[Captain Nemo]

About 10 years ago I recorded a friend playing a church organ onto a
Panasonic SV-3800 DAT machine. In order to edit the recordings I
transferred them digitally to my PC - a Pentium 166 running Windows 95 -
using a Zephiro soundcard and CoolEdit96. The transfer went quite smoothly
and I subsequently transferred the edited recordings back onto the DAT
machine. Unfortunately, I didn't keep the .WAV files so I recently tried
transferring the edited recordings to my laptop, so I could burn a CD.

This is a model I bought from Red Submarine, purely for music work. It
boasts a Pentium 4 (2.0 GHz) processor and 512 MB RAM. I'm running Windows
98 SE and have tweaked the system in various ways, including:

Set Virtual Memory to a fixed 1.5 GB
Set vcache to a fixed 32768K
System.ini:
[386Enh]
ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1
MinTimeSlice=15
DMABufferSize=64
PageBuffers=32
Set File Management System to "Network Server"

I have ruthlessly cut out any unnecessary processes. I don't use Anti-Virus
protection on this particular computer because I never use it to connect to
the Internet. When I type Ctl-Alt-Delete, the task list contains only two
items: Explorer and Systray.

So I was totally gobsmacked when I found that after transferring the files
using Audacity there were quite a few 'glitches' sprinkled throughout the
recordings. (NB. When I say 'glitch' I mean strange clicks that suggest a
few samples were missed.) I subsequently repeated the experiment, first
using CoolEdit96 and then using Cubase, both of which worked fine.

I still think Audacity is a fine editing tool, but from now on I'm going to
use Cubase for any direct-to-disk recording to be on the safe side (pity
CoolEdit96 doesn't record 24-bit!).

Can anyone suggest what might be the problem?

[Mike Rivers]

Captain Nemo wrote:

So I was totally gobsmacked when I found that after transferring the files
using Audacity there were quite a few 'glitches' sprinkled throughout the
recordings. (NB. When I say 'glitch' I mean strange clicks that suggest a
few samples were missed.) I subsequently repeated the experiment, first
using CoolEdit96 and then using Cubase, both of which worked fine.

If I followed this soap opera correctly (Chev-doo will correct me if my
reading comprehension is not up to par, but won't correct you for not
being very clear in describing your transfer process) you used Audacity
to record the playback from a DAT. Is that correct? How did you connect
the DAT to the computer? Was this again through your Zefiro card?

I suspect that the clicks were caused simply by dropouts in the DAT
playback, and that the reason why you had a successful transfer on the
second pass using other programs is that the DAT played better after a
little exercise. Were you able to repeat the failure recording another
pass with Audacity? I don't think there's a specific problem with
Audacity.

[Getting Older and Grumpier Gear Minion]

Captain Nemo wrote:
About 10 years ago I recorded a friend playing a church organ onto a
Panasonic SV-3800 DAT machine. In order to edit the recordings I
transferred them digitally to my PC - a Pentium 166 running Windows 95 -
using a Zephiro soundcard and CoolEdit96. The transfer went quite smoothly
and I subsequently transferred the edited recordings back onto the DAT
machine. Unfortunately, I didn't keep the .WAV files so I recently tried
transferring the edited recordings to my laptop, so I could burn a CD.

This is a model I bought from Red Submarine, purely for music work. It
boasts a Pentium 4 (2.0 GHz) processor and 512 MB RAM. I'm running Windows
98 SE and have tweaked the system in various ways, including:

Set Virtual Memory to a fixed 1.5 GB
Set vcache to a fixed 32768K
System.ini:
[386Enh]
ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1
MinTimeSlice=15
DMABufferSize=64
PageBuffers=32
Set File Management System to "Network Server"

I have ruthlessly cut out any unnecessary processes. I don't use Anti-Virus
protection on this particular computer because I never use it to connect to
the Internet. When I type Ctl-Alt-Delete, the task list contains only two
items: Explorer and Systray.

So I was totally gobsmacked when I found that after transferring the files
using Audacity there were quite a few 'glitches' sprinkled throughout the
recordings. (NB. When I say 'glitch' I mean strange clicks that suggest a
few samples were missed.) I subsequently repeated the experiment, first
using CoolEdit96 and then using Cubase, both of which worked fine.

I still think Audacity is a fine editing tool, but from now on I'm going to
use Cubase for any direct-to-disk recording to be on the safe side (pity
CoolEdit96 doesn't record 24-bit!).

Can anyone suggest what might be the problem?
Have you tried recording again in Audacity to see if there
are glitches in the tracks in the same locations?
Are you hitting the digital ceiling, sometimes sound card settings
get changed?
I've done some small project tracks, less than 30 min. per
movement and haven't noticed clicks on the CD's.
CD's are burned on another machine, though, my laptops
burner makes a rather nice coaster consistantly :-)
I gave up trying to figure out what glitched it.
I have a 60 gig USB drive to shuffle data back and forth.
I have a Tascam DA-20 and a Fostex DAT and sometimes
tapes will have dropouts when played on the other machine,
but be fine on the original recording host. Go figure.
Maybe run an analog tape or MD in parallel with your recording
to see if it's a transfer issue.
I'm running Win2000 and a bunch of misc programs, not a
totally dedicated recording kit, so I can't help with the
software conflict question, which version of Audacity do you have?
I had to load the Beta version to get some features in the other to
function right. Both seem to be able to co-exist on my machine
so far with out melt down.
Good luck!

[Julian]

On Mon, 07 Aug 2006 10:11:46 GMT, "Captain Nemo"
wrote:


I still think Audacity is a fine editing tool, but from now on I'm going to
use Cubase for any direct-to-disk recording to be on the safe side (pity
CoolEdit96 doesn't record 24-bit!).

Audacity does record 24 bit? Good to know.

Julian

[Geoff]

Captain Nemo wrote:

I still think Audacity is a fine editing tool, but from now on I'm
going to use Cubase for any direct-to-disk recording to be on the
safe side (pity CoolEdit96 doesn't record 24-bit!).

A fine editing tools ? It may be function, but 'fine' is a bit of a
stretch...

HAve you tried another recording app to localise the glitches to Audacity,
your Windows, or you machine ?

Could be an interrupt clash or driver problem, especially considering the
disparity in vintage between your modo and OS.

geoff

[Captain Nemo]

Well, somehow or other I've stumbled on the solution: you have to disable
write-behind disk caching. On Win98 this is a global setting but apparently
on XP it can be done on a per-drive basis (although it's considered not as
important as giving background processes priority).

(See www.pcmus.com/TweakXP.htm and www.pcmus.com/optimise98.htm )

The fact that Cubase works quite happily (on Win98) without this 'tweak'
suggests to me that the good people at Steinberg are well aware of this
problem and have taken appropriate steps in their programming to counter it.
The bottom line is: I think I'm going to stick with Cubase for recording.

[Laurence Payne]

On Sun, 13 Aug 2006 17:50:03 GMT, "Captain Nemo"
wrote:

Well, somehow or other I've stumbled on the solution: you have to disable
write-behind disk caching. On Win98 this is a global setting but apparently
on XP it can be done on a per-drive basis (although it's considered not as
important as giving background processes priority).

(See www.pcmus.com/TweakXP.htm and www.pcmus.com/optimise98.htm )

The fact that Cubase works quite happily (on Win98) without this 'tweak'
suggests to me that the good people at Steinberg are well aware of this
problem and have taken appropriate steps in their programming to counter it.
The bottom line is: I think I'm going to stick with Cubase for recording.

Or, now you know the setup required, use a cheaper program. Why not?