Topic: MIcrotracker: Random White Noise Problem

[BC]

  open up the codetalkers when i get back to camp, and i can see the music, and two HUGE blocks of solid noise on both channels at two different places in the recording.(unit was not jostled during recording)

Crossposted from the "real-life experiences" thread, but that and the bug report thread are so long I didn't want this to get buried.

I got a 3 sec block of Full-scale noise in my recording last weekend, taking SPDIF from a V3 at 24/44.1. Dane-elec CF card, new firmware.

1st set, noise, 2nd set no problems. Each set ~45 min or so. Noise occurred about 30 min into set 1.

Scared the crap out of me when I was listening to it!!   

[L Ron Hoover]

Hmmm. I was gonna be brave and run V3>MT all by its lonesome this weekend. I'd better get some cables and run the MSBM1>DAT just in case.

[Brian Skalinder]

Gotta narrow down possible causes.  I'd start by:

• swap with a known-good cable
• try a different coax S/PDIF source to rule out the V3 as the cause
• try a different recorder with the same V3/coax cable to rule out the MT
• try different media

.
But my bet's on the Dane CF card.  I take it back, for some reason I thought JR ran a Dane card, too.  JR - what CF card did you use when you ran into your trouble?  Any update on trying to track down the problem?

[John R]

i haven't had a chance to get the comps with different gear yet.  the card i have is a kingston 4gig 48x

[BC]

Gotta narrow down possible causes.  I'd start by:

• swap with a known-good cable
• try a different coax S/PDIF source to rule out the V3 as the cause
• try a different recorder with the same V3/coax cable to rule out the MT
• try different media

.
But my bet's on the Dane CF card.  I take it back, for some reason I thought JR ran a Dane card, too.  JR - what CF card did you use when you ran into your trouble?  Any update on trying to track down the problem?

FWIW: I have run my V3 SPDIF out with this coax cable to both a D8 and USBPre>Lappy over a hundred times and have never had this happen.
I am positive that it is due to the MT or the CF card.

[mmedley.]

I have had this happen as well. 6GB Microdrive. Mine was much longer than a few seconds too! I sent a sample mp3 as a bug to m-audio and they replied thay they knew it was a problem. Who knows.

Edit:

I will elaborate a little more. I was at Panic 10-14-05 and the Truckers opening set turned out okay from what I remember. There might have been some white noise at the very end, no music affected.

During the Panic sets I experienced drop outs and several areas of white noise. Mostly near the end of the sets. I have no explanation for what caused them other than a 'loose' cable from holding and slightly moving the player while recording. Cable stayed snug, but it might have turned itself while moving it gently? I don't know. I looked for my mp3 sample but it has been deleted since I sent the bug to m-audio, but I am certain we are experiencing the same problem.

Edit 2:

I originally reprted it in this thread.

http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=51891.45

[musicsherlock]

haven't analyzed any of my test files yet...has anyone reported similar findings when recording analog in?

[BC]

I have had this happen as well. 6GB Microdrive. Mine was much longer than a few seconds too! I sent a sample mp3 as a bug to m-audio and they replied thay they knew it was a problem. Who knows.

Edit:

I will elaborate a little more. I was at Panic 10-14-05 and the Truckers opening set turned out okay from what I remember. There might have been some white noise at the very end, no music affected.

During the Panic sets I experienced drop outs and several areas of white noise. Mostly near the end of the sets. I have no explanation for what caused them other than a 'loose' cable from holding and slightly moving the player while recording. Cable stayed snug, but it might have turned itself while moving it gently? I don't know. I looked for my mp3 sample but it has been deleted since I sent the bug to m-audio, but I am certain we are experiencing the same problem.

Edit 2:

I originally reprted it in this thread.

http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=51891.45

just curious, what is the rated speed on your microdrive?
And what bit depth/sampling rate were you running at?

[Craig T]

Several pdaudio users have experienced the "white noise" when running 24bit.  You can recover it, usually with a dropout at each border of the block of noise.

[mmedley.]

