What is the "Capabilities function?

[Jonathan Sachs]

I just finished recording a tape to disk. The tape is very noisy and I had difficulty distinguishing signal peaks from noise, so I decided to record it at 44.1k, 24 bits. I figured that would let me reduce the signal strength on line-in to avoid saturation without losing resolution in the soft passages. (After I clean up the noise and normalize the file, I intend to convert it to 16 bits.)

After I finished recording I tried to play back the file, and got this message:

"The specified format is not supported or cannot be translated. Use the Capabilities function to determine the supported formats."

I don't know how to interpret this; I infer that it means my sound device cannot play back the file it just recorded, which makes no sense. (The device is an M-Audio Transit USB converter. Its driver is on the "2 in, 2 out, 24-bit, 8000 Hz to 48,000 Hz" setting. When I first got this message I was using my computer's internal sound card for output, and I shifted output to the Transit, thinking that would fix the problem, but it did not.)

I cannot find a "Capabilities function" in the toolbar or the menus. There is no entry for it in the help file's index. The help file's "Find" tab reports one instance of the word "capabilities," but it is not relevant.

Have I just created an unusable sound file? If not, how can I proceed?

[Craig Maier]

The Capabilities Function Error message comes from the soundcard and not the Millennium software. Millennium only supports MME drivers. It could be that your sound card needs WDM driver support for 24 bit resolution. Why it recorded and did not play is not clear. It is likely that the sound card can not play 24 bit files unless they are WDM's. I would suggest downloading the DC Six demo version from our website and running a test with that product. DC Six supports WDM's so try it and that will help us draw a conclusion. Please advise about the results of the test.
Thanks,
Craig

[Jonathan Sachs]

I downloaded the DC Six demo and found that it can play the file with no problems. Apparently your guess was correct.

I don't understand this aspect of the driver technology, and the following quote from M-Audio's Transit users manual was not enlightening: "Transit USB?s Windows drivers support Windows? native WDM/MME protocol, allowing you to use Transit USB as your Windows default audio device. If Transit USB is the only audio device installed on your computer, Windows will select it automatically...." (The manual appears to contain no other references to this topic.)

I can't justify upgrading to DC Six at this point, so it appears that I have two choices. One is to see whether M-Audio can resolve the driver problem for me. The other is to figure out a way to set the line-in gain properly in spite of the high noise level, so that I can record a 16-bit WAV file without either saturating the signal or losing resolution. I will be grateful if you can offer me advice on that.

[Craig Maier]

Your system diagram is not clear to me. Are you useing a phono preamplifier? Does the phono preamplifier have a gain control on it? Is its output connected to the Line or the Mic input(s) of the soundcard? Would a small inexpensive mixer box connected between the source and the soundcard the possible solution to the problem? Please advise.

[DougMac]

M-Audio Transit

I did a little reading about this card.

First, Craig, go back to the original post. Jonathon was using a tape deck as a source, so the line input level should be fine. I think the noise to which he refers is in the source, not generated in the recording chain.

Jonathon, you may be SOL as far as 24 bit recording is concerned unless you upgrade to DC 6. From what I've read, M-Audio is busy resolving other issues with the Transit so any request you make may not receive priority.

I hope you can see your way clear to an upgrade to DC 6 in the near future. In addition to resolving this issue, you'll get added functionality that I think is well worth the upgrade price. EZ Clean and the Adaptive Continuous Noise filter are two of the new features I find very helpful.

Happy New Year!

Doug

[Craig Maier]

Sorry, I missed that piece of information. I concur that there should be no level related incompatibility with the soundcard.

[Jonathan Sachs]

I'm getting a very good response from M-Audio. They say that their drivers should have no problem with MME and 24 bits. At their suggestion I have given them instructions for downloading a demo copy of Diamond Cut Millennium. They say they should be able to figure out what is happening once they can run that.

You are correct that I am recording from tape; also, definitely, that the noise is on the tape. A little history: the tape is one of only two surviving recordings of my mother's singing. (I am going to convert the other one as well, but it is in even worse shape.) It was made on reel-to-reel equipment in a college auditorium by a student volunteer some time around 1970. It was later transferred to cassette, probably by a person without a lot of technical expertise. I must deal with distortion in the original, hum, breath noise, and impulse noise.

[Jonathan Sachs]

Craig: I heard back from M-Audio, and they believe there is a problem on the software side -- the Diamond Cut Millennium demo won't operate at 24 bit with any of the sound cards they tried.

Would you be willing to coordinate directly with them to figure out what is happening? The person I'm corresponding with has already agreed to that approach. (I may be presuming, but I'm working on the assumption that you work for Diamond Cut, or at least can call upon their technical resources as necessary.)

If this is OK, let me know how I can contact you privately so that I don't have to post his direct e-mail address in a public forum.

Here is the text of his last message to me:

"I downloaded the demo and tried it with a number of our M-Audio interfaces, however I got the same error message as you no matter which device/driver I tried to use when I loaded a 24-bit source file. I am not sure what else I can tell you about this.

"Frankly I think this is a problem with Diamond Cut, we haven't had this problem with any other software. What is particularly odd is that I got the same message even with my Delta 1010 card, which always operates at 24-bit internally."

[Craig Maier]

Hi, Jonathan,


I sent you a private email on this bbs on this topic. Please check it out.

Thanks,

Craig