Latency and Hissing/crackling

jdhchang · 01-05-2005, 01:35 AM

Hi!

Thanks again for a great program. I seem to be experiencing a great deal of latency and hissing/crackling sound when playing guitar. Interestingly, when I dont have any effect installed, there is no crackling. But as soon as I put on one, it starts crackling. I am using ASIO Guitar Port since directly plugging the guitar into the soundcard produces really low volume. I'm not sure what the problem is. Any help would be great. BTW I have a pretty decent 1.5 ghz athlon system, but am using the built in sound card on the mother board. could this be a problem?

nemba · 01-05-2005, 02:41 AM

Both problems are probably related to the fact you are using the onboard sound of your mobo. To reduce latency you need an at least decent quality soundcard (you could get a fine one for maybe $60 NZ, I'm not sure what that translates to in USD but it's likely quite a bit less) with support for ASIO (Audio Stream I/O) which is a low-latency sound protocol specified by Steinberg, and a plain higher quality processing unit on the soundcard will help with the crackling.

Basically the processor on the built in soundcard is not fast enough and has to sacrifice a lot of quality to try and keep it realtime. It is possible to have it sound perfect but have the latency up to about 500ms on most cards, obviously you don't want half a second delay though.

What is an ASIO port? I'm curious because as far as I knew ASIO was only a protocol and is used with plain line or mic-in, or any other sound source.

root02 · 01-05-2005, 06:38 AM

You're using something like the Line6 Guitar port, right?

Try increasing the number and/or size of the buffers, that should help eliminate crackling.

[root@your.box /]# logoff

jdhchang · 01-05-2005, 08:37 AM

You are right, I got the Guitar Port from Line6. I tried increasing the ASIO buffer to maximum. The crackling sound still appears. Also, when I use the Guitar Port program, every 10 seconds or so there is a loud "chirp." Very annoying. I'm using a Dell Latitude C640, which I think is a Pentium 4 1.6 ghz with 1 gig of memory. I have an onboard sound card.

alex_n · 01-05-2005, 09:08 AM

This sounds like RF static. This is generated by your mobo, HD/CD, whatever. They tend to leak a bit and your built in card absorbs pretty well, it seems. I recommend using a PCI soundcard, you'll get less static (though some hiss is always present). Another thing I noticed is that using better instrument cables can help a lot (I favor Whirlwind cables, they're thick and sturdy).

jdhchang · 01-05-2005, 09:27 AM

Thanks! I'll try it.

root02 · 01-05-2005, 09:33 AM

Hrm..
Only thing else I can suggest is that (other than RF interference like alex_n said, laptop sound cards are notorious for that) either something running in the background is stealing precious CPU time from Jesusonic.
..hhhmmmm..

The Line6 software chirps as well? Do any other media players chirp while playing music?

I had a laptop that for no reason whatsoever would make little clicks and chirps every 10~15 seconds or so when it was running Win2K. Under Win98, WinXP, and Linux, the sound was fine. Odd thing was, it did that for both the internal sound card and the SB Extigy I had as well.

I would recommend getting an external sound card for it, that should help with the hissing, and maybe look to see if Dell has any updated sound drivers for your laptop.

[root@your.box /]# logoff

yellojester · 01-05-2005, 09:41 AM

I have had similar chirping problems and I tracked it down to my antivirus auto-update features.

jdhchang · 01-05-2005, 03:58 PM

Wow, thanks for some very interesting options. I did not know there was such thing as an external sound card. Also, I do have an antivirus program, so I'll try that option first. You guys are all very helpful. Thanks again!

Goner · 01-07-2005, 02:42 PM

Maybe you have spyware attempting to pop up windows and the chirp is a popup blocker blocking them (google toolbar has a blocker, etc.)

Download and run a full spyware scan with Spybot Search and Destroy ( http://security.kolla.de ) and you might solve the problem if my theory holds water..

johanatan · 01-07-2005, 07:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Goner

Maybe you have spyware attempting to pop up windows and the chirp is a popup blocker blocking them (google toolbar has a blocker, etc.)

Download and run a full spyware scan with Spybot Search and Destroy ( http://security.kolla.de ) and you might solve the problem if my theory holds water..

You might also want to try Microsoft Antispyware.