Hey, everyone. I wanna start by saying this isn't a thread to just talk about my problems with using Music Creator 3. It's one in which I hope someone will be able to help my out a bit. So, without further ado:
 
1) Each and EVERY time I start MC3, I have to have my headphones unplugged, then plug them in after it's running. Sometimes, I even have to have a song open for them to work; otherwise, it's just this barely audible, lo-quality, snappy/crackly sound of what should be whatever file is up.
 
2) MC3 crashes a bit more than it used to. Sometimes, CWMC stays in the Task Manager even after it's crashed. It's probably something wrong with my computer, but hopefully someone's faced the problem (hopefully not, actually) and has a way to fix it.
 
3) Quite a bit, my songs will start really slow and low-pitched, then after a second or two, will catch up to normal speed. This one is REALLY bothersome.
 
So yeah, these are my main concrens right now, and I know a ton of you guys are gonna hound me for still using MC3 and not upgrading, but I'm a teenaged kid with no job and no cash. Therefore, I use what I can get.
 
Anyway, big thanks to anyone willing to lend a hand, and hopefully I can do the same in the future! :D

The sound problems and the crashing are probably due to using a stock computer sound card, which aren't designed for the heavy loads that recording and monitoring at the same time can cause.
Are you using a stock sound card? If so, save up your pennies for an audio interface designed for recording. Good ones can be had for around $100-$200. Not Sound Blasters. If you have a birthday coming up, maybe a few pointed hints to your parents, siblings, friends, fellow musicians, and girlfriend may be in order. If they all chip in $20, you're almost there.
It could be incompatibility issues, too, if you're using Win 7 for an operating system.
Have you defragged the hard drive lately? If it's an older computer, defragging could possibly help some.
Running MC 3 with all other programs off is recommended. Get off the internet, turn off or disable the modem and turn off any virus scanners you may have.
Turn off Microsoft System Sounds.
Turn off any scheduled tasks you may have running in the background, like auto defrag or auto virus scanning.
Turn off the screen saver and wallpaper.
Turn off any power-mamgement shemes that may be on, like Hibernate.
 

Yup... I thought we already discussed the sound card verses audio interface thing.  

So many problems and issues are solved when one buys a decent audio interface.  It literally is a difference in performance like day and night. 

crashes, clicks, pops, glitches, latency, all and more can be the result of a factory sound card. 

Darnit. I have read a little, and saw that some people say that a good dedicated sound card would be a better option rather than an interface.
I really don't understand how an interface could pretty much replace my sound card, however, considered that it's not an on-board peice of hardware... I just don'tget how it works.

a soundcard and an interface are the same thing.  anyone who has told you that a soundcard is better than an interface doesn't know what they're talking about.

an "interface" when people try to distinguish it from a "soundcard" is usually only when people are trying to separate internal from external.

an external soundcard and interface are the same thing.  they are connected either by USB or firewire and usually have at least one mic pre built in and sometimes headphone outputs.

an internal soundcard is connected by PCI or PCIe and usually do NOT have mic pres or headphone outputs and usually have only LINE inputs and outputs.  (not always tho).

onboard soundcards are only a "chip" on the motherboard and are not designed for recording with a sophisticated program like MC.  "outboard" soundcards are designed specifically for that purpose and, better still, have drivers written for low latency recording.  the drivers written for low latency recording allow better throughput for lower resources from the CPU and RAM to be used for recording and playback.  using less resources means less popping and clicking and stuttering even at low latencies.  at high latencies, the better drivers won't ever pop or click.

check my website for more information and for soundcard (and "interface" if you must separate the terms) recommendations.

I'm no expert by any means but as Beagle said the onboard or factory card is often just a chip on a small motherboard. It is designed to handle all the NORMAL sound duties on the computer which at most is playing a (one)  stereo wave or MP3 at a time. 

That's the hardest thing it is usually called upon to do in it's lifetime.

When we record music in a small project with 8 tracks in it.... we are asking this card to now play 8 waves at the same time. Now throw in a few midi  synths and require the same chip to now not only get the 8 audio tracks to the speakers in sync, but now it has to process and convert the midi to audio and get it there too. 

Most factory cards have choked by this point and are now delivering the audio with clicks and pops because it can not handle the massive data and to keep from shutting off... it has to drop data every few seconds to keep up..... sometimes it simply shuts down...... and the midi is not keeping up either so latency is off the charts.

However, the after market, external audio interfaces ARE specifically designed to handle ALL this and more. I commonly run projects with 10 to 18 tracks and a bunch of CPU intensive FX and not one click or pop or dropped audio.  I hear of others here who are running projects with 30 to over 50 audio tracks with no problems.

Seriously, whoever told you a factory card was better is wrong. The dedicated external audio interface is the way to go if you are serious about recording music. 


But.... you don't have to take our word for it..... you are welcome to try to run on a factory card and find out the hard way... for yourself.  I'm not trying to sound snarky.... it's that we have all been doing this for many years ( I've been with MC/X1 for over 4 years) and have learned a few things and helped hundreds of people get their studio's up and running.....and 99% of those folks had the very same issues using factory cards. 

I really don't understand how an interface could pretty much replace my sound card, however, considered that it's not an on-board peice of hardware... I just don'tget how it works.

 
It's magic!
But really, you just tell the computer and MC to use this sound device instead of that sound device, just like plugging a mic into a different input on a mixer.

57Gregy

I really don't understand how an interface could pretty much replace my sound card, however, considered that it's not an on-board peice of hardware... I just don'tget how it works.

 
It's magic!
But really, you just tell the computer and MC to use this sound device instead of that sound device, just like plugging a mic into a different input on a mixer.

and we can certainly help you thru that process.  we've helped a lot of folks with that same scenerio.

Hey Beagle, what would you recommend if I only intend to use it to render MIDI files that I wrote to Audio?

JoanMichele


Hey Beagle, what would you recommend if I only intend to use it to render MIDI files that I wrote to Audio?

In that job you don't need a soundcard at all. Rendering inside the app is just math done by the CPU.
The sound of the audio file is then defined by the soft synth used.
 
Unless...If you use outboard gear to produce the instrument sounds you need a soundcard from which you can lead the MIDI out to the hardware and then audio back into SONAR.