are they compatable ?
Does anybody out there use N-track together with a Terratec
DMX 6fire soundcard. The soundcard has a front control panel
with analogue/digital ins/outs etc.
The reason i’m asking is that the N-track program itself seems
fine for my needs. As long as N-track will work OK with my
DMX 6fire then I will buy N-track.
The demo version of N-track seems to work OK but limits what
you can do. This is fair enough. The problem is I cant tell whether the full version is OK to use with my soundcard or whether there are any big problems of compatability etc.
I’m not worried about small glitches and not expecting perfection.
If you use N-track together with the DMX 6fire soundcard I would be very gratefull for your feedback whether it’s good or bad.
Hi. I use a DMX6 fire with N-track 3.3 in Win98SE.
Main issues:
I can’t get ASIO drivers to work and with WDM there is the added complication of buffer settings in N-track as well as the cards control panel.
No big deal maybe, its just that it took me, oh, about a year to get to the bottom of the clicks, pops and dropouts I was experiencing and get the right settings for the card and in N-track (lots of wasted time troubleshooting all kinds of other possibilities). I still get the occasional glitch in playback, but I don’t want to tinker any more as its much better than it was.
Terratec after sales support is famously terrible, but it is a good and versatile card. The background noise levels were reduced considerable by isolating the breakout box from the case.
HTH.
Thanks for the info.
I havnt used Ntrack really yet. Just bought it and hope it will
work OK. Sounds as there may be a few problems. Just hope
I will be able to sort them out.
If you have time can you tell me what you did to isolate the
break out box from the computer as I have noticed that the
vu meters show a reading of about -45 db or so when nothing
is connected into the break out box. This is not only on Ntrack
but on another program I use as well.
I guess it must be some sort of internal noise in the soundcard
or break out box but should be much lower according to DMX
6fire specs. Perhaps isolation from the computer can help me too. Anyhow if you can let me know what you did I would be very gratefull.
| Quote (demto @ Dec. 01 2004,13:15) |
| If you have time can you tell me what you did to isolate the break out box from the computer |
Simple really, I just wound electrical insulating tape right round the box so that no part of it comes into contact with the PC case. It had quite a remarkable affect on background noise levels, I rembering measuring it before and after in Cool edit. There are a few other tips for setting up this card in the FAQ of the Computer Music Forum in here somewhere:
http://forum.midiaddict.com/viewforum.php?f=16
But the buffering settings was the real killer.
Mutley, Thanks for the info, I am gratefull.
I forget now whether there were any screws to secure the box into the computer. I’m pretty sure there were. I guess the
best thing to do is either not use them or fit plastic screws
instead. Anyway I will see when I do the mod you have told
me about.
I know i’m a pest but can you give me any info on the problems you had with buffering and what you did to get over the problems you had. I know a little about what buffering is for but any tips you can give would be a great help.
| Quote (demto @ Dec. 02 2004,16:02) |
| I know i'm a pest but can you give me any info on the problems you had with buffering and what you did to get over the problems you had. I know a little about what buffering is for but any tips you can give would be a great help. |
The problems as I said earlier, were pops, clicks and little dropouts when playing back audio.
I couldn't get the ASIO drivers to work, so I used WDM.
This means that I had to set the buffering in N-track's settings, as well as setting the bufering in the Terratec's control panel.
Getting everything hunky dory was trial and error, and took ages to sort out (mainly beacause I spent so long doing all the other trouble shooting things for audio pops and clicks).
Anyhow, the solution for my system was to set buffering in N -track to very high, and to set the buffering in the Terratec quite low - 3msec. YMMV, as there are lots of things at play here and its all a balancing act.
If you can get ASIO drivers to work with your system, you are in a much better position as N track buffer settings are ignored and its all set by the cards software, so you only have one buffer setting to play with to get things working.
HTH
Mutley
Thanks for the info
ya know me mate demto no way is -45 fig good
gotta be some ow yer fired little blighter sound card up mate
types o’ cards like it shuld be round -95 fer tha noise
mebe its got a fault cos even grokky sound cards
do -85 
Thanks Limey
I know your right. the s/n ratio should be much higher than
-45db. The noise seems to only on one channel, the other channel s/n ratio is well, well down.
Im going to carry out the mods that Mutley mentioned and
see how things are afterwards. Lets hope it will be OK
Thanks for your help