Popping/crackling in X1 Essential with Vista OS - Newbie needs help please!!

Your settings look fine.  Your computer specs may be the culprit though.  

This is from the X2 system requirements:
    *Intel Core 2 Duo E8200 2.67 GHz / AMD Phenom Quad Core 9750 2.4 Ghz or higher

I don't see X1 being much different from this.  Perhaps you should consider a computer upgrade.  Audio mixing requires some heavy processing, and 4gb of ram with a 2.00GHz processor on Windows Vista (an OS with a bad reputation of being a processor hog) probably won't cut it.

Download and run the DPC Latency Checker on the basic PC, not with X1 running or your recording interface connected, and see what it shows.  It could be basic PC issue and nothing to do witht he recording end.

DPC Latency Checker:  http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml

Looking at the docs and downloads page for your interface turned up this: 

Live Documents Type
Product Overview html
Manuals & Documentation Size Type
iO2 EXPRESS Product Overview
88 KB pdf
iO2 EXPRESS - QuickStart Guide [revA]
490 KB pdf
Software & Drivers Size Type
ASIO4All - Optional ASIO Driver for Windows [v2.10]
This Alesis audio interface is a plug-and-play device, which means that no additional drivers need to be installed to use it with your computer. If you use ASIO compatible audio software on your Windows PC, this optional ASIO driver can be used to offer additional configuration options such as latency and buffer adjustments. 392 KB zip




Notice the ASIO4ALL OPTIONAL DRIVER.... this indicates that this interface does not use ASIO as a native driver. (I did not take the time to read the manual to confirm this) BUT.... if they are even offering the A4A OPTION, it's a good indicator that it doesn't use ASIO.

I would suspect THAT to be the cause of the pops and crackles. You can try messing .... uhhh... I mean  adjusting the buffers and latency settings by increasing them slowly then test and adjust again until you get good results..... certainly you want to run the wave profiler as well. 

You may be able to get those settings close enough to give decent playback. 

Asio4All is a wrapper that simply fools a lesser qualified audio driver into thinking it's capable of acting and performing like ASIO.  Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. 

MY RECOMMENDATION: If the interface is new (under 30 or 45 days depending on the retailer) carry it back and buy an interface which supports NATIVE ASIO drivers, not one that suggests optional ASIO4ALL...... 

Guitarhacker


Looking at the docs and downloads page for your interface turned up this: 

Live Documents Type
Product Overview html
Manuals & Documentation Size Type
iO2 EXPRESS Product Overview
88 KB pdf
iO2 EXPRESS - QuickStart Guide [revA]
490 KB pdf
Software & Drivers Size Type
ASIO4All - Optional ASIO Driver for Windows [v2.10]
This Alesis audio interface is a plug-and-play device, which means that no additional drivers need to be installed to use it with your computer. If you use ASIO compatible audio software on your Windows PC, this optional ASIO driver can be used to offer additional configuration options such as latency and buffer adjustments. 392 KB zip




Notice the ASIO4ALL OPTIONAL DRIVER.... this indicates that this interface does not use ASIO as a native driver. (I did not take the time to read the manual to confirm this) BUT.... if they are even offering the A4A OPTION, it's a good indicator that it doesn't use ASIO.

I would suspect THAT to be the cause of the pops and crackles. You can try messing .... uhhh... I mean  adjusting the buffers and latency settings by increasing them slowly then test and adjust again until you get good results..... certainly you want to run the wave profiler as well. 

You may be able to get those settings close enough to give decent playback. 

Asio4All is a wrapper that simply fools a lesser qualified audio driver into thinking it's capable of acting and performing like ASIO.  Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. 

MY RECOMMENDATION: If the interface is new (under 30 or 45 days depending on the retailer) carry it back and buy an interface which supports NATIVE ASIO drivers, not one that suggests optional ASIO4ALL...... 

Got to agree with this assessment - if indeed the interface does not have ASIO drivers.


Herb - I took a listen to your tunes and REALLY like the I Know You Are Up to It song, and the acoustic guitar sound on the Footsteps in the Hall song as well.  If you ever need any keyboard tracks, shoot me a PM - I would be happy to give you a hand.


Bob Bone

Paula,

I know the frustration of audio teething problems, most frustrating when you just wanna create music...NOW!

I always thought the alesis was a stock enough brand for audio performance but maybe not according to the above comments and their info re the asio drivers.

I'd do the latency test thingy that fireberd has linked and post your results here so we can comment  on them (nearly everyone here had to deal with this at some stage I bet).

No harm in doing what daveny5 has said either re the graphics card.

