Re: Snap, Crackle, Pop - VST Effect & Sound Card Problems

["Krispen Hartung" <khartung@cableone.net>]

----- Original Message ----- 
> It doesn't feel like this is your problem but while we're on the
subject I've been having a much worse time with spyware and malware
lately than I have with viruses.  Virus scanners don't often catch
these since they're not technically viruses.  The best malware scanner
I've used so far is Spyware Doctor from PC Tools.  You really need
both a virus scanner and malware scanner right now, though I expect to
see some convergence in the future.  Spyware can easily bring your
system to its knees and there are some clever "rootkit" techniques
they use to hide themselves.

Good point. My notebook is so new that I'm not infested yet. Plus, I just 
made a decision to not use my music notebook to surf the web. I only use 
it 
to download drivers from manufactures, etc.  I used to use a program 
called 
SE Adware, which was decent.

> Clicking/popping that coincides with modulation sounds like digital
clipping caused by gain added by the effect.  This might also explain
why sound generating plugins don't exhibit the same problem.  Is the
input signal from the Echo unusually hot?  Can you back it down a bit
in a software mixer?

I monitor my input level, and it is very low....so I ruled that out.  I 
keep 
racking my brain that my entire sytem worked perfectly until I installed 
Audigy 2. All my settings are the same....at least those that I can 
controll. I'm searching for that hidden setting that change samplerate to 
48. I've checked everywhere - registry, control panel, system, apps, etc.

> Assuming gain staging is correct, clicking is almost always caused by
a missed audio interrupt and the causes are either that the
application is too slow to respond to the driver or that the driver is
too slow to respond to the hardware due to some conflict.  Reinstalling
the OS should fix both, but won't indicate which of the two it was.

Uggg....I am dreading having to reinstall the OS..cripes, a brand new 
notebook. I hate doing that.

> I occasionally get mysterious clicks from my older PCI sound card,
these seem to be solved by rebooting and running a "calibrate converter"
utility in the driver's control panel.

I can't seem to find anything to perform this in my system and drivers.

Kris