(When i did have my mike plugged in the other night the levels were extraordinarily HIGH.
i had to have it down very very low to keep from a wicked feedback.)
This suggests significant bleeding through your headphones, or the external speakers are on. Or your room has some resonant frequencies that you may not notice but the mic does.
Check the gain and output level on the preamp. If the gain is high enough, it's possible that is feeding back within its own circuits, and generating the noise. Remote, but possible.
The volume slider on the track should have no effect on the input level. Is there data already on the track? The slider would affect the level if you are playing recorded data on that track.
Check the cords as Robo suggests, and make sure the plugs are fully seated. The E-MU has unbalanced inputs, with only one detant, but your preamp may have a balanced output, which would have two detants(stops). These can be stiff, and make you think you are plugged in fully, when, in fact, you may not be.
Check the meters in Patchmix. If yopu haven't already done so, insert meters in the input strips. These will show you what the sound card is receiving, and what it is sending to MC.
If you have a WAVE strip, slide the volume all the way to the bottom. That should take care of the mouse clicks.
I'm not sure if I asked before, but did you download the driver updates from E-MU? These are important.
Check all this stuff. I'm firing off ideas that could be potential problem areas. We'll get to the bottom of it.

There is no data on track.
no speakers.
it is there even without the headphones on.
gain is off on preamp.
I will check to make sure soundcard is properly seated.

I'll let you know if it clears up.

Keep us posted.....

HHHmmmm very curious!!!

task manager says it's all Cakewalk.

it is like an overreacting reverb or echoe the way it sounds.

every click on the mouse echoes and then hissssses off to just noise.

also i noticed there are red numbers 0.0 in the header bar of the audio tracks. It's also red in the "BUS" box at the bottom of the audio info section.

I didn't read all the way back, but has anyone mentioned input monitoring? In MC, 'Options>Audio>Input Monitoring'. Un-highlight it, if it's selected.

Input Monitoring(or Echo) is the button on the track, next to R. It looks like ))). Is this lit up? That shouldn't cause a problem, but we're looking at everything.

well then turn it off

Input Monitoring

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Being able to hear plug-in audio effects applied to a live signal is an exciting feature of Music Creator. However, there are two issues that users commonly stumble upon when using the input monitoring feature. The first is that the monitored signal seems to have an echo associated with it. The second is that live input monitoring can lead to nasty feedback problems, particularly if you have an outboard audio mixer, or you record from a different sound card from the one you are playing back with.

Music Creator has several buttons to control input monitoring:

Per-track Input Echo button --each audio track has an Input Echo button that turn's that track's input monitoring on or off.
Global Input Monitor button--the Master Control bar has the Input Monitor button on the right end, which turns input monitoring on or off on all audio tracks with one click.
Audio Engine button --clicking this button so that it's in its up position turns all audio activity in Music Creator off, which includes input monitoring.
Note: When you use input monitoring, make sure that the track you're playing through uses the same audio interface (sound card) for both input and output. Using different audio interfaces for a track's input and output can produce distortion during input monitoring.

To understand the echo and feedback problems, let's look at how audio signals travel through your sound card, the drivers, and Music Creator. The following diagram depicts a simplified version of this signal flow.

The bottom block of the picture represents the sound card. The shaded area above it represents the audio drivers. The unshaded area at the top represents the main environment of the operating system.

As the diagram shows, analog audio flows into the card's line input (on the left), and is immediately split in two. One branch goes up through the analog-to-digital converter (ADC), where the audio is digitized, buffered and fed to the driver (labeled Wave In in the diagram).

The digital audio data buffers are read by Music Creator from the Wave In driver, processed, and then sent out to the Wave Out driver. The driver passes the digital audio buffers through a digital-to-analog converter (DAC), where the audio data is converted back to an analog signal.

Finally, this analog output signal is mixed with the original branch of the input analog signal, and the summed result is presented to the sound card's line output.

With this information in hand, let's follow a simple audio signal through the system to understand how echoes get introduced into the input monitor path.