I have had this happen as well. 6GB Microdrive. Mine was much longer than a few seconds too! I sent a sample mp3 as a bug to m-audio and they replied thay they knew it was a problem. Who knows.

Edit:

I will elaborate a little more. I was at Panic 10-14-05 and the Truckers opening set turned out okay from what I remember. There might have been some white noise at the very end, no music affected.

During the Panic sets I experienced drop outs and several areas of white noise. Mostly near the end of the sets. I have no explanation for what caused them other than a 'loose' cable from holding and slightly moving the player while recording. Cable stayed snug, but it might have turned itself while moving it gently? I don't know. I looked for my mp3 sample but it has been deleted since I sent the bug to m-audio, but I am certain we are experiencing the same problem.

Edit 2:

I originally reprted it in this thread.

http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=51891.45

just curious, what is the rated speed on your microdrive?
And what bit depth/sampling rate were you running at?

I am not sure of the exact speed, but it supports up to 9.4MB/sec. I was recording at 16/48 for both acts.

[musicsherlock]

just curious, what is the rated speed on your microdrive?
And what bit depth/sampling rate were you running at?

http://www.hitachigst.com/tech/techlib.nsf/techdocs/A21F3DAEDFC04A0886256FAA005B9729/$file/Final_Microdrive_3K6_datasheet.pdf

[jimmyrow]

Several pdaudio users have experienced the "white noise" when running 24bit.  You can recover it, usually with a dropout at each border of the block of noise.

I am one of the lucky ones who had the white noise problem.  It was explained to me that essentially a sample gets dropped and that portion of the music "shifts" and becomes noise since it isn't synched up anymore.   I don't know all the correct technical terms, but it's kind of the equivalent of bumping the needle on vinyl....you get that screech and when it stops, you get the music playing again.

It can be fixed in wavelab by shifting the music by one sample.....it's not hard, but you will most likely have artifacts at the beginning and end of the fix.    PM me if you want me to put together a short guide on how to do this and I'll do it this weekend.  I would have to suspect that what you have happening here is the exact same thing that was happening with the PDAudio card and it would certainly be worth a shot.

[BC]

well, happened again at Lotus last night, a few secs of full-scale white noise, same thing, 24/44.1 with the dane-elec 4 GB CF, taking SPDIF from the V3.

I at first thought it was from the dane-elec CF card but someone John R told me that the same thing has occurred to him with 45x rated Kingston CF media. 

The channel swap and lack of auto-split I can live with, but this problem sucks, I really don't like that I can not depend on this device to pull a glitch-free recording.     
Looks like it is back to the trusty ol' D8 for a while...

[JasonSobel]

I'm still guessing it's the card.  I have had zero problems with my Sandisk Ultra II 4 gig card, which is rated at 60X.  all of my recordings have been via S/PDIF from the V3, and the last couple at 24/48.  In fact, tonight, I'm taking it out without my D8. (but, Scott and I are running a comparison of the V3 A/D at 24 bit and the ad2k+ at 24 bit, so in the event that my recording messes up, we'll still have his V3 > ad2k > laptop recording.)  Anyway, I would suggest buying a faster card.

the lack of any problems on my end lead me to this conclusion.  that's the only thing different from our setups, right?  at least, that's the only thing I can think of.

[BC]

I am not sure of the exact speed, but it supports up to 9.4MB/sec. I was recording at 16/48 for both acts.

analog in from the Sax?

[BC]

I'm still guessing it's the card.  I have had zero problems with my Sandisk Ultra II 4 gig card, which is rated at 60X.  all of my recordings have been via S/PDIF from the V3, and the last couple at 24/48.  In fact, tonight, I'm taking it out without my D8. (but, Scott and I are running a comparison of the V3 A/D at 24 bit and the ad2k+ at 24 bit, so in the event that my recording messes up, we'll still have his V3 > ad2k > laptop recording.)  Anyway, I would suggest buying a faster card.

the lack of any problems on my end lead me to this conclusion.  that's the only thing different from our setups, right?  at least, that's the only thing I can think of.

sounds like a good idea, 60x is a big jump up from what I am using. Any good links for where to score one of these?
Thanks for the input, +t!

