Having problems with basic functions.
Hello, there.
I am a (relatively) long-time user of n-track studio.
I recently upgraded to the new version (as I got a new computer with vista) and I am experiencing some odd problems that I had not experienced over the last few years (with versions 3 and 4).
For one thing, I am unable to highlight a region, either in a single wav file or over all tracks (by dragging across the timeline).
I click the mouse, hold it down, and drag, yet, nothing happens.
I’m not sure if I’m doing something wrong (this is how I highlighted in the previous versions), or the programming is not functioning correctly.
I’ve been careful not to overlook anything, but I do know that the program’s appearance is slightly different from the n-track 4 I have become accustomed to.
I am also having problems with my ASIO interface.
The drivers are up-to-date, the computer reads that it’s there, and I can even record.
Yet, when I play back the file, it sounds like a lot of distortion (distortion that makes the audio beyond recognition).
The recorded peak file looks to be completely normal, but the playback does not match this.
This, however, does not happen every time I try to play something back, as sometimes the SAME wav file will sound completely normal upon playing it back one time, but then distorted (and I do mean distorted) the next time I play it back.
The normal sounding times seem to be the minority though, and once the file plays back distorted one time, it will rarely if ever return to sounding normal.
Additionally, when I play back any audio track (through the computer’s soundcard, as I become fed up trying to get the ASIO to work), the file will experience random muting throughout the track.
I am 100% sure that the actual wav file is fine and should not experience any muting, because the same file will play smoothly in any other type of playback program (say, Windows Media Player, for instance).
This trend is especially noticible when working with drums and drum machine beats.
I am completely certain that the audio is not being clipped either as (1) the drum machine beats are consistent, yet, only some will be muted and (2) the recording and playback meters are in the middle of the “green” segment.
My computer should be completely compatible with the program.
These problems (among others) have been a source of great frustration for me lately.
Please, help me out with these problems.
Any help you can offer will be greatly appreciated!
Your advice is necessary!
Thank you so very much.
I feel your pain codefish, same problem here with the asio, using an E-Mu 0404 pci card, all distortion on recorded wave. Can import a wave recorded from other source and playback is fine.
WDM drivers won’t let me open midi either. This started with the last build of 5.
Not having the other problems you are with highlighting and drop out of audio.
Maybe one of the cats here can help us out!
Yaz 
Thanks for the imput, yaz, and I sure hope someone will be able to help us out. I appreciate the empathy, though; misery loves company (at least until we get some help)!
I suspect that these problems will not really go away until ver 6 is released. Vista is not working for many programs the way it is suppose to, and the problem is not with the programs, but with Vista. If you still have XP, I’d suggest loading that back onto your computer if you want to do audio recording. You may be able to do a search on this forum or get more information, but the forums are full of probelms running audio on Vista. Sorry . . .
I was afraid that vista might be the problem. I’m going to keep my hopes up that the problems will be able to be resolved. Thanks for your input, bax3.
Very well may be the vista issue, don’t have XP, but I will say that earlier builds of version 5 worked fine on the same vista machine. Unfortunately I didn’t back up the earlier versions and am stuck with final build.
Yaz
Just an update here guys, I’ve sent an e-mail to Flavio with this problem, this morning I did some testing and the asio drivers get the distortion only when using 24 bt, 16b does just fine (that was changing the patchmix settings on E-Mu card to same as n in all situations). Changing 44100 to 48k on both bit settings results are the same. Got me thinking this could possibly be a registration code problem.
Codefish could you try the same test on your machine?
Will post results when I hear back from Flavio!
Have a great day!
Yaz
Sad to say I had similar editing problems from 3 to 4 on XP (I record to a Tascam 2488 and only mix in N) I have a Dell Inspiron with the AMD dual core etc and V 5 is still the same on Vista.
Have to say that Reaper mouse commands tend to be flaky too but I’m sorely tempted to ditch Ntrack altogethe. I’ll definitely wait for a bunch of people to say V6 works on Vista before I think of committing to it.
