Intermittent static... like confetti?

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

I have a very simple set-up for recording long-form voice-overs/book narrations.

Single condensor mic to pre-amp to analog-to-digital conversion to recording software to hard drive.

Everything is a bit "middle grade stuff". I have been doing this off and on for several years. Recently I have become very conscious of little clicks in the audio now and then. Not steady. Intermittent. Random. I have just begun to focus on this so I haven't nailed-down the pattern yet. Little single-hertz spikes. It's like someone walked into my closet one night with a bit less than a half-a-handful of confetti and scattered it. Now and then when I get dressed, maybe two flackes of confetti here. Tomorrow... three flakes of confetti there on my tie.

I thought maybe some electronics were going bad. Capacitors too warm too many months and years? The entire chain has been replaced lately. Upgraded to Adobe Audition CS6. I'm even suspicious of it! I have this feeling that some tracks did not have any "confetti sparkles" in the sound on original playback, noise supression and first edit. In later edits the tiny little spikes suddenly appear! (Maybe I was sleepier than I thought on the first edit?)

Anyone ever deal with something that sounds like this? Any suggested tests or remedies? I am going to start stashing sample recordings as I run into them going forward.

Mic: was using AT2020, changed to a tube-model MXL. Was using ART pre-amp and M-Audio sound card, now using PreSonus pre-amp and analog-to-digital conversion. In the last year switched from Audition 2.0 to CS6. Just over a year ago switched from Windows XP Professional to Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit.

The little clicks began appearing before most of these changes were made, and continue AFTER the changes, but now there seems to be MORE clicks MORE often.

One observation recently: sometimes a sibilant will be covered with a crop of little spikes... like fleas on a dog!

I don't have enough hair left to be ripping a lot of it out over this. Any clues to offer? Any tests to suggest?

 

[Emmett1057]

Best guess is your PC is having trouble keeping up. Have you optimized it for audio?

 

[Nostalgia]

Like Buddy Holly said at his first recording session "darn crickets in the studio" ;D

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Best guess is your PC is having trouble keeping up. Have you optimized it for audio?

It has been awhile since I read up on "optimizing for audio" but this looks like a good time to do so. Any one wish to contribute their favorite "tweak".

My "gut feeling" is that something else is more likely. I don't have a machine that the gamers would drool over, but I am using the fastest computer I have ever owned. When I check Task Manager to see what processes are running and what utilization looks like, it is nil for all practical purposes. But I've never done that while my audio software was running.

Thanks for the tip.

 

[dtube1]

Is your Presonus a FireWire device? If so, those are really sensitive to the chipset in-use on the computer. It it isn't the TI chipset, all bets are off. Static, pops, crackling, etc. Have you tried changing the sample rate and recording some new samples?
-D

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Is your Presonus a FireWire device? If so, those are really sensitive to the chipset in-use on the computer. It it isn't the TI chipset, all bets are off.

No, it's a USB connection.

It's a very small number of noise events. Not enough that a change would be immediately obvious.

I'm trying to meet a time deadline right now so I am limited in the amount of experimenting I can do until my project is completed. One thing I will try soon is going back to Audition 2.0 for recording to see if the interface between the USB drivers and Audition are a problem.

I made two short test recordings using other software on the computer: The Studio One mini-DAW that came from PreSonus and Total Recorder.

Somewhere maybe there is a "secret ingredient" involved.

 

[Emmett1057]

Also, in Audition's control panel, you've selected an ASIO driver, NOT Windows Sound or Audition Sound, right? You want to directly select the driver. One big thing to try is shutting off Windows UAC. Here's a guide to follow: http://www.sweetwater.com/sweetcare/downloads/Windows_7_Optimization_Guide.pdf

Emmett

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Also, in Audition's control panel, you've selected an ASIO driver, NOT Windows Sound or Audition Sound, right?

Ah yes. In a moment of insanity I forgot Life's Rule #372: NEVER make multiple changes to your computer at one time. Settings and or software or hardware. Last night in a mood of invincibility I made the changes to my system in the Sweetwater download.

Ooooooh Boy! Thank goodness for System Restore.

On MY machine, apparently PreSonus vsl and Adobe Audition and ASIO are not on speaking terms. (Now that I think about it, I tried that before and ended up in the road ditch that time, too.)

I'm up and working again for now.

This may be the day that I finally accepted the value of getting a second machine for nothing but Audio.

I've been doing this at least 17 years using Cool Edit 96 at first and migrating along as Adobe took possession of the "look and feel". I've looked at a lot of wave forms on screen through all those years. I know what good audio looks like when you expand it out where you can see the warts, the freckles, the pimples and the CONFETTI. I have never, NEVER, EVER seen grotesque wave forms on screen to match what I have seen the last few days!