Other than that, the laptop combined with the soundcard may not be up to scratch for audio production. Having said that guys, even with below par pc specs and a half decent audio driver, shouldn't you at least get a few midi and audio tracks playback and recording without this stuttering/lag?

I often find that losing your marbles and smashing all your hardware off the nearest wall does momentarily and effectively relieve some of the anxiety and tension associated with audio troubleshooting, although it will most certainly not help your music production career progress ;-)

Good Luck,

Cian

Thank you so much for your feedback.  I have a lot of ruling out to do and I have begun.

Firebird - DPC Latency Cheker V1.3.0 Output (without Interface connected) Result - This machine should be able to handle real-time streaming of audio and/or video data without drop-outs.)   After a few minutes it outputs: "Some device drivers on the machine behave bad and will probably cause drop-outs in real-time audio and/or video streams.  To isolate the misbehaving driver use Device manager and disable/re-enable various devices, one at a time.  Try network and W-LAN adapters, modems internal sound devices, USB host controllers etc.  (I connected to wireless when this happened.  Im not entirely sure if this was the cause yet.)

Bob & Dave -  
Video - I'm just using the built in video card - NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT - My current display driver does not allow changes to be made to hardware acceleration settings (Vista has it disabled).  
Appearance Settings - I have Windows Standard Display selected and not Windows aero. Sweetwater optimisation pointed me to more aero effects that I disabled. 
Effects - I didn't have any effects on audio and the problem still existed.  
Freezing - I also tried freezing the midi track but noise followed a few seconds into recording the audio track (with midi playback). 

Garrett - This will be the final step

Beepster - Im getting through the Sweetingwater Vista tweaks bit by bit, thanks.  After carrying out the performance tweaks, the problem is still there.  There are still more tweak steps though.

Interface:
A lot of you are pointing towards my interface so thanks for this tip.
Guitarhacker - I can't bring it back because I originally stole it. No just kidding. I had bought it second hand but Im hoping to borrow one with a native asio driver to see if it is the issue.  I will let you know how I get on.

Cian - My marbles went missing a long time ago.

Thank you again for your help.
Paula.

Yeah, ASIO4ALL is good for hacking around but it just doesn't cut it for anything intensive. You might be better off just using another driver mode altogether for now.

Is this the unit?

http://www.alesis.com/io2

I am not seeing an ioS2. Only io|2.

Anyway I poked around a bit and it supposedly is "plug and play" with no drivers necessary which is pretty... um... funny? And then as you said it recommends using ASIO4ALL if any issues become apparent. Well that doesn't seem to be working for you sooo...

Try switching the driver mode in Sonar to WDM or MMe. I've always used ASIO so I don't know what exactly those do or whether they will work but it's worth a shot to keep you moving until you get something better.

I think you can access those by going to Edit > Preferences > Audio - Playback and Recording and change the driver mode. 

Again... I don't know if that will work but it might. Seriously though... that Alesis does not look like a very good device.

You can pick up something by Focusrite or Presonus that has the same i/o capabilities as the alesis for a little over a hundred bucks and they will use ASIO as well as give you good performance and recording quality. If you have a little more cash to throw around and want more i/o options then there are tons of excellent units out there so just ask and you'll get some quality answers from the kind folks here. It would help to explain what your needs are as far as recording and what kind of budget you have to narrow it down to the appropriate choices.

Good luck.

Excellent. Glad to help.

So are you attempting to record the sounds from the keyboard or do you just want to trigger the softsynths in Sonar? If it is the former I unfortunately cannot help you with that as I'm still trying to learn that stuff myself. If it is the latter and you just want to use it as a controller let me know what keyboard it is.

Does it have a USB connection? If so you are better off using that. If not I'm pretty sure that you just need the one cable hooked up to the MIDI out of the keyboard to the MIDI in on the interface. 

Also for controlling a MIDI performance it isn't like with audio where you select an input. What you do is make sure the controller is hooked up and being detected by Sonar then when you have a synth inserted and routed to the desired track you make sure the MIDI Echo button is engaged and the keyboard should control it automatically. There is a different setting though where you can control multiple tracks at once where you have to manually enable the MIDI Echo on the desired tracks. I've actually just been learning all about this this week.

But... let me know what the keyboard is and I'll see if I can help you.

Cheers.

Hey Beepster,  beginners mistake.  I had not set the Midi device in Preferences since I'd swapped interfaces.  Once checked, it became available as an Input option.  You are right, only one midi cable is needed for recording.

(My set up: I have a Korg SP250 linked to my interface via midi cable (keyboard doesn't have USB.  I then Insert Synth vst - Kontact in Sonar)

Thanks again for all your help.  There is no crackling with M-Audio so far.  Happy days in the hit factory as John Spillane would put it.
Paula.