Interesting idea, yaz. I really appreciate the legwork and all, and I’m very glad that your machine is working (allbeit in only 16bit, but what can you do). I will give that a shot later tonight and let you know how it all goes! Thank you so, so much for the information!
However, the highlighting/selection problem, random muting, and the numerous other bugs (that I didn’t have the wherewithall to list off) will likely remain as long as I’m running vista and n-track 5-point-whatever. I’ve found it extremely frustrating that versions 3 through 5 have become progressively worse. I was quite happy with 3, but then found several periodically reoccurring bugs within 4 upon upgrading. I thought these would have been resolved in version 5, but I was sadly mistaken, and my experience with it thusfar as been nothing but negative, leading to much understandable frustration. So, barryMK, it seems as if we are on a similar page, and I thank you for your imput. My primary ASIO is a tascam US-428, by the way.
Thanks again, yaz, for the excellent idea! I hope to hear from you soon with updates. I’ll likewise let you know how my own tests go later on.
Keep me posted with info and ideas, everyone; I shall do the same!
Thanks, everyone!
I use the Tascam US122 with Vista - the drivers were released the day I had a crash and bought a new system.
They still are not fully Vista compatible - I have to unplug the Tascam unit to shutdown or even sleep or it will blue screen me.
Tascam still hasn’t figured out why Vista does it. They just told me to make sure I unplug it…
Other than that after you tweak Vista for performance over eye candy it’s pretty solid.
(If I had 200 bucks layin around I’d put XP on this puppy though)
Poppa,
You can get XP a lot cheaper than that, I recently bought one for $45 US on ebay. (XP pro service pack 2)
Just got to catch a deal, one no one else noticed or bid on, that’s how I get the goods!
Codefish,
Yaz may be onto something there, I experienced a similar problem with a registration issue in between 24 bit and 16 bit and the different sampling frequencies with XP tho and the latest build…(well actually I asked around here what the last most stable build was and got that one)
I found the problem went away when I switched to 16bit and 48000.
If I pay for 24bit upgrade I could go as high as 96000 and most likely not have problems on my system, and hopefully that would work with the approved “stable” build the kind board members have suggested.
I feel your pain though, there were quiet a few things I had to learn on 5.(-) as compared to 2.3! 
but most of the things I see seem like improvements to me, once I find out how to work them.
I still haven’t found “main channel effect” it used to be in the left top corner of the mixing console, and I could add a slight compression to the main mix on that channel… 
so now I have to mix down the song, then compress that mixdown to render a final track before mastering.
I think what I am suggesting is going to 16bit, 48000, and an older confirmed stable build (with AISO4ALL drivers)
If that does not work, you have more serious PC problems than Ntrack or your related sound equipment software and drivers, scrub, lather, virus protect, firewall, reformat rinse and repeat.
keep shinin’
jerm
Quote:
I still haven't found "main channel effect" it used to be in the left top corner of the mixing console, and I could add a slight compression to the main mix on that channel....
It's still there Jerm. Just make sure you are looking at the Master Mixer. Press F3 and you should see it. Also, right-click in a blank area of the mixer view and choose what you want to see in that view.
As for all the other woes you wrote about... I'm sorry man. You shouldn't have to go through all that crap. Hopefully V6 will bring relief.
D
Hi guys, Flavio sent this message back,
Open n and put settings back to defaults, open and start a new project, increase buffer settings to see if the distortion problem goes away. I spent a little over a hour testing.
E-Mu asio settings, 24bt 44100 and 48k, started with 2ms and ran it all the way up to 100 ms in patchmix. No good, still distorted. 16 bt does fine on all settings from 2ms to 100 ms.
The wave looks just fine in n, but when I put the wave in another app, it’s a solid block. I sent the results back to Flavio. Also I did test on WDM and getting the buffer settings correct alowed me to record in 24 bt.
I also sent my codes with the problem and Flavio said they looked ok.
So waiting to hear from him again, maybe we can get something figured out.
Now I’ve tweaked this Vista and have nuttin running 'cept basic computer on boot up. I even have to manually start patchmix. No programs running other than patchmix and nTrack. Using no plug-ins during recording either.
