Why do I need a 16-bit sound card when the motherboard is more advanced?

glaesers wrote on 2/3/2013, 1:11 AM

This question is related to my previous question about motorboating (stuttering) playback within the program. (See Dec 2012). I answered a response with all of my equipment specifications but got no further response. I have now upgraded to Cleaning Lab 16 and still have the problem. It seems all I am missing is the sound card, but if the software will run on a laptop, then surely a plug-in card is not required.

XP: SP3, 2.4GHz Pentium Dual Core processor, 3GB RAM. I recorded a song from an LP and immediately tried to replay it as a test, but got the stuttering effect, same as I did with version 11. I need a clean playback in order to tell if what filters, if any, are needed. 

Vince Glaeser

Comments

Former user wrote on 2/5/2013, 6:56 PM

Bear with me.....if both programs do the same, your set up is wrong.  Have yu installed the programs on both a laptop and a regular PC ?  The Magix police will get after you.  Have you tried recording a cassette to see if that works ?  How are you playing the LP record...off of a USB turntable ? or older style turntable ?  I realllly don't think you need a 16 bit soundcard....where did you get that advice ?  Lemme know  

glaesers wrote on 2/5/2013, 8:49 PM

Hello Gnarly,

No, I didn't install it twice. I'm gathering information from both the instruction booklet and the forum. But I have this problem on both CL 11 and CL 16, both of which say in the instructions that a 16-bit sound card is required. I am recording off an old style turntable through a stereo receiver. All I want to know is why it won't play back correctly within the program itself. If I import the piece into iTunes, it plays fine, but I understand that the compression has been changed in doing so. But it will be very difficult to tell if any filtering I apply is doing anything if I can't get a simple playback. There was nothing in the installation process that I changed. If you have a suggestion to change my audio set up, I'm ready to hear it. 

Vince

Procyon wrote on 2/6/2013, 5:55 AM

I don't have any of the recent versions of ACL, but if you were using MMM, I would tell you to adjust (increase) the audio playback buffers in the Program Settings.  I don't know if ACL has these settings.

glaesers wrote on 2/6/2013, 1:15 PM

Hello Procyon,

Thanks for the idea. I found the playback parameters within ACL and increased the buffer incrementally from the default 200 up to 1600, but it had no effect. I can't find anything within Windows that I could potentially change.

Former user wrote on 2/19/2013, 7:02 PM

I certainly understand your frustration, but  it has been my experience that an external/installed soundcard does allow all of MM type programs to function better.  The soundchips on a MOBO are really there to play music and not much else in spite of what you may have told or led to believe....Think about it, every gamer uses a high dollar video card, above and beyond the basic video drivers that came installed on the PC. 

There was an article in a recent MAXIMUM PC magizine about how sound cards will disappear but I don't think so and once again it because a PC just does basic stuff and as we try to do more with them, we need more memory, external drives and MP3 attatchments, USB storage...etc., etc...and sound cards and video cards.  I personaly have always used a SoundBlaster HiFi Xtreme card and sometimes you can get these refurbished for $20 or so, you might want to give it some thought.  I know its not the answer you wanted to hear.  Sorry