Some people pay good money to go down to the theater and see horror flicks. Maybe I could sell movies of what my system has been doing the last few days.

I will be having a discussion tomorrow with the vendor and/or manufacturer about warranty on a new mic that has just had a nervous breakdown!

Maybe I'm next! ;D

 

[chriscollins]

GRC... If you ever upgrade, use an SSD for the system and audio drive. The ultra low access time makes a good difference in CS6. That coupled with a Core i7, 64 Bit OS, & 8 Gig of RAM screams.

That is my audio editor.

 

[PirateJohnny]

I get the impression this is a home set-up? Electrical devices anywhere can cause pops in the audio. When the A/C kicks on you get a pop. Do you have a good "power conditioner" to power your set-up? They typically sell for around $100.

 

[Mike Brewer]

Wow...amazing amounts of misleading information in the replies here. Let's get back to basics.

Audio recording is a very low-CPU intensive process. Want proof? I can get studio-quality recordings with my nearly 20-year-old Thinkpad 701C with 60Mb of RAM running NT 4.0. No confetti or graffiti or other kinds of static.

Optimize the PC? Not really possible with a pre-installed version of the OS. You'd have to go through a lot of hoops to gain any noticeable performance increase - especially if the computer is newer than a 2007 model.

"Driver issues" between Audition and the sound card? Not likely. Driver issues are between Windows and the hardware. ANY app has to go through the Windows HAL in order to work. Note that this does not apply to Win9x-based OSes.

Now that we've got that out of the way...

Seems to me like the commonality to your problems is the use of USB hardware. Some questions:

Is this a laptop you're working with? If not, can you try using an "internal" sound card?

Have you tried using the hardware on a different computer and see if the "confetti" goes away?

Tried using a *powered* USB hub inbetween the computer and the USB port (provides more current than the standard USB ports do)?

Don't overthink this. It's not brain surgery.

 

[Emmett1057]

Mike, that's not really true at all. Optimizing a Windows PC can make a MAJOR difference. Shutting off processor throttling and USB power management alone can make a huge difference. Reducing the graphics load can also make a big difference with some onboard graphics chips.

And pro audio interfaces use ASIO drivers, which essentially bypasses the OS involvement. Therefore, selecting the wrong input driver, like Windows Sound can substantially decrease performance.

Putting in a USB hub for an audio interface is simply a bad idea. That's the opposite of what you should do.

Tech supporting hundreds - literally hundreds - of studio PCs and Macs around the world and getting paid to solve problems exactly like this is all the evidence I need for my statements.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Seems to me like the commonality to your problems is the use of USB hardware. Some questions:

Is this a laptop you're working with? If not, can you try using an "internal" sound card?

Have you tried using the hardware on a different computer and see if the "confetti" goes away?

// ***** //

Don't overthink this. It's not brain surgery.

Thanks for the contribution to the discussion.

Actually.... this discussion is taking place because I am pushing to the level of making it brain surgery!!! I have done recordings for years that equal or exceed what many people would consider significantly better than adequate. But I have this drive to see what else can I squeeze out of the process.

The noise that I am now pursuing is not like a regular shower of confetti. This is like your wife pulling out a wedding dress from 15 years ago to admire it and finding one or two more flakes of confetti... even after pulling the dress out of storage container half a dozen times in 15 years. "How did this sneak in here... I am sure I got them all out. Dear, are you pulling one of your practical jokes again?"

I sometimes find a couple of "flakes of confetti" that I don't think were in the original recording... but as I go through and do a little bit of audio processing in Audition, and then come back and take out "dead air" here and there while adding in some "dead air" here and there, I find little tiny noise spikes that I don't think USED to be there.

I have a pretty decent M-Audio internal card. Significantly better than adequate. But too much external audio train and cables. And now and then I will go on-site to record a pipe organ concert or a seminar. I wanted to move to USB that could feed into a lap-top at times like that. For years the purists have cried: You must not put a sound card in the electrically noisy interior of a computer! That whole topic is like arguing politics and religion.... like high school boys arguing Dodge pickups vs. Ford or Chevy pickups.

It's been a very busy season for me so I haven't moved this over to another computer so see what changes. There is a Post-It note up here on the cork-board reminding me to try that.... SOON!

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Putting in a USB hub for an audio interface is simply a bad idea. That's the opposite of what you should do.

I consciously try to keep USB connections to my computer at a minimum during audio sessions. I probably should unplug the printer and the scanner. Even though they are not doing any work while I am doing audio, they are forcing the machine to "take an electronic roll-call" along with a tiny amount of DC voltage/current in the process. Maybe I should consider unplugging the IP connection to the router. I don't expect to see measureable performance change by unplugging everything... but who knows.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

I get the impression this is a home set-up? Electrical devices anywhere can cause pops in the audio. When the A/C kicks on you get a pop. Do you have a good "power conditioner" to power your set-up? They typically sell for around $100.

