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Following is the text of a message I just sent to my four closest and most accomplished musician friends, all of whom are highly skilled with computers as well. It summarizes my experience since Thursday, May 10, through yesterday, Sunday, May 13. I am eminently open to suggestion. Quote:
Gentlemen,
I'm at the end of my rope on this. I'm about to put my DAW in the shop for resolution. Here's the deal.
Two soundcards (Roland/Edirol UA4-FX and Presonus AudioBox USB) have briefly produced beautiful sound before degenerating into horribly distorted sound completely unrecognizable as the source. Both cards definitely had Win 7 64-bit drivers. Both had the latest version of the driver. The Roland actually never produced anything but distortion. The Presonus degenerated. I uninstalled, reinstalled, and briefly had good sound before deteriorating again. I was never able to get any MIDI throughput through either card. Using the Onscreen Keyboard in Reason 6 produced the same distorted sound with several devices and patches.
I took the Presonus back to the store, where it tested as being in perfect working order. I then spent an hour with Microsoft Support via chat, to no avail. I will take my MIDI controller keyboard (M-Audio Keystation 49e, which was working before) to the same store to test it as well. I have messages in to Propellerhead, Presonus, and the MIDI school I was supposed to start today. I don't think the problem lies with any of them, but I am trying to cover every base. [I have also checked their forums and FAQs as well as Googling extensively.]
This is looking to me like a Windows issue. It has been suggested that it may somehow be a 32-bit vs. 64-bit issue, but I'm not sure how. The only thing that I can think of is that this version of Windows is only licensed for two processors, and I have four. But everything else works perfectly.
I am hoping that this will resonate with something in your collective experience. If so, or if you think of something I haven't covered, please let me know.
Win 7 Ultimate 64, Gigabyte Z68AP-D3, Intel i5 2500K 3.3 GHz quad CPU, 16 Gb RAM, Zotac GeForce GTX 560 2 Gb GPU.
Thanks,
Richard
"My primary musical instrument is the personal computer."
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Go to the gigabyte website, support, find your mobo and see if they have released a BIOS flash update for it. This may well be a mobo controller issue.
--Mac
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There are updates posted to the GigaByte site for that board for audio, USB and LAN drivers. All posted within the last 60 days.
Win11, Intel i7 7700K 4.2Ghz, 32Gb RAM, 2x1Tb HD, 500Gb NVMe, BIAB/RB 2025, MOTU 828MK3 audio, MOTU Midi Express, Yamaha Montage 7, DX7II, TX802, Motif XS Rack, Roland Fantom XR Rack, Oberheim Matrix 1000, VoiceLive3 Extreme, Kontakt 6, SampleTank 4.3
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Above my pay grade. Going to the shop.
"My primary musical instrument is the personal computer."
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Hi Richard.
Just trying to get my head round this one. Does this problem happen with all programs, or is it just with Reason? What happens if you play a wav file through Windows Media Player? Have you got both cards installed at the same time? How have you connected the Keystation 49e?
If you can post this info I might be able to suggest some things you could try.
ROG.
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Ryszard - Unless you actually have more than two processor sockets, you should be able to access (and be licensed for) all the cores on your computer. A quad core processors shows up as four processors (cores), but counts as a single socket. My reading of the Windows 7 Ultimate license is that it supports only up to two sockets (each of which can have any number of cores). I hope that made sense.
John Laptop-HP Omen I7 Win11Pro 32GB 8TB SSD Desktop-ASUS-I7 Win10Pro 32GB 11TB SATA BB2026/UMC204HD&404HD/Casios/Cakewalk/Reaper/Studio One/Notion/Dorico/Noteworthy/NI/Halion/IK http://www.sus4chord.com (under rehosting and construction)
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Quote:
Ryszard - Unless you actually have more than two processor sockets, you should be able to access (and be licensed for) all the cores on your computer. A quad core processors shows up as four processors (cores), but counts as a single socket. My reading of the Windows 7 Ultimate license is that it supports only up to two sockets (each of which can have any number of cores). I hope that made sense.
It does. Thank you.
"My primary musical instrument is the personal computer."
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Quote:
Hi Richard.
Just trying to get my head round this one. Does this problem happen with all programs, or is it just with Reason? What happens if you play a wav file through Windows Media Player? Have you got both cards installed at the same time? How have you connected the Keystation 49e?
If you can post this info I might be able to suggest some things you could try.
ROG.
I was in the midst of writing a reply when the power went out. I took the opportunity to take my keyboard to the music store to test it (it worked, as I thought it would) and the PC to the shop.
However, to answer the questions: Yes, the problem happens with Reason, Windows Media Player, and with streaming media. I was able to play MIDI files in BIAB 2009 through the Microsoft synth. I did not try to play any Real Tracks (didn't think to). I only ever had one card installed at a time. The keyboard can be connected by standard MIDI cable or by USB. I tried both. Neither worked. There is a virtual keyboard inside Reason that produced the same distorted audio as when I tried to play demo songs.
