| Help with Soundcard and Recording Software
Dear Somebody
My computer has an Asrock Asus Motherboard, 1.5gig RAM, an AMD Sempron Chip, an M-Audio Audiophile 2496 Soundcard, approx. 400gig hard drive spare, Windows XP Pro SP2. American Megatrends BIOS.
No graphics card, I don't know which one to get. That might be relevant to the problem below.
I'm trying to get the hang of writing computer music. I've got a notation package - Voyetra Music Maestro - and I'm using Windows GM sounds at present, I'll get better software if I get good enough to deserve it!
The BIG prob. is this. If I play back the piece I've written, it plays fine. If I try to record it with ANYTHING - I've tried NCH WavePad, Audacity, Windows Sound Recorder (yes, it only records a minute, I was desperate) it starts crackling like a very badly scratched vinyl LP.
I've upped the buffer in the soundcard software to 1024 samples and the prob's still there. I've overclocked the processor as best I can - in BIOS, I haven't touched any jumpers, don't know much about jumpers - and I still get the crackling on record.
I've been ripped off with this motherboard, I'll admit that, they sure saw me coming. It seems fast when you benchmark it, whenever you try to do anything serious with it, it hits dead tortoise speed and stays there. It's like buying a crap battery, it might test as being full, but when you use it it dies after 20 minutes, right? For instance. If I've converted a film, it will remain on INCREDIBLY SLOW for ages, even after the film conversion program's finished.
Here's the questions. What motherboard, up to about 150 British quid at present, would you advise me to buy for music making? I'm happy to go to EBAY or somewheres if I get more 'bang for my bucks'! And WHY am I getting the crackling on record? Once in awhile, it crackles when it plays the Windows startup tune. It never crackles on MP3s or streaming video or DVDs. It's just when I try to record sounds being created by MIDI.
Like... OK, it's probably trying to make a comment on the music. But anyone got any ideas how to shut it up?
Yours hopefully
Christopher Burke | 