Yes, it is a studio in a residential location. I am in a somewhat rural area so I don't have a stop-light and those vehicle sensors within 2-1/2 miles of me. No businesses withing 2-1/2 miles. I would guess the most likely electrical device noise might be some retired guy who has an electric welder in his garage or basement. It is a lake area so we have a lot of homes nearby so each service entrance is going to soak up a certain portion of the "hash" that inhabits electrical lines.

What are some of the brand names of the good-guys in the power conditioner marketplace?

 

[inthebag]

I like Furman for power conditioners, and a lot of newer UPS units also include a power conditioner.

A couple of random thoughts from a cluttered mind on the "confetti"...

This sounds like it could be a word clock issue. Check the setup for both Audition and your MAudio card. If there's a setting for the word clock, make sure only one of these is set to be the master word clock. Also check your setup instructions for both to make sure your computer is properly configured. Something as simple as setting your computer to allow a drive to go to sleep can cause lots of problems.

I don't have a lot of Audition experience as I'm a Pro Tools guy. But, that being said, what you have plugged into your USB chain, printers and such, shouldn't make a difference. However, where you have the interface in the chain can make a huge difference. Try plugging directly into the computer's USB port, then try plugging in somewhere else in the chain and see if having it somewhere else makes it happy.

For example, I use the new Avid MBox Pro. Avid will tell you it doesn't matter where it appears in the Firewire chain. In reality, you have to plug the MBox directly to the computer, then plug the audio drives into the MBox or nothing works. It's audio voodoo.

Good luck!

 

[Emmett1057]

I get the impression this is a home set-up? Electrical devices anywhere can cause pops in the audio. When the A/C kicks on you get a pop. Do you have a good "power conditioner" to power your set-up? They typically sell for around $100.

Yes, it is a studio in a residential location. I am in a somewhat rural area so I don't have a stop-light and those vehicle sensors within 2-1/2 miles of me. No businesses withing 2-1/2 miles. I would guess the most likely electrical device noise might be some retired guy who has an electric welder in his garage or basement. It is a lake area so we have a lot of homes nearby so each service entrance is going to soak up a certain portion of the "hash" that inhabits electrical lines.

What are some of the brand names of the good-guys in the power conditioner marketplace?

SurgeX is amazing. I highly, highly recommend them. Furman and Monster are okay and I go back at forth on which I like better. With Furman, you want the PL series or higher. With Monster, the 2500 or higher. With Surge X, anything.

As far as internal vs external, the actual interface doesn't make much difference, though if you want the absolute highest quality, external AD/DA converters will be more solid, but we're talking big bucks for a pretty small difference.

You are wise to watch whatever else is on USB. I've seen a wireless mouse choke the whole bus before.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

You are wise to watch whatever else is on USB. I've seen a wireless mouse choke the whole bus before.

Since the PS2 plugs are pretty well gone, I guess even a wired mouse is going to have to be considered as a room-mate by the USB audio device. Hadn't thought about the wireless mouse being more hoggish than maybe the wired cousin.

This sounds like it could be a word clock issue. Check the setup for both Audition and your MAudio card. If there's a setting for the word clock, make sure only one of these is set to be the master word clock. Also check your setup instructions for both to make sure your computer is properly configured.

Thanks for that heads-up about the master word clock.

But when you say "check your setup instructions" I have to chuckle. What manufacturer gives instructions today that spell everything out?

And as this thread has demonstrated: Who gets to decide what is "properly configured". The good news is... if you at least know all the things that should be checked... you can always try them multiple ways to see what happens. (That assumes you have not so overloaded yourself that you have the luxury of time to try them multiple ways. GOAT'S LAW: When things quit working right, we always FIND the luxury of time!)

Thank you all. This is a work-in-process. I'll be back with more reports... and more questions.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

By the way.... what are the "top drawer" external analog-to-digital devices today. One and two channel. I don't currently have a need for 6, 8 or 14 channels of audio in.

 

[Emmett1057]

Anything Apogee, Lynx or Prizm are going to be very safe. For interfaces with great conversion, RME is quite good. Apogee for Mac. And the Avid third-gen Mboxes sound pretty spectacular. Anything designed in the past 3 years is going to sound good. It's gotten a lot harder to hear the differences. As far as master clocking, I'm still a fan of Apogee clocks. A lot of guys like Antelope. Admittedly, an Apogee Big Ben driven by an Antelope Isochrone 10M is a thing of beauty. But I don't know any VO people that need nearly $8k in word clocks.