"My primary musical instrument is the personal computer."
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Quote:
There are updates posted to the GigaByte site for that board for audio, USB and LAN drivers. All posted within the last 60 days.
I think we have a winner.
Whether you install it yourself or you take it back to the shop and have it done, I recommend doing that as it may well solve your problems.
--Mac
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Richard.
From what you describe, the way I'd approach it is to first reduce the possible causes, to try to identify the problem. I'd uninstall both interfaces, get rid of all trace of the drivers and unplug the Keystation. Then I'd see if Media player will work with the on-board audio. If it does, it shows that the basic machine is working ok under Windows. If not, I'd reload the audio drivers. If it's still not working, at least you know it's not the interfaces or programs and can look at the GigaByte up-dates.
If you can get media player working, then try each of the audio programs with the on-board audio. If these work, connect the Keystation, which should be class-compliant, via USB and see if that works. If you can get it all to work with on-board audio, the problem is with the interfaces. You say the Presonus has been checked out, so the problem, in this case, could be a driver conflict.
I imagine you've possibly done some of this already, but I'm just thinking how I'd do it from scratch in the hope that something might help.
Good luck with it.
ROG.
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Richard,
How many USB devices to you have connected to the computer? It's really possible that you're exceeding the USB bandwidth limitations.
My $100US way to resolve this issue is to install an M-Audio 2496 card in one of the two available PCI slots. That will give you a stereo input and a stereo output, plus two channels of digital in and out, plus a MIDI connector for in and out. Drivers work with Win 7 64 (although they don't like Skype)
Gary
I'm blessed watching God do what He does best. I've had a few rough years, and I'm still not back to where I want to be, but I'm on the way and things are looking far better now than what they were!
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Here's the latest from the bench tech working on my PC: Quote:
We're still trying to isolate the source of the issue. I don't think it's going to be a software issue, it sounds/looks like it's electromagnetic interference being picked up from somewhere in the PC. I've tried a PCI sound card and the problem still showed up. I tried another Video card to eliminate yours as a potential source and the problem still happened. I've even disconnected the SSD and the HD from power the still got the hiss. I'm going to have to do a bit of research and see if it could be USB related.
Curiouser and curiouser.
"My primary musical instrument is the personal computer."
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Richard.
If I was a betting man (which I'm not) I'd be putting money on it being a faulty power supply at this stage.
ROG.
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I don't buy that tech's "electromagnetic interference" call. Not. At. All.
Ask if they've even *tried* to update the BIOS...
--Mac
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"My primary musical instrument is the personal computer."
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Just got off the phone with the technician, who has been working on my machine for two days. He was working through the onboard sound, not the USB sound card I sent with the PC. However, he plugged USB speakers directly into USB and heard massive static, something I had never noticed. Right now the thinking is defective mainboard.
The incredible news is that somehow the technician ran into the pro sound/recording guy at the music store where I bought the Presonus. They got to talking and realized they were both dealing with me. Now we're all on the same page. The technician knows for certain that the Presonus works. because I took it back to the store and had it checked out. He also understands my mission--recording and mixing music--and says that he'll try to have it ready today, assuming they can find another mainboard. (I know there's one at their store across town, but not where my PC is.)
Onward through the fog.
"My primary musical instrument is the personal computer."
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It's not the system board; they swapped it out for a substantially better one with no change in the noise coming through the USB bus. They also subbed the RAM and the power supply, also with no change. That leaves the CPU and the liquid cooling system. The technician spent three hours with it today but he's off tomorrow, so yet a third person will be fooling with it . . .
"My primary musical instrument is the personal computer."
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Did they try updating the BIOS? .........
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Probably not. But they tried a new and different model system board, so that could hardly be it, could it? I have, however, sent them a note to that effect.
"My primary musical instrument is the personal computer."
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Here's my suggestion. Hook the Presonus up to something else that has nothing to do with your computer and see if you get the noise you're talking about. If not, then hook up those USB speakers your tech was working with, and see if they have the same massive static that your system shows. If not, that's good. Then it's somewhere in your system.
Since the mainboard, PSU, video card, etc have all been replaced, pull the SSD out and and boot to Linux and see if it still manifests itself. If it does, pull the hard drive cables so there's no power or data going to the hard drive.
I doubt very much if it's the CPU, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was the SSD drive. By the way, any tech that spends two days on this is either working on a whole lot of other stuff, or doesn't know what he's doing. It should not be that difficult to track down by process of elimination where the noise is coming from.
Gary
I'm blessed watching God do what He does best. I've had a few rough years, and I'm still not back to where I want to be, but I'm on the way and things are looking far better now than what they were!
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