Starting to think I’ll go back to using 2 tin cans and a monkey chizeling my compositions on a rock. 
Yaz the JackYaz
Distortion as described seems like a format issue – possibly int data being treated as float (or is it the other way around?) or 16 bit data being read as 32 bit (or 32 as 16)…or both.
n-Tracks will write out the wave format as it is set in the app. Sometimes that may not be exactly what the true wave data in the file is. If that happens it could play back correctly in n-Tracks and not in other apps, or it may not play back correctly in any app, including n-Tracks.
It would be interesting to see what format the wave data is. Some wave editors will allow opening wave files as raw data, where you tell it what the format should be. It’s a trial and error thing until the wave looks and sounds correctly. Then you can save out the file as it should be.
I suggest fiddling with the format in n-Tracks and see if one works better than the other. There are a few different 24 bit formats, and 1 16 bit format? (I’m not on an n-Tracks machine so I can’t tell).
Most times when n-Tracks writes out the wrong format header it’s because the soundcard, or driver, is sending data to n-Tracks in a format that n-Tracks isn’t expecting. At that point n-Tracks only knows what it’s been told. If it’s be set to 24 bit but the data is 16 bit then n-Tracks will write out the file header as 24 bit, but the underlying data will still be 16 bit. Look at it as the driver or soundcard lying about what it’s giving n-Tracks. n-Tracks is trusting, and must be since the data is nothing but a raw stream of data at that point.
Someone else had a distortion issue that was fixed by reinstalling the drivers.
AND…are you monitoring through n-Tracks (using the Live button)? If not then there is little to no need for low latency. ASIO has lower latency than WDM or MME…but if the lower latency is not needed?
Big Duh here, I’m so quick to point others to the asio4all driver, but when I have troubles I pull my hair out. Jeezzzzzz
Ok, asio4all will let me record with no problems in 24bt, so this has to be an E-Mu issue. (Not happy with E-Mu at the moment)
So Codefish, I would suggest re-installing nTrack on your machine and then try the asio4all driver, it works of the WDM driver and is a standalone proggy. It’s Vista ready too. Here’s the link.
asio4all
Now to get Proteus X working in n.
JackYaz
Quote: (jeremysdemo @ Apr. 22 2008, 9:35 PM)
I think what I am suggesting is going to 16bit, 48000, and an older confirmed stable build (with AISO4ALL drivers)
If that does not work, you have more serious PC problems than Ntrack or your related sound equipment software and drivers, scrub, lather, virus protect, firewall, reformat rinse and repeat.
keep shinin'
jerm
Since we’re quoting ourselves…
Quote:
I’m sorry man. You shouldn’t have to go through all that crap.
D
Wow, thank you so very much for the info, everyone!
Just to update you, I tried recording in 16bit with 48000, and everything seemed to be recording well as I was monitoring through the Live button, but when I tried to play the file back, I got an error message saying that the file “did not exist,” and upon pressing “OK” I was confronted wtih the blue screen of death.
This seemed to me like it may be a driver problem, so I tried reinstalling the drivers (from the tascam website), but n-track gave me the “error initializing ASIO driver” message when I opened the program.
I had to walk away in frustration at that point (my “saturation point” for troubleshooting seems to be coming on quicker and quicker), but I’ll definitely mess around with things a little more when I have the patience.
And I’m looking forward with high hopes in giving your latest idea a shot, yaz + jerm, and I appreciate your enlightening comments, phoo (I hadn’t thought about that possibility).
Hopefully all this will workout.
I’ll let you know how everything goes!
And keep the ideas coming in the meantime!
If anyone has any ideas on the selection and muting issues in addition to the ASIO woes, please discuss this as well.
Thanks again, all!
email this guy CustSer7 CustSer7@teac.com
Tell him you need to know if the 428 needs a “Clean uninstall” in Vista like the us122 did.
If so could he send you directions - he’s #7 all I ever knew him by.
Great guy - uses the product himself with vista.
He got me up and running in one day.
Latest news buzz is the rumor that microsoft is not going to ‘fix’ vista - they are moving on already to an early release of “seven”.