[mmedley.]

I am not sure of the exact speed, but it supports up to 9.4MB/sec. I was recording at 16/48 for both acts.

analog in from the Sax?

Nope. Nagra V > Analog out > DA-P1 > Coax > MT

[JasonSobel]

I'm still guessing it's the card.  I have had zero problems with my Sandisk Ultra II 4 gig card, which is rated at 60X.  all of my recordings have been via S/PDIF from the V3, and the last couple at 24/48.  In fact, tonight, I'm taking it out without my D8. (but, Scott and I are running a comparison of the V3 A/D at 24 bit and the ad2k+ at 24 bit, so in the event that my recording messes up, we'll still have his V3 > ad2k > laptop recording.)  Anyway, I would suggest buying a faster card.

the lack of any problems on my end lead me to this conclusion.  that's the only thing different from our setups, right?  at least, that's the only thing I can think of.

sounds like a good idea, 60x is a big jump up from what I am using. Any good links for where to score one of these?
Thanks for the input, +t!

I bought mine from Newegg.com.   right now, the 4gig Sandisk Ultra II cards are $327.  you might be able to find a better deal if you look around the web.  but Sandisk, Lexar, etc..  are always more pricy than other cards.

I am not sure of the exact speed, but it supports up to 9.4MB/sec. I was recording at 16/48 for both acts.

even though its rated at 9.4MB/sec (which should be WAY overboard, as stereo 24/96 is only about 0.5MB/sec), I'm guessing it's still the card.  it seems to me like the microdrives have a harder time sustaining the data rate, compared to CF cards.

the fact of the matter is, NO cf card or microdrive is really designed for continuous writing.  because the VAST majority of users are using them for photos, which is only a few MB of data at any given time.  when we're trying to use the cards for sustained writing for hours on end, I don't think we can really trust the rated speeds of the cards.  better to go overboard with media speed and hope to avoid the issue altogether, IMO.  (of course, as I'm writing this now, I hope I'm not jinxing myself for tonights show   of course, I'll post if anything bad happens.)

[JasonSobel]

just wanted to post that I've doen two more shows now, both at 24/48, both via the S/PDIF input from the V3, and both without any issue with white noise or the like,  in my mind, this is just further evidence that the cf card in use can either make/break the recording.

can't wait for the 12 gig or 16 gig CF cards to come out, so the prices on the 8gig cards plummet

[showtaper]

  open up the codetalkers when i get back to camp, and i can see the music, and two HUGE blocks of solid noise on both channels at two different places in the recording.(unit was not jostled during recording)

Crossposted from the "real-life experiences" thread, but that and the bug report thread are so long I didn't want this to get buried.

I got a 3 sec block of Full-scale noise in my recording last weekend, taking SPDIF from a V3 at 24/44.1. Dane-elec CF card, new firmware.

1st set, noise, 2nd set no problems. Each set ~45 min or so. Noise occurred about 30 min into set 1.

Scared the crap out of me when I was listening to it!!   

Anyone having this problem from the mic or line inputs?  I believe this is a known SPDIF problem....

[BC]

just wanted to post that I've doen two more shows now, both at 24/48, both via the S/PDIF input from the V3, and both without any issue with white noise or the like,  in my mind, this is just further evidence that the cf card in use can either make/break the recording.

can't wait for the 12 gig or 16 gig CF cards to come out, so the prices on the 8gig cards plummet

well, good to know it is a media issue. Damn that is some expensive CF!! Hoping the prices drop and speeds go up.    Thanks for your input on this problem!

[John R]

ok, i just went through all my files from magfest, and the white noise happened at 17 minute intervals in each file, and lasted for 15 minutes.  wierd

[mmedley.]

ok, i just went through all my files from magfest, and the white noise happened at 17 minute intervals in each file, and lasted for 15 minutes.  wierd

Create an mp3 to send in to m-audio. I did the same. You might also let them know that you noticed it was occuring in 17minute intervals. That is strange for sure.

Sucks it happened to you too.