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NI Audio Kontrol - Anyone?
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Human
Human
Started Topics :
26
Posts :
61
Posted : Apr 26, 2007 02:26
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hey people!
i just bought the audio kontrol 1 from native instruments.. everything's fine so far, but it still slightly crackles from time to time in cubase (like every 5-10 seconds or so), even if cpu usage is really low.. i tried changing bitrate and samplerate, it didn't make a difference.. neither did changing latency settings.. i set it on medium now, so 2ms usb buffersize and 8ms audio buffersize.. i have deactivated the onboard soundcard and have the latest drivers and sp2 and all that stuff.. so far nothing's worked..
any suggestions?
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Human
Human
Started Topics :
26
Posts :
61
Posted : Apr 26, 2007 03:17
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by the way; i strongly doubt that it's due to my notebook; it's a dual2core 2x2 ghz, 4mb cache, 2 gb ram from dell.
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Meta
Meta/Boomslang
Started Topics :
24
Posts :
1045
Posted : Apr 26, 2007 04:02
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subconsciousmind
SCM
Started Topics :
37
Posts :
1033
Posted : Apr 26, 2007 10:13
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Hoi Human 
Did you try it on your other computer?
Have you tuned the XP settings with musicxp.net especially "anwendungen optimieren fuer hintergrunddienste"?
Good luck!
Most of my music for you to download at:
http://www.subconsciousmind.ch |
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Human
Human
Started Topics :
26
Posts :
61
Posted : Apr 26, 2007 15:41
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Hoi Subconsciousmind 
No, I'll try it on my other computer tonight.
But I have already tuned the XP settings the same way as I have with my other pc..
Meta; well, my "Soundblaster Audigy 2" gets me down to about 4-5 ms... and unlike the NI, it's not a card designed for music creation.. however, the "worst" case (talking about the NI again) is 12 ms audio and 3 ms usb, and it makes no difference, while it's "best case" is an amazing 2 ms (audio), 1 ms (usb), which astonishingly works just as well / not well..
Something that helped was deactivating lots of stuff (hardware device), such as my dvd-drive, my wlan card, the modem, and many other things..
I worked with the program which NI recommends to see whether your computer is at all able to work audio;
http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml
(you don't need to install it, after downloading it, you can just run the .exe file)
When I run that thing on my Notebook, I get absolute maximums of 616 microseconds, while on my PC (which is a pentium III, 3.0 ghz, 1 or 2 mb cache, can't remember, 1.5 gb ram, with a soundblaster audigy 2 pci card, so actually much slower), the absolute maximum is 42 microseconds.. And I actually haven't deactivated any devices on my PC..
By the way; of course I've deactivated all Antivirus and Firewall programmes..
I'll just keep on trying..
Thanks a lot for the advice!
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Brain Hacked
IsraTrance Full Member
Started Topics :
111
Posts :
442
Posted : Apr 26, 2007 17:20
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Cool test!!!! |
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subconsciousmind
SCM
Started Topics :
37
Posts :
1033
Posted : Apr 26, 2007 19:54
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I just remebered... did you turn off "dynamic switching"? This is somethings laptop do with CPU frequency to save battery power. It's default ON with dell. Possibly you can turn it off in BIOS, but with mine it is set to lowest freq then.
The solution is "speedswitchXP" http://www.diefer.de/speedswitchxp/indexd.html
A little tool, which lets you set the CPU speed to max manually from software.
Most of my music for you to download at:
http://www.subconsciousmind.ch |
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Human
Human
Started Topics :
26
Posts :
61
Posted : Apr 27, 2007 09:04
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thanks a lot subconsciousmind!
i installed the kontrol on my home-pc, no problems.
after a few more "tweakings", i think especially with "speedswitch xp" i got the notebook to
get a maximum of approximately 562 microseconds
i installed speedswitch (i'll send you screenprints of
my settings per e-mail sometime today), it helped a bit, but not as much as i was hoping.
i also tried turning off "SpeedStep" in bios (it was
originally on "enabled"), but it made no real
difference (if so, than rather a negative one), so
i set it back to "enabled".
for those who speak german, here's a link to
another forum where i described a bit more
detailed what i've tried;
http://homerecording.de/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=79514&forum=59
best wishes,
human
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subconsciousmind
SCM
Started Topics :
37
Posts :
1033
Posted : Apr 27, 2007 11:56
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You definitly have to mess with the laptop.
Maybe something with that "halfwise shared grafix memory"?
Maybe just a weird windows setting missing. did you update the bios of the laptop? I would even try to install another windows version on a free partition. for example tiny XP. have you tried to disable LAN and Wirless Lan.. bluetooth? are there any dell background programs running?