Suppose you are counting "1, 2, 3" into your sound card very quickly. When you say the first "1," this sound immediately appears in all the places indicated in the illustration above. In other words, the analog audio signal is pure electrical signal traveling at the speed of light, so it is immediately present across all analog audio paths inside the sound card.




Next, you say "2." In the time it takes you do that, the ADC has converted the "1" to digital form and the Wave In driver has fed it to Music Creator for processing. Music Creator processes the buffer right away and passes the processed data right back to the Wave Out driver.


Finally, you say "3." By this time the original "1" has been converted back to analog audio by the DAC, and that analog signal is mixed in with the "3" you have just said. The ultimate result is that you hear a "1" and "3" mixed together at the line output of card--seemingly sounding like an echo, but actually just an artifact of the signal flow through the system.

You can eliminate the echo by muting the line-in from playing back (see To Eliminate the Echo from Input Monitoring); you'll send only the processed signal to the sound card outputs. This technique introduces a little extra latency to what you hear coming out of your sound card, but if you use WDM or ASIO drivers with your sound cards, the latency is negligible.

The feedback problem results whenever you have a loop in your mixer path: the output of your mixer is patched into the input of your sound card. Feedback can happen with or without input monitoring, but since input monitoring can add several levels of gain to the signal flow, it's of greater concern when you have input monitoring enabled. Input monitoring is disabled by default when you install Music Creator, and you enable it with the following procedure.

To Enable Input Monitoring
Turn your speakers down, and on an audio track that you want to monitor, click the Input Echo button so that it's lit up (on) . To disable monitoring for this track, click the button off.
Or
Turn your speakers down, and on the Master Control bar, click the Input Monitor button so that it's lit up--this enables input monitoring on all tracks. To disable monitoring for all tracks, click the button off.
Now you can hear your instrument in real time with any plug-in effects that you want to patch into the current track. You might also hear an echo, because the dry signal is coming out of your sound card slightly ahead of the processed signal. To eliminate the dry signal, see the next procedure.

To Eliminate the Echo from Input Monitoring
Open the software mixer that controls your sound card. If your sound card uses the Windows mixer, open the mixer by using the Start-Programs-Accessories-Entertainment-Volume Control command, or double-clicking the speaker icon on the Windows taskbar.
In the Play Control window of the mixer, check the Mute checkbox in the Line-In column, or in the column of whatever jack your instrument is plugged into, and close the mixer window.
Now you can hear only the processed sound when you use input monitoring. Using WDM or ASIO drivers for your sound card keeps latency to a negligible amount.

Note: This procedure does not eliminate feedback from you system, only the echo. If you experience feedback, you have a feedback loop somewhere in your mixer setup.

Robo- I'm going to study that. Thank you for the information!!! Lord knows i need it.


Robert- i'll give it a shot.

I think it's time for me to take up color by number.

Robo and Robert i do appreciate your sticking with me through this monstous road block.

i'm going to put it down and go to sleep for a change.

THankyou!

ORIGINAL: Robomusic

If the input monitoring is off, and the on board sound card is disabled, then the only thing left is the patchmix. These are the links in the signal chain that cause track bleed over. I strongly suggest going to the E-MU site and ask questions, there are so man ymore Patchmix pros there.

Thanks, Robo....i did put in a note to the tech support at E-MU.
My problem, being completely inept at this (technical) stuff, is that i'm afraid to alter any settings i've got ANYWHERE because it literally took me 13 monthes of asking questions, messing around with settings and whatever to get any sound at all out of MC3 when i first bought it.
I think i should save my patchmix session and start some new ones as tests in tracing out the problem.

I will keep you informed as to my progress/regress.

AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

Robert,
i did your tutorial on patchmix. followed all steps. Now when i open MC3 there is no record or input monitor buttons for any of the audio tracks. They disappeared!!!

ORIGINAL: 57Gregy

Is that good or bad?

it's bad if i want to record! Where did they go?