"helicopter" sound in audio files

When I record or import an audio file in Home Studio I hear a flapping "helicopter" like sound that is louder than the music. If I play the same file anywhere else for example Windows Media Player it sounds fine.
Thanks in advance for any help.

cb

Describe your computer and sound equipment in detail if you want help.

ORIGINAL: cornbread

When I record or import an audio file in Home Studio I hear a flapping "helicopter" like sound that is louder than the music. If I play the same file anywhere else for example Windows Media Player it sounds fine.
Thanks in advance for any help.

cb

Try turning off Video Acceleration. Go to 'Start' button -> 'Settings' -> 'Control Panel' -> 'Display' -> 'Settings' tab -> 'Advanced...' button -> 'Troubleshooting' tab -> and slide the 'Hardware Acceleration' slider all the way to the left or 'None'. Then click on OK until you are back to the main screen.

This should help with the getting rid of the helicopter noise. Its a good idea to leave it at this setting when working with audio recording. Reduces the workload on the CPU.

Bob
The Mandolin Picker

ORIGINAL: MandolinPicker

ORIGINAL: cornbread

When I record or import an audio file in Home Studio I hear a flapping "helicopter" like sound that is louder than the music. If I play the same file anywhere else for example Windows Media Player it sounds fine.
Thanks in advance for any help.

cb

Try turning off Video Acceleration. Go to 'Start' button -> 'Settings' -> 'Control Panel' -> 'Display' -> 'Settings' tab -> 'Advanced...' button -> 'Troubleshooting' tab -> and slide the 'Hardware Acceleration' slider all the way to the left or 'None'. Then click on OK until you are back to the main screen.

This should help with the getting rid of the helicopter noise. Its a good idea to leave it at this setting when working with audio recording. Reduces the workload on the CPU.

Bob
The Mandolin Picker

Most likely the soundcard doesn't have well written ASIO or WDM drivers. You cannot conclude that disabling hardware acceleration will help. In actuality that may make the problem worse as you are making the CPU work harder by taking over certain video operations.

ORIGINAL: brzilian

Most likely the soundcard doesn't have well written ASIO or WDM drivers. You cannot conclude that disabling hardware acceleration will help. In actuality that may make the problem worse as you are making the CPU work harder by taking over certain video operations.

While true that you should have the latest drivers, leaving the video acceleration set at maximum causes more interupts to be performed. This is harder on the CPU, as is anything that causes more interupts.

If you really want to tune a computer for recording, let me suggest several sources;

a. Tascam offers an excellent resource called Optimizing Windows 2000 & Windows XP for Audio. It is a pdf document. Performing the recommendations in there can make a big impact.

b. ProRec.com offers several articles on Tuning Windows 2000 for audio. Includes several of the things in the Tascam report, plus a couple of extras (Two articles)

c. MusicXP has a great 'checklist' for tuning XP (and most of it is applicable to W2K) for music.

These three sources should get your machine running about as best as you can hope for. There are other things you can do (such as shutting off Internet services, if your not using the same machine to connect ot the internet) that can help increase performance as well.

And don't forget things like how much RAM is installed, anything running in the background (like AV programs) etc will all impact on performance.

Hope this helps

Bob
The Mandolin Picker

Tascam's teak guide, while usefull, is outdated.

Most of the time, these tweaks are not needed if you are using the right hardware to begin with.

Cornbread,

You need to post your system specs to get an answer.

Sorry, here's what I have
Windows XP
Sound Blaster 4.1 digital
AMD Duron 1.1 gig processor
384 mb ram

Again, I can play the wave files created in Cakewalk anywhere else and they sound fine. I also discovered that if I play audio files from the Cakewalk tutorials I get the same noise.

thanks

ORIGINAL: cornbread

Sorry, here's what I have
Windows XP
Sound Blaster 4.1 digital
AMD Duron 1.1 gig processor
384 mb ram

Again, I can play the wave files created in Cakewalk anywhere else and they sound fine. I also discovered that if I play audio files from the Cakewalk tutorials I get the same noise.

thanks

Are you using the drivers that came with XP? You might want to try the kxproject drivers:

http://kxproject.lugosoft.com/index.php?skip=1

They were not written by Creative, but by a 3rd party independant developer. A word of warning - the Mixer that comes with those drivers is extremely confusing to use.

You might want to try the kxproject drivers...

In my case, those solved one problem, but created others. The "helicopter" showed up with kxproject when it hadn't been there before, and there was suddenly a huge amount of reverb that I couldn't track down or get rid of. (And you're right - the mixer is meant to look cool, not be easy to use.) I wound up un-installing it again (and the uninstall didn't work the first time, either).

Hello,

Got the same problem & haven't found a solution yet!

This is what I did to resolve the helicopter sound from the audit wave. 
  
In Sonar 8.5 make sure the Driver mode is set to MME. 
  
Options / Audio / Advanced / Playback and Recording / Driver Mode / MME (32-Bit) 
  
It worked for me I hope it works for you. 
 
If it does work for you send me an email because I’m always looking to record with people.  You owe me one!  Just Kidding! 
  
JP 
  
hdrive25@yahoo.com

this thread is over 6.5 years old!  these people are long gone!

At least the search function sort of works
I'm still having a hard time coming to grips with the idea of running Sonar 8.5 with MME, though.

Of course it is old . . . . .

However, someone forgot to post the solution.  Someone in the future will appreciate this.

Thanks,  JP

JP - no disrespect intended, but changing to MME driver mode is only a solution if you're using the onboard soundcard.  this is not the best solution at all if you're using a recording soundcard.