I haven't installed ANY of the Dell tools. Did you install the correct chipset drivers? try to check if the chipset drivers are available from a chipset manufacturer homepage directly. (f.i. Intel or so) .
...
Most of my music for you to download at:
http://www.subconsciousmind.ch |
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Human
Human
Started Topics :
26
Posts :
61
Posted : Apr 27, 2007 16:52
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i am messing with it ;P
it has to be said; the cracks only occur
every few seconds or even minutes now, but it's still not very nice to hear..
yeah, the graphic card, i'm afraid, could be the problem..
here's what a moderator from the NI forum said to someone experiencing similar problems;
"From the descriptions you're giving, it sounds more like a nVidia issue. nVidia chipsets with PCI-e graphics tend to have issues with crackles and audio because of the bandwidth taken up by the graphics I/O;
[...]
Why more prevalent with the AK 1? The combination of a steady stream from the USB ports and the stream from the graphics card.
The solution? Use a cheap graphics card; it'll use less bandwidth. It's what I do with my nVidia machines."
i don't feel like changing my graphic card though.. i tried deactivating it, which is really annoying because the picture is really "stumbling" then, i would prefer the crackling then.. 
(anyway, it did not really improve performance according to the latency checker..)
i will go over all the steps for tuning xp for audio again, maybe something returned to standard settings again, i'll check it as soon as i had some sleep..
i did update bios. and i have already deactivated lots of stuff, like;
ethernet controller, onboard soundcard, dvd drive, memory stick controller, mmc host controller (whatever that is..), xd-picture card controller, ieee 1394-hostcontroller (i assume that's firewire, and i have no firewire devices..), the onboard modem, and the wlan (i couldn't find a "normal" lan, maybe that's the "ethernet controller"?) - and i have no bluetooth
i have deactivated all dell programs as far as i'm aware, and can't find anything "dellish" running in my task-manager (but i don't have a trained eye for it, could be that i just fail to see it).
i have the "dell accessories" installed, which, however, only runs when i insert the corresponding cd/dvd.. (i will uninstall it anyway though) also, i have the "dell wireless" (wlan) installed (but, as mentioned earlier, deactivated). otherwise i got everything from the dell updates page, since i have, e.g., no clue what mainboard they've put into the notebook, it's not on the receit either, so i don't know to which manufacturer website to go and which drivers to download there.. dell support couldn't tell me neither..
what's "tiny xp"? i would have another partition, but before i set up the whole thing again, i'd rather return kontrol and get soundblaster or something like that 
something interesting i just found on the steinberg website;
apparently, only cubase sx 3 and upwards are capable of using dual core functions.. hmmm.. i'm still working with sx 2.. could this be a problem?
(source: http://www.steinberg.de/1003_0.html)
well, if all that still doesn't work, i'm running out of ideas..
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http://myspace.com/djhuman
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Human
Human
Started Topics :
26
Posts :
61
Posted : Apr 27, 2007 17:31
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by the way (because of the fact that dualcores can be efficiently used only from sx3 upwards); when i'm running cubase (sx2) and check my cpu-usage in the taskmanager, it seems as if the "left" cpu does more work then the "right" does, when the project is playing. when i pause the cubase-song, the right cpu drops almost to 0, while the left one stays about in the center..
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Human
Human
Started Topics :
26
Posts :
61
Posted : Apr 30, 2007 13:40
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Meta
Meta/Boomslang
Started Topics :
24
Posts :
1045
Posted : Apr 30, 2007 21:33
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Wish I could help you... please keep up informed about your progress (or lack thereof).
I was very interested in this device, as there is a severe shortage of choices available to people who want small portable devices that have multiple outs.
M-Audio has pretty much had a monopoly on devices under $500 that have multiple outs, but the amounts of complaints against them at this point is overwhelming.
I really need a small, portable (affordable) device like this one that can headphone-cue a second channel for playing live, but every device available seems to have some fatal flaw. I've heard of your crackling issue with this device from other people too, so I'm not sure what to think at this point.
http://soundcloud.com/aeon604
http://www.metaekstasis.com/
http://the1134.com/ |
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Human
Human
Started Topics :
26
Posts :
61
Posted : May 1, 2007 02:11
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Quote:
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On 2007-04-30 21:33, Meta wrote:
[...]
I've heard of your crackling issue with this device from other people too, so I'm not sure what to think at this point.
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could you maybe pm me their e-mail addresses? we could probably help each other out, maybe they know some stuff that helps that i don't and vice versa..
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Meta
Meta/Boomslang
Started Topics :
24
Posts :
1045
Posted : May 1, 2007 03:15
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