OK Dan, here is the recording settings. These were default as I never changed them. But keep in mind, the problem I'm having is with playback, not recording. Nonetheless, it was good to verify everything is at 44.1 kHz as you said.
https://soundcloud.com/user-646279677 BiaB 2025 Windows For me there’s no better place in the band than to have one leg in the harmony world and the other in the percussive. Thank you Paul Tutmarc and Leo Fender.
My advice, if it holds steady, ignore everything else until IF it starts acting up again.
Agreed. I wonder if there is an easy to read reference manual for those of us new to the technical aspects of playback and recording of music on Windows PCs.
My approach to date is keep the default settings until they prove troublesome. Then make the minimum changes necessary to keep your system going. And if it ain't broke . . . don't fix it unless you really know what you're doing.
The funny thing here is that in my old i5 machine, I just plugged and played and for the most part it all worked.
If the "USB swapping" idea works longterm there must be a slight difference between the 2 ports despite the fact that Dell says they are identical. They're both USB 3.2 Gen 1
PS> Just heard a tiny glitch. If it doesn't get worse I can live with it.
https://soundcloud.com/user-646279677 BiaB 2025 Windows For me there’s no better place in the band than to have one leg in the harmony world and the other in the percussive. Thank you Paul Tutmarc and Leo Fender.
"there must be a slight difference between the 2 ports" There might be HUGE difference in how they are routed, different chips, etc.
"I wonder if there is an easy to read reference manual for those of us new to the technical aspects of playback and recording of music on Windows PCs."
There was a guide, if I remember correctly from Sweetwater, that had all kinds of tweaks for audio computers. But I would not touch anything if it is working right Your computer seems to be a power horse, I don't think it needs any deep tweaking besides "High Performance" that you already have set.
About your audio "glitches", try to narrow it down to physical things. Original cable? Properly grounded AC outlet? Believe it or not, in college we lived in old house with crappy outlets, I would get all kind of noises in my recordings. Then I would move to USB settings that I mentioned in advanced power settings. Try maybe yet another port.
-------- Truth be told. I was a big fan of Tascam... with their US-122 about 20 years back. But when time came to upgrade, nothing was right. Crackle pop thing. So I gave up and switched to more reliable interface.
Then I would move to USB settings that I mentioned in advanced power settings. Try maybe yet another port.
-------- Truth be told. I was a big fan of Tascam... with their US-122 about 20 years back. But when time came to upgrade, nothing was right. Crackle pop thing. So I gave up and switched to more reliable interface.
OK, I finally found that setting. Wow, it's buried down pretty deep.
It was set to Enabled so I changed it to Disabled.
My audio is playing fine with this change but it will take some time to tell if it is a permenant fix.
Thanks, man, you are knowledgable in this area.
I wonder if Dell can remotely run a test on my USB ports. Not ever thinking about this before it seems to me that there are several attributes associated with every USB circuit. What is the power level? How clean is that power? What is the data transfer rate? How much jitter is on the data stream? etc.
EDIT: There is crackle and stuttering. No worse than yesterday but it's still bad. Of course we haven't ruled out the JBLs . . . but they are less than 2 years old.
Last edited by Bass Thumper; 04/15/2303:57 PM.
https://soundcloud.com/user-646279677 BiaB 2025 Windows For me there’s no better place in the band than to have one leg in the harmony world and the other in the percussive. Thank you Paul Tutmarc and Leo Fender.
#1 restart your machine, see if if issues go away.
stuttering is unlikely to do with speakers. You can try headphones to rule it out.
One simple thing to try is put your computer is "Airplane mode" (disable network adapter) and see if you get issues. WiFi and Bluetooth sometimes do not play well with audio recording / gear.
Also... There is a popular (and free) piece of software called latencymon (Latency monitor). While it has all kinds of parameters, it will give you a general idea of the most intruding processes. Two of the most common ones are Nvidea drivers and WIFI adapter (cant do much about these), but there might be some software crapware that came with your computer that is persistent enough to cause audio issues.
"I wonder if Dell can remotely run a test on my USB ports." - Don't waste your time. It's a very narrow issue. I doubt Dell people will be able to help with 3rd party hardware.
#1 restart your machine, see if if issues go away.
stuttering is unlikely to do with speakers. You can try headphones to rule it out.
One simple thing to try is put your computer is "Airplane mode" (disable network adapter) and see if you get issues. WiFi and Bluetooth sometimes do not play well with audio recording / gear.
Also... There is a popular (and free) piece of software called latencymon (Latency monitor). While it has all kinds of parameters, it will give you a general idea of the most intruding processes. Two of the most common ones are Nvidea drivers and WIFI adapter (cant do much about these), but there might be some software crapware that came with your computer that is persistent enough to cause audio issues.
"I wonder if Dell can remotely run a test on my USB ports." - Don't waste your time. It's a very narrow issue. I doubt Dell people will be able to help with 3rd party hardware.
