Set Up:
CME Matrix K (firewire)
DELL M1530 with Vista
PIONEER DJM400 (dj mixer)
AUDACITY SOFTWARE
Aim:
I used to run a 2 x RCA to 1/4“ jack out of my mixer into back old computers sound card (crap quality). To optimize my sound and get better quality for mixes and pod casting I bought the CME Matrix K.
I'm trying to Record my mixes from my pioneer djm400 to my laptop through the CME Matrix K.
Problems:
After I bought the CME matrix k, I had set it all up and tried to record my mix in Audacity. The djm400 mixer has an 2x RCA output so connected 2x RCA to 1/4” cable, the 1/4” going into the stero input on the CME Matrix K and the Firewire going from this device to the firewire on the dell laptop. My initial problem was I was getting interference through my speaker. I disconnected the laptops charger and the interference disappeared. To eliminate the interference I figured out this may be due to earthing (3-prong connection) into the power point (I’m in Australia). I got a mate whos an electrician to rewire a laptop ac power adapter taking the earth out (I have a surge protector don’t worry) and the interference disappeared (Sweet! ;) ).
I tried to record and everything was fine for about 5-10mins into my mix, before the blue screen of death appeared (not sweet :(). I might try take a screenshot of it when I get home tonight if I can. But in the 2 secs it flashed up I thought it said something about virtual memory. But I'm not 100% sure. Also if its virtual memory I don’t think that would be a problem I got 3 gb ram, think 2.0 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo, 250gb hard drive I will confirm all of this tonight but lappy is only a year old and I got pretty decent specs.. I dunno is there something I can change in terms of the impact the recording has on my system or settings for the device (I’m not really an expert of sound recording, so don’t know what half the settings are), during the mix if I open other windows it doesn’t seem to be slow or laggy so not really sure whats the problem and why its cutting out.
is this a hardware, or software problem and how can I rectify this.. its very frustrating! Can anyone provide there knowledge and give us a hand! Any advice would be helpful.
Cheers,
Matt
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Comments
Sounds like you need to optimise this machine for audio recordin
Sounds like you need to optimise this machine for audio recording, a little bit.
Load task manager, watch Audacity's memory usage (Processes tab) and see if it goes up ridiculously fast without going back down.
Yeah, run that app - if you're under 200 consistently then you should be OK for recording without having to strip too much junk off the PC.
Also, you'll be recording to the laptop's internal drive?
I would turn off page file. You will have to reboot. Run defrag.
I would turn off page file. You will have to reboot. Run defrag. When you run defrag do it from the command line.
Start>Run> type cmd and select OK. At the comand line type "defrag c: -f" without quotes this will force defrag to run. Turning off page file alows defrag to also defragment the page file area of the drive. When done set page file back to Windows control. In addition I would download a program called ccleaner. It will clean all the crap that windows leaves on the drive. There is also a registry cleaner included. This is the program windows should have had to clean up.
You may want to check your bitrate and sample resolution settings in case of latency and dropout issues due to buffering. Heres a link to a tool you can check it with
http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml