Noise and clicks heard when playing music w. Motu Ultralite

rynol · Post by **rynol** » Sat Nov 17, 2007 10:37 am

Hello

I've got some problems with my Ultralite soundcard. Almost everytime you play something, be it something i recorded, or something from the harddrive, you can distinguish irregular clicking noise in the sound. They are not very prominent, but you can hear them if you listen.

Also, sometimes the ultralite sends noise on all channels for a few seconds. I have put the buffer to 1024, so that's not the problem. It sound more like a driver problem, and i got the latest firmware, 1.15. It's quite annoying though, considering i've paid pretty much for a good soundcard that doesn't work perfectly. I'm also using the latest drivers, 3.6.7.4

Im using windows XP Sp2, Dell computer.

After posting on another forum, a suggestion rised that it might be the present firewire-PCI card that was causing trouble. I am actually using a texas instruments adaptec card, but i bought it used.

To people that have flawlessy working ultralite setups (at winXP SP2): which firewirecard do you use?

rynol · Post by **rynol** » Sun Nov 18, 2007 1:00 pm

Well, are no one here using ultralite or do you just don't care?

philbar · Post by **philbar** » Sun Nov 18, 2007 1:41 pm

sadly i have a desktop with a generic firewire card.

i also have the same problems you are getting. i've stripped everything back to basics and worked out it was something sharing the same bus so replaced the item with a usb 2 equivalent ( was a wireless lan card)....

rynol · Post by **rynol** » Mon Nov 19, 2007 3:06 am

I'm not sure i'm following. Did you replace your firewirecard with a USB2 card?

philbar · Post by **philbar** » Mon Nov 19, 2007 5:21 am

no i replaced my wireless pci card with a usb2 wireless card thus leaving only the pci firewire card on the pci bus.

wickedgtr1 · Post by **wickedgtr1** » Mon Nov 19, 2007 6:10 am

Try this and see if your sound improves.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/885222

Also disable any firewire network adapters.

rynol · Post by **rynol** » Mon Nov 19, 2007 8:04 am

gabrieljay · Post by **gabrieljay** » Mon Nov 19, 2007 8:24 am

Im having the same problem. I made an observation...When i have my ultralite connected at home, i have no problems. I can go as low as 64 sample rate. When I set up in a bigger venue like a stage, or even someone else house, it goes nuts!! even at 512 sample rate. It calms down at 1024, but who in the world wants to set it at 1024, i might as well get a USB interface. In fact I did have the EMU 0404 I took it back because i didnt want to have to deal with a 1024 setting. I have a Dell c640 with 1.25 RAM over 2.0 ghz, it is well over the recommended specs that motu has suggested.

rynol · Post by **rynol** » Mon Nov 19, 2007 9:15 am

wickedgtr1 wrote:Try this and see if your sound improves.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/885222

Also disable any firewire network adapters.

Yep I did, also disabled the network adapter. And changed my firewire card to another TI model, but the problems stay.

Still get noise on the channels, mostly when starting windows, and i get clicks in audio playback.

arth · Post by **arth** » Mon Nov 19, 2007 10:45 pm

The Ultralite will produce zzzkrtzhkrh on all channels whenever a sound in one sample rate is played while another sound in a different sample rate is played. Even if the output is routed nowhere, if there's input to the device that doesn't match the current sample rate, the result will be pops at best and long scratching sounds on all channels at worst.

The main trigger for the problem is probably the Windows sound effects. Even if you don't route them anywhere, as long as Windows tries to feed sounds to the MOTU at 22.05 kHz and the MOTU is currently trying to produce 44.1 kHz, you'll get random noise.
If you take a look in %WINDIR%\Media\, you'll find that some of the samples, like "Windows XP Logon Sound.wav", are in 22.05 kHz, while others, like "Windows XP Information Bar.wav", are in 44.1 kHz. If the first one is still playing while Windows tries to play the second one, SZZHKHRKZZH is the result.

The easiest workaround is to turn off Windows sound effects, by going into "Sound and Audio Devices" in control panel, then select the "Sound" tab, and choose "No Sounds" from the menu.

If you only use the Ultralite with ASIO, or with dedicated apps that let you specifically choose the device, it's even better to go to the "Audio" tab in the same control panel, and make sure that you do not have a MOTU device set as Default device. If you have a motherboard or PCI sound card, choose that as default instead, and if you really have to listen to the sounds through the default device, feed the output from your motherboard sound card through cables to the MOTU input ports, and CueMix them in.

Not that I expect many people to use their Ultralite for recreational use, but some games also suffer from this problem, as they play concurrent sounds in different rates. "Guild Wars" is a good example. The solution then is to not use the Ultralite for gaming.

(Or, use a different soundcard fed to the MOTU inputs, as described above.)

philbar · Post by **philbar** » Tue Nov 20, 2007 5:19 am

arth, that clears things up for me a lot.

thanks.

i've installed a new processor and so far haven't had any clicks or pops.

i'm recording several devices at once ( mpc on the spdif, virus and machinedrum on the analogue inputs etc) and it works really well.

ta for this.

rynol · Post by **rynol** » Wed Nov 21, 2007 7:21 am

arth wrote:If you only use the Ultralite with ASIO, or with dedicated apps that let you specifically choose the device, it's even better to go to the "Audio" tab in the same control panel, and make sure that you do not have a MOTU device set as Default device. If you have a motherboard or PCI sound card, choose that as default instead, and if you really have to listen to the sounds through the default device, feed the output from your motherboard sound card through cables to the MOTU input ports, and CueMix them in.

Wow, smart

I'm not gaming though, and i think i can survive without the windows sounds. I'll be needing sound for some other programs, but as long as you've selected the "Main Outs" as default device, it should work. Atleast in my mind

Regarding the topic. It seemed as i had a USB controller using the same IRQ number as my firewirecard, so i deactivated it, and i'll check now if that changes it.

rynol · Post by **rynol** » Wed Nov 21, 2007 11:54 am

No, problem still stays. I'm running out of ideas.

It seeems as i've got to change some hardware. Maybe the CPU ocr motherboard is causing it

arth · Post by **arth** » Wed Nov 21, 2007 2:21 pm

rynol wrote:
arth wrote:If you only use the Ultralite with ASIO, or with dedicated apps that let you specifically choose the device, it's even better to go to the "Audio" tab in the same control panel, and make sure that you do not have a MOTU device set as Default device. If you have a motherboard or PCI sound card, choose that as default instead, and if you really have to listen to the sounds through the default device, feed the output from your motherboard sound card through cables to the MOTU input ports, and CueMix them in.
Wow, smart I'm not gaming though, and i think i can survive without the windows sounds. I'll be needing sound for some other programs, but as long as you've selected the "Main Outs" as default device, it should work. Atleast in my mind

Choosing "MOTU Main Outs" as default triggers the problem. You have to choose a non-MOTU device as default to completely avoid program sounds at indeterminable sampling rates from being fed to the MOTU drivers. It doesn't matter which MOTU output is selected, and whether it's routed to your mix -- as long as a sample at a "conflicting" sample rate hits the drivers, you'll get the zzkrhnzh on all the other channels too.

Most "advanced" programs will let you specify the audio device in the program itself, and not just use the default in the control panel. If, for example, you're using a media player (like Windows Media Player or foobar2000) for a quick and easy way to listen to samples, you can configure it to play using MOTU Mians Out, no matter what the default in the audio control panel is set to. (With foobar2000, it even allows you to use ASIO instead of DirectSound, and there's no problems then.)

rynol · Post by **rynol** » Thu Nov 22, 2007 10:43 am

Well, i only use one sound-using program (in which you can choose which audio output you use) at a time, i disabled all the windows sound.

I have no other soundcard installed so I cannot choose anything but the Ultralite

Also, another thing that happened. After making sure that the Ultralite had it's own IRQ number, it does play more stable. Not perfect, but better. The noise at windows startup is still left (alltough all windows sounds are disabled), and sometimes you hear clicks but not as much as before.

Do you think the problem lies in the motherboard or the CPU? I'm using a Dell dimension 4600 (Intel manufactured) motherboard and P4 2,7GHZ CPU