Rusty, you are a literal fountain of ideas. Regarding machine restarts, I have been doing them on a semi-regular basis during this troubleshooting effort.
Yeah, my "JBL" thought was not my best. I agree it's a long shot.
I put my machine in Airplane Mode and switched the Tascam from a USB 3.2 Gen 1 port to a USB 2.0 with Smart Power port, returned my buffer size back to the default 256 samples, did a re-start, played a song in Studio One and with fingers crossed after one play thru the glitch happened.
My thinking on the USB port is that the 3.2 standard is newer than the Tascam and hence may not be fully compatible. But, no dice. But I wonder if the USB 2.0 with Smart Power is still too advanced for my "ancient" interface. This will be a question for Tascam if I can reach someone on Monday. Maybe it needs dumb power. And I understand that USB 4.0 is coming.
I'm going to hold off installing any more 3rd party software. Dell contacted me and wants to talk again. They are willing to supply me with a new machine but I think that is premature. I think there is still more troubleshooting for them, Tascam and me to do. I don't want to recieve another machine and still have this problem.
I'm beginning to think about the Realtek sound card.
https://soundcloud.com/user-646279677 BiaB 2025 Windows For me there’s no better place in the band than to have one leg in the harmony world and the other in the percussive. Thank you Paul Tutmarc and Leo Fender.
It's a long thread, but have you eliminated a bad USB cable? Intermittent USB issues can cause all of the symptoms mentioned. I had this issue when I first got my 18i20, and it was because I used an inferior cable.
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome Make your sound your own!
'USB port is that the 3.2 standard is newer than the Tascam and hence may not be fully compatible." Highly unlikely.
You can press Alt+Ctl+Del, open task manager> Performance and just see if graph "spikes" when glitch happens.
I have seen strange behavior when interface older driver is being updated by a newer driver. The solution I found was to remove the driver all together and install fresh, going with the newest. Sometimes a "factory reset" of the interface (if there is one) solves issues.
If Marty is close by, you can try bribing him with a beer or a cake and ask him to bring his interface, that way you will have a better idea if it's the computer or interface issue.
It's a long thread, but have you eliminated a bad USB cable? Intermittent USB issues can cause all of the symptoms mentioned. I had this issue when I first got my 18i20, and it was because I used an inferior cable.
Yes, this is a long thread. Intermittent problems are often complex. Good idea, I have not elimitated a bad USB cable, although the cable worked fine in my older machine.
It's a USB Type B and I can cannabilize one from my printer to see if that makes a difference.
Thanks for the idea.
https://soundcloud.com/user-646279677 BiaB 2025 Windows For me there’s no better place in the band than to have one leg in the harmony world and the other in the percussive. Thank you Paul Tutmarc and Leo Fender.
FWIW - I had a similar Intermittent Crackle and Noise problem with my music computer a year ago. I did a ton of investigations, gave up and took it to a computer store. They had it for three weeks looking for the problem. Finally they happened to stumble on it. While they were testing it the problem happened. It turned out to be an intermittent problem with the power supply. They said that just happened to me at the right place at the right time.
Just thought that I would pass this on.
Intermittent problems, especially those that happen far apart from each other, at very hard to pin point.
PS - they said that every time they tested the power supply all was well.
It takes courage for a man to admit his wife was wrong.
64 bit Win 10 Pro, the latest BiaB/RB, Roland Octa-Capture audio interface, a ton of software/hardware
'USB port is that the 3.2 standard is newer than the Tascam and hence may not be fully compatible." Highly unlikely.
You can press Alt+Ctl+Del, open task manager> Performance and just see if graph "spikes" when glitch happens.
I have seen strange behavior when interface older driver is being updated by a newer driver. The solution I found was to remove the driver all together and install fresh, going with the newest. Sometimes a "factory reset" of the interface (if there is one) solves issues.
If Marty is close by, you can try bribing him with a beer or a cake and ask him to bring his interface, that way you will have a better idea if it's the computer or interface issue.
More good ideas. I don't see a factory reset on the interface but I can do a Ctrl-Alt-Del and look for spikes with my printer USB cable.
I had an idea on my treadmill this morning. Bypass USB, JBL, XLR and Tascam altogether and use headphones directly. So for the last hour or so that's what I've done. And so far no glitch. With each glitch-free song I'm slowly exonerating the sound card.
One thing is sure . . . there is a root cause(s) at play.
https://soundcloud.com/user-646279677 BiaB 2025 Windows For me there’s no better place in the band than to have one leg in the harmony world and the other in the percussive. Thank you Paul Tutmarc and Leo Fender.
FWIW - I had a similar Intermittent Crackle and Noise problem with my music computer a year ago. I did a ton of investigations, gave up and took it to a computer store. They had it for three weeks looking for the problem. Finally they happened to stumble on it. While they were testing it the problem happened. It turned out to be an intermittent problem with the power supply. They said that just happened to me at the right place at the right time.
