Error opening files I've recorded.

[Wolfsblood]

Ok, I first used Diamond Cut 32 several years ago when it was a full featured demo, but lacking the money at the time to buy it. I loved it. It helped me restore and archive some 50 year old Glenn Miller ep's I'd found at a second hand store. It was recommended by Leo Laporte on the old Tech TV show "The ScreenSavers" many years ago as the best of the best.

I've since purchased and used DC Millennium to record other records of mine, but it's been a few months since I've recorded any others. Now when I go to record anything I get the following error:

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

System specs: Asus a8n-SLi mobo, Athlon 64 FX-57 1 gig dual channel RAM.
Soundcard: Soundblaster Audigy 2 Platinum (several years old, but the same card I've used for all my recordings, 24bit)

I'm running a Monster cable from my stereo EQ's "Main Out" to my soundcards "Line-In" jack. I can hear the music playing in my headphones. I set the system "Rec" setting to "What U Hear" and I can see the recording meter levels moving in DC Mil. I can stop the recording, save it and open the new source in DC Mil. It shows me a wave graph which looks like the loudness levels in the music I just heard, but when I go to play the source, or run a filter, I get the error noted above.

Any ideas what I'm doing wrong? Any other info you need to help troubleshoot this, please ask, and I'll provide it if I can.

Thanks,

Wolfsblood.

[Craig Maier]

What bit depth or resolution and what sampling rate are you using? (I know that the sound card is 24 bit, but are you trying to use it in that mode or are you trying to use it in 16 bit mode) Are these rates and d epths compatible with your sound card? Do you know if the soundcard is MME or WDM (or both) driver compatible?

As you can tell, I sense that there is something set that is not within the capability of the sound card specifications, but I am not sure.

Note: I am aware that most sound card drivers using MME's have a hard time working with 24 bits. Millennium is a MME based system, whereas the more recent Diamond Cut Products are both MME and WDM based.

[Wolfsblood]

I was working with the default settings within Millennium's recording section; Stereo, 44.10 Khz, and 24bit. Unfortunately, I have no idea what MME and WDM are, or how to tell if my card works with MME. I would suspect that it does work with MME since I used Millennium to record a single and an album last summer.

To the best of my knowledge, nothing has changed in my sound card settings from then to now, but I'm at a loss to figure out why I can see the wave file, but not use it.

[Craig Maier]

Although I am not 100 % certain, I think that your soundcard must be running MME's with a limitation of 16 bit resolution, not 24 bit. Try changing the recording resolution to 16 bits and then make a test recording and see if you can play it back. Then, repeat that experiment, but set for 24 bits and see if it plays back. I suspect that it will only play back with the 16 bit file.

So,

Your soundcard may support 24 bits, but only with WDM drivers, which Millennium does not have. (WDM drivers had not been invented in 1999 when Millennium was written). The DC6 and DC7 software packages support both MME and WDM and 16, 24 and 32 bits and up to 192 KHz sampling rates.

[Wolfsblood]

Cool. Thanks for the advice. I'll try it out and see what I come up with.

[Wolfsblood]

Yay!

Woohoo! I can record and play back in 16bit mode. Now to get to work cleaning up some old Traffic and Who records.... All 4 sides of Quadrophenia...... o.O Oh well, I cleaned up 16 Glenn Miller ep each containing 2 songs per side.... Those were in better condition though. :/

If they weren't other people's records, and I wasn't a chicken to wash them I'd give the record cleaner recipe a try first.

Thanks for the help Craig.

[Craig Maier]

The so called "Craig's Record Cleaning Concoction" shown on this forum is safe for vinyl records. It was dervied from the Disk Washer patent, so I do not think that you need to worry about using it. It is important to clean a record properly before transferring it to digital. Although the software does a good job of cleaning up a recording, it is always best to start out with a good transfer. I believe that a number of people (including myself) are using this "Concoction" with reasonable results.

[Wolfsblood]

I think I'll re-read that thread again and see. I'm sure I don't have any of the brushes or mats that I saw mentioned there earlier, but may be able to find something suitable I can adapt, or obtain.

[Dan McDonald]

and I've found that I am always playing the record twice. Once through just to knock out the stuff in the grooves, then cleaning it again and recording the second time through. I used to record the first time through also, but I found I never bothered even listening to the first one after I started paying attention to how much junk was on the needle after the first pass (in comparison to the second pass).

...And I was always a clean freak about my records. Just sitting in the sleeves for years picks stuff up.

Dan