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Old 04-27-2009, 10:40 PM   #1
Bezmotivnik
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Default OK, What Am I Doing Wrong?

Test audio track:

Guitar is plugged into Inst In on my front end. I'm listening through the studio monitors. I bring up an audio track in reaper, enable record and record a track. Level is fine according to the track indicator. No FX, no nothing, just the direct input. While I'm recording, it sounds OK.

I stop, "rewind" and play the track back and it sounds like it was recorded on a cassette. Presence and clarity are gone, just that old muffled analog tape sound.

It's just that simple.

WHAT can I be doing wrong?

Thanks for any tips. I don't recall this happening when I was fooling around with Cubase, so it must be a setting problem.
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Old 04-28-2009, 02:15 AM   #2
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What format you are recording. 22 kHz 8 bit?!?
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Old 04-28-2009, 11:32 AM   #3
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What format you are recording. 22 kHz 8 bit?!?
That's about what it sounds like, but I don't think so.
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Old 04-28-2009, 11:55 AM   #4
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Dude - that's weird. Has this happened before, or is this a new occurence?
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Old 04-28-2009, 12:56 PM   #5
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Dude - that's weird. Has this happened before, or is this a new occurence?
It's always been like this with Reaper, but I'm just starting. I've done nothing but a few test tracks.

I may have something set wrong, but I don't know what it would be.
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Old 04-28-2009, 12:59 PM   #6
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Hmmm. Are you using an ASIO sound device - can you post the specs for your machine (mobo, ram, drives and cache sizes, etc.), your sound card / interface and your audio settings?

Sounds like there is a buffering issue.
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Old 04-29-2009, 09:32 PM   #7
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Hmmm. Are you using an ASIO sound device - can you post the specs for your machine (mobo, ram, drives and cache sizes, etc.), your sound card / interface and your audio settings?
It's a new Phenom triple-core box w/4G of RAM in XPSP3. The interface is the SeaSound and I'm using ASIO4ALL, which is supposedly the best option for this device.

In that there is ONLY the single audio test track involved, I don't think the drives or the caches would much matter yet.

It would appear that I am set up to record at 44.1/24

ASIO4ALL says 9.6-96kHz 32b and ASIO buffer size 128 samples

Quote:
Sounds like there is a buffering issue.
I dunno. I'm completely nonplussed. I tried for a while today with not much better luck.

1: I'm not sure what I'm monitoring when I'm recording, the raw analog in or the digital out to Reaper, or how I would tell, or if this makes any difference.

2: The fader in the Reaper track seems to do little, if anything, as though the track has some automatic level feature. I'd like to record at a higher input, but it seems limited somehow. Maybe it is (so why the fader?).

Very confused and frustrated!
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Old 04-29-2009, 10:02 PM   #8
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This happened to me before, but I'm not sure if its the same thing. The guitar was a semi hollowbody. We were like "where the hell did all the high end and percussive sparkles go???"

Moving the guitar and player into another room answered just what was going on, the acoustic sound from the guitar in the room had been fooling us
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Old 04-29-2009, 10:26 PM   #9
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Moving the guitar and player into another room answered just what was going on, the acoustic sound from the guitar in the room had been fooling us
Doing my best to keep from outsmarting myself, I'm running a cable straight from a solidbody electric guitar into the interface. Eliminate unnecessary variables.

Still can't understand why there's the difference in perceived sound quality between the recording and the playback. This is digital, so it should sound pretty close, right? I have pretty serious hearing problems, so it must be really egregious if it sounds this bad to me.

I'm thinking that difference in record/playback audio level may also have something to do with this as well.

Anyway, exhausted and discouraged for today, I'm going to install a couple of other recording programs tomorrow and see if they evince the same symptoms as I'm encountering under Reaper.
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Old 04-29-2009, 10:34 PM   #10
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I usually monitor thru the DAW, so that I wont have any surprises from the converters themselves. If that's what you are doing and its still different then thats some weird stuff going on
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Old 04-29-2009, 10:49 PM   #11
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Quote:
Originally Posted by pipelineaudio View Post
Moving the guitar and player into another room answered just what was going on, the acoustic sound from the guitar in the room had been fooling us
That'll be it - get someone else to 'play' it for you in another room.
Sounds to me like you have no 'Hi Z' input but you can hear all the Highs from the strings when recording....
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Old 04-29-2009, 11:20 PM   #12
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Quote:
Originally Posted by pipelineaudio View Post
I usually monitor thru the DAW, so that I wont have any surprises from the converters themselves.
How do I make certain that's what I'm doing in Reaper? That's what I've been thinking might be the problem all along.

I've looked, but I didn't find how to set this anywhere yet.
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Old 04-30-2009, 11:23 AM   #13
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Turn the monitor button on the guitar track in reaper to off. If you still hear anything amplified you have a Y-cable somewhere, whether analog or digital
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Old 04-30-2009, 11:29 AM   #14
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What Pipe said, plus - try to change the buffer size you're running at - maybe go up a little and see if it still happens?
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Old 04-30-2009, 12:42 PM   #15
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Quote:
Originally Posted by pipelineaudio View Post
Turn the monitor button on the guitar track in reaper to off.
You mean the "record monitoring off" or the "Mute" button, or do they amount to the same thing?
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If you still hear anything amplified you have a Y-cable somewhere, whether analog or digital
I'm unclear on this -- is this setting in my hardware interface or in Reaper? What controls what source is being monitored?

Is it the "monitor track media when recording" option in "IN"?

If it's in my interface, the problem is that due to using somewhat limited third-party XP drivers written after Oberheim went bankrupt on this project, there isn't a lot of flexibility in what I can do with that.

Last edited by Bezmotivnik; 04-30-2009 at 12:47 PM.
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Old 04-30-2009, 12:52 PM   #16
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris_P_Critter View Post
try to change the buffer size you're running at - maybe go up a little and see if it still happens?
Buffer size in which settings?

Thanks.
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Old 04-30-2009, 01:08 PM   #17
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Bezmotivnik View Post
Buffer size in which settings?

Thanks.
I haven't used ASIO4ALL, so not certain exactly, but you should be able to go into Reapers preferences, get to the hardware and open the drivers settings from there.

Hopefully someone more familiar can help you locate for certain. Maybe Pipe knows?
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Old 04-30-2009, 01:14 PM   #18
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this one



Set it to off and if you still hear anything electronic while you are playing, we need to figure it out
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Old 04-30-2009, 01:39 PM   #19
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Believe it or not, I'm actually getting a lot of direct and indirect education out of this thread, and I think that my problem is actually a combination of things mentioned here.

I'm going to try the remaining suggestions in the studio later.

So, I should try increasing the "number of samples" setting in ASIO4ALL upward from 128, is that correct?

Many thanks for the help so far! I've made substantial useful discoveries.
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Old 05-01-2009, 05:48 PM   #20
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Many thanks for the help so far! I've made substantial useful discoveries.
I haven't forgotten you!

I just got new dual flatscreens today and am going to be doing a bit of remodeling in the studio later.

Will get back to this problem after the dust has settled this weekend.

Again, thanks to all who are helping me get started!
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Old 05-01-2009, 06:19 PM   #21
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Does your interface have a monitor mix knob? If this is turned up, you are hearing yourself directly (rather than through reaper). This could account for the differing sound, though I wouldn't expect it to be vastly different.
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