Just thought that I would pass this on.
Intermittent problems, especially those that happen far apart from each other, at very hard to pin point.
PS - they said that every time they tested the power supply all was well.
Thanks for joining "the party" Mario
It very well could be the power supply but so far my "headphone test" is showing no glitches which is exonerating the PS. If this good behaivor continues I think the problem is with either the USB cable, the USB ports, the Tascam or possibly the XLR cables or the JBLs or incompatibility somewhere. I know, the list is long.
Of course as a semi-last resort, I could re-connect my i5 computer and verify that that configuration still works fine. My i5 setup worked perfect last month.
https://soundcloud.com/user-646279677 BiaB 2025 Windows For me there’s no better place in the band than to have one leg in the harmony world and the other in the percussive. Thank you Paul Tutmarc and Leo Fender.
I just read this thread and made notes as I was reading. Almost everything in my notes has already been suggested, but here's my list:
Run Latency Monitor or DPC Latency Checker Switch left and right monitors Lubricate cable ends with DeOxit Switch out cables one by one to rule out bad cables (since you just moved and reconnected them all) USB cable not longer than 15' Sound settings in Windows: make sure it is 44.1 and 16 bit Check power supply Sample rates must match in the Windows Audio settings New computer = new OS, new crapware? Run Tascam in USB 2 port, not 3
Preliminary Conclusions based on progress so far: Do the simple checks for bad connections, above, and lubricate all cable ends. Tell us what happens in the latency checking software 128 is too low a buffer for PLAYBACK on most machines! You can use it for recording, but bump it up to 256 or 512 for playback.
BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Slate VSX, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
I just read this thread and made notes as I was reading. Almost everything in my notes has already been suggested, but here's my list:
Run Latency Monitor or DPC Latency Checker Switch left and right monitors Lubricate cable ends with DeOxit Switch out cables one by one to rule out bad cables (since you just moved and reconnected them all) USB cable not longer than 15' Sound settings in Windows: make sure it is 44.1 and 16 bit Check power supply Sample rates must match in the Windows Audio settings New computer = new OS, new crapware? Run Tascam in USB 2 port, not 3
Preliminary Conclusions based on progress so far: Do the simple checks for bad connections, above, and lubricate all cable ends. Tell us what happens in the latency checking software 128 is too low a buffer for PLAYBACK on most machines! You can use it for recording, but bump it up to 256 or 512 for playback.
Thanks Matt, I haven't had a chance to address or even capture in the Exoneration Table all of yours and others suggestions. With all the input it's been like drinking from a fire hose (which is a good thing). But the table below tries to capture the progress made over the past few days. If nothing else, this thread (and the embedded thinking in it) may be of use to others in the future.
As always, comments about this table are always welcome.
https://soundcloud.com/user-646279677 BiaB 2025 Windows For me there’s no better place in the band than to have one leg in the harmony world and the other in the percussive. Thank you Paul Tutmarc and Leo Fender.
are any of your cables crossing or too close? i get an intermittent buzz when my speaker cables get close to the router ppower cables
Good suggestion Bob. The short answer is yes. My "studio" is small and I've got cables wire-tied in neat bundles. I'm relying on the insulation that is designed into the cables for shielding. Absent a special shielding of some kind I see no remedy to this.
Plus, I had no audio glitches with my "old" i5 setup and the cable layout hasn't changed.
https://soundcloud.com/user-646279677 BiaB 2025 Windows For me there’s no better place in the band than to have one leg in the harmony world and the other in the percussive. Thank you Paul Tutmarc and Leo Fender.
It's a USB Type B and I can cannabilize one from my printer to see if that makes a difference.
FWIW, that's how I got into trouble in the first place; trying to use an old cable I had laying around .. a new (quality) 15' USB cable solved all my issues. I told my best friend to do the same when he upgraded his interface .. get a new quality USB cable at the same time.
Focusrite (for all their good points) only includes a 3' USB cable .. that worked great, but I needed the interface further away and other old cables I had handy introduced the dreaded pops and distortion. A new cable made my nightmare go away.
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome Make your sound your own!
That is very odd. So no funny stuff in headphones connected to Tascam? Sure, sure?
Best move now would be to test it with i5 machine. If there are no issues, you will eliminate Tascam unit (cable and power supply) out of equation in finding the boogie man. ---------------------------
Something that might relate to you (or might not) . Last time I fought similar issues was because of Nvidea chipset. I have Thinkpad (Lenovo) and they, as Dell are pretty good in maintaining drivers, BUT that specific driver was not up to date on their site. Once I updated that specific driver, things became much more stable. So check if you have Nvidea or other graphics card.
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Your computer seems to be a power horse, I don't think it needs any deep tweaking besides "High Performance" that you already have set.
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