipsets don't play well with some soundcards, and SB Live's(not sure about the PCI128D) are one of them. What this basically means is that the VIA logic does a poor job of handling the data on the PCI bus, and some soundcards are pretty hungry, requiring a lot of throughput. When the data doesn't get from the soundcard to the app fast enough, then gapping can occur when the buffer goes dry.

There may also be a few changes you can make to your PCI configuration settings in the BIOS that may help, as I've heard that some of the default settings in VIA BIOS's aren't always optimal. Sorry, don't know which specific settings those would be for your specific mobo. As a caveat, pay attention to(and write down) your previous settings in the BIOS before changing any, so you can return your system to its previous state.

Hope this helps,
Joel

Subject:RE: Do any Tech support people read this? If so please READ THIS! BIG recording problem.

Reply by: Staxir

Date:1/27/2002 5:09:42 PM

you can try lowering the dma setting to 32kb instead..
i have noticed that some programs skip worse setting it to 64kb.. go ahead and try setting it to 32kb and see what happens.. and see if you have the DMA on for your Hard Drives.. hope this helps..

Subject:i had the exact same problem.

Reply by: spesimen

Date:1/28/2002 3:44:04 PM

i'm using an abit kt7-raid board also with the via chip. i was having almost exactly the same issue..little hiccups where the sample would slide off by 1/5th of a second or so, and it would just happen a few times during a take.

i got a recent bios update and that seems to have fixed the problem..ironic that it took over a year and a half -after- release for via and abit to sort it all out. also, i stopped using RAID, which seemed to make the bus busier and caused the problem to occur more frequently. but the problem didn't completely go away until the new bios. and that's just been for like a week so i can't say it's been tested 100% yet.

it -is- strange that i didn't have this problem with any other apps, however. probably something to do with mme drivers not liking win2k or whatever..like that stupid -6dB gain bug which is driving me crazy..

Subject:RE: Do any Tech support people read this? If so please READ THIS! BIG recording problem.

Reply by: sqig

Date:1/28/2002 10:27:59 PM

how do you flash your bios to the latest revision????

Subject:RE: Do any Tech support people read this? If so please READ THIS! BIG recording problem.

Reply by: Iacobus

Date:1/30/2002 1:24:16 PM

First you have to find out who makes your motherboard. (Asus, Tyan, etc.) Then you have to find out the model of the board. You should then be able to find an updated BIOS for the mobo on their manufacturer's Web site.

You can either consult the manual for your motherboard (if your system came with one, in which case, shame on your vendor if it didn't come with one) or call your vendor to find out what make and model motherboard you have. The vendor may even have the updated BIOS on their site.

One thing I can tell you: Follow directions for flashing your BIOS to the letter. If something gets screwed up, you can render your system inoperable, so be careful.

Iacobus