Configuration difficulties

[Stephen Langley]

Greetings,

I wonder if someone could help me as I'm at my wits end with Mentor, following the installation of my new (old) soundcard - an Echo Mia 2496.
Everything was working fine until I experimented with the pro quality setting - 24/96khz. Lps registered fine on the Mentor meters and (and on the soundcard mixer), but after recording (and saving) came up with a miniscule signal - almost nothing...? After restarting the PC and experimenting again with the 44.1 setting under Preferences, (which worked perfectly earlier thisevening with my new card), all went haywire and now this doesnt work either, but now a different problem manifests. Firstly it records and saves fine (and can be played back through DC6 ONLY if I open it up through DC6, not if I open DC6 through through Mentor), but I cannot preview through Mentor at all. The vertical black line just flashes when I press preview (when I open DC6, through Mentor, the line actually disappears - note that it is fine should I open the file independently through DC6 - this appears to be a Mentor problem.

Excuse a rather adhoc description and grammar but it is very late in the evnening and I have exhuasted myself trying to sort this out.

Thanks for any thoughts,

Stephen

[Craig Maier]

Hi Stephen,

Curtis had this suggestion that he just sent to me:

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Hi Stephen,

We're glad to help you. In order to figure out this, we'll need to break this down so that we can understand what is going on.

So please try these things:

1. Bring up DC Six and try to record something at 24/96. Now play it, You implied that DC Six worked, but I don't want to go on until we are sure. If it does not work, please let us know what happens.

2. Assuming that DC Six works with your soundcard, goto Edit/Preferences in DC Six and click on the soundcard tab. Make sure it's set for DirectX (wdm) and then note the exact name of the playback and recording device.

3. Exit DC Six and now bring up Mentor.

4. In Mentor, goto preferences and make sure BOTH "use WDM drivers" and "ReInit Driver on Playback" are checked.

5. Now goto the record screen in Mentor and choose the exact device you noted which was working in DC Six.

You should be working now. If not, let us know what happened when you followed this procedure. Thanks again!


Curtis Crowe

[Stephen Langley]

Configuration difficulties

Thanks Curtis,

I was able to make a small stride by clicking the -10 consumer grade tab (as opposed to +4) in the Echo Mia mixer window, and the signal is stronger all round, but it is abound with digital clicks and ticks which make it unacceptable. I checked everything on your list and found that I infact need to restart both DC6 and Mentor to undertake previewing. It is if playback is disabled within the same 'session', and the only way to listen is to close the program and then open it again -then the signal is full of clicks. Nothing seems to be peaking in any of the VU meters - inc the soundcard meter(s) DC6 / Mentor ot the Soundcraft mixer I am using. What is strange is that all was working perfctly earlier yesterday evening and I recorded an LP with no problems, albeit at 44.1 / 16. Now everything is up the creek.-
Thanks for any thoughts,

Stephen

[Craig Maier]

I know that it is very rare, but is it possible that there is a hardware failure on the soundcard? About 8 years ago, I did experience a sound card failure exhibiting the sorts of symptoms that you describe. It was a Turtle Beach card and it started to act irrationally after a lightning storm. I guess a pulse of energy got into the card and damaged one of its chips. I never was able to put it right. Ultimately, I ended up purchasing a new card to fix the problem.

[Geebster]

I was thinking the same thing also. From everything you describe, it sounds like a failure within the soundcard. Sometimes all it takes is to change a setting or two within the software, to fully realize the problem. Your changing the settings did NOT cause the failure, it just made it appear faster.

I'm not saying that it is a FAILURE, but it very well could be. Do you have any diagnostic software either provided by the sound card manufacturer or 3rd party? If you ran that, it should be able to tell you for sure if it is a failure within the soundcard.

GB

[Stephen Langley]

Configuration problems

Thanks for your thoughts.

I considered this also, but I have to say that all works well with other programs inc recording software such as xxxxxx ... I am wondering if I should try reinstalling the DC programs...

Stephen

[Craig Maier]

There is something that Diamond Cut Software does that other software does not. It handshakes with the soundcard on each frame of data communicated. Other softwares chuck the data to the soundcard and whatever it does it does. Diamond Cut is more sensitive to problems because of this technique. Why do we do this? Data integrity is very important in the Forensics Audio business and that is a major element of Diamond Cuts customer base. If there is a data intergity problem between Diamond Cut and the Sound Card, it just will not work and/or the problem will become very obvious. That forces the user to deal with the issue rather than allow the system to mask it. Data integrity is very important in legal situations for the obvious reasons.

So, the long and short of it is that your soundcard could still be broken even if it is working with other softwares. It is just that Diamond Cut is picking up the problem and not the others.

I doubt that re-installing the programs will fix the problem, but it couldn't hurt to try that.

[Stephen Langley]

Configuration

Thanks Craig for explaining this process.

I have spent hours at the PC trying to resolve things with some success, with one remaining question. Firstly, I was able to cure most of the problems by assigning both DC6 and Mentor's output to one of the sound card's 'virtual' outputs. There seemed to be a conflict in relation to output config previously. Also by assigning MME drivers (described as Pure Sound on the soundcard mixer) rather than WDMs seems to have helped with the clicks and distortion. I think I have sorted DC6 out with high and lower sample rates, but recording at 24/96 in Mentor only reveals a small weedy signal, despite all VUs peaking appropriatly (soundcard VUs and Mentor's). The interesting thing is that precicely the same problem occurs with another soundcard, namely the M-Audio Audiophile USB which I was able to try out. I wonder if anyone else has experienced anything similar with Mentor in any particular circumstance - perhaps there is conflict with something else in my system in the 24/96 setting, or it's a software combination issue? The lower sample rate is fine, and having seemingly resolved the configuration issues with DC6, this now appears specific to Mentor.

Thanks for any thoughts,

Stephen

[Craig Maier]

The problems that I have seen usually come down to driver issues. Are your sound card drivers up to date? Also, Mentor is only designed to work with XP on up, so is that your operating system? It will not work correctly on operating systems prior to XP.

[Stephen Langley]

Configuration

Thanks for your thoughts Craig,

Just to answer your questions - I run XP Pro and updated the drivers for both soundcards in my explorations of this issue. If I cannot sort it out, I can comfortably use the lower sampling rate in Mentor and resort to DC6 for 24/96.

Cheers,

Stephen

[Craig Maier]

Stephen,

If you direct Mentor towards the Mother Board sound card chipset, does the system work at the higher sampling rate/bit depth? That would be a good clue for us to work with.

[Stephen Langley]

configuration

Now you mention it, I think the motherboard sound is switched off in the bios settings. If I remember correctly, the bios on this system is a little hard to navigate, so I'll seek out a computer guru friend to explore this avenue. May take a while, but thanks for the point of departure in the next wave of diagnostics. I'll get back, but it may take a while.
Thanks for you help and suggestions Craig.

Stephen