Audio problems: old interfaces, garbled audio into Live etc
Posted: Sat Dec 08, 2018 1:38 pm
I used to have a pretty trouble-free experience with Live through the years, but lately it's been frustrating due to constant crashes and audio interface failure.
I've been using an Edirol UA-25 since around 2004 and a Pod HD desktop since around 2013. The UA25's ASIO driver crashes randomly now (though I've since stopped sharing it with Windows sound - something that was never a problem before across three PCs the last 14 years) and I THINK it's a bit better now. It's very time-consuming testing these things. Sometimes it crashes so hard Live cannot find the device again even after PC restart. The Pod is mainly for guitar recording, but also a backup audio interface. This sometimes suddenly jumps out of sync with Live if used as the latter - never crashes - but suddenly it would gain a lot of latency. Turning it on/off solves it.
The current problem I'm focused on is a new one to me - The Edirol, seemingly stable-ish, can only feed what sounds like very garbled 2-bit audio into audio channels, or Live is not communicating correctly with the Edirol. Direct monitor through the UA25 sounds fine - mics and line inputs. It is specifically when monitoring the sound from an armed Live audio track that i hear this foul 2-bit garble. I've checked audio prefs - sample rate is the same as switch on back of interface (48khz), tried another audio rate, UA25 Advanced mode is on, swapped USB cables, swapped USB ports, reinstalled driver multiple times. The crashes were happening for a while now, but this is totally new. I hope I'm missing something very trivial and obvious and that I'm a massive idiot, but perhaps it has finally become defective properly, and I need to upgrade interface. Just to be clear - everything else in Live with the UA25 is fine - MIDI tracks, real-time playing, etc - it's just audio track monitoring.
Note that the same mic/line inputs record fine with no garble if using the Pod HD interface.
I'm eyeing a Scarlett 2i4 2nd gen, but not sure if these ASIO issues will persist, and if my PC might be to blame too. It's such a ballache to eliminate the source of these problems. Maybe just go with a damn RME and get rock-solid drivers and stuff. I don't know. Maybe the UA25 is simply too old with very old drivers that are not updated to keep up with OS systems etc.
Any assistance would be appreciated!
Live 10.0.5
i7 5820k (overclocked a little bit from 3.3 to 3.8 )
32 GB RAM
gtx 980 ti
500GB Samsung EVO SSD
Windows 8.1 (did not update for free last year to 10 because UA25 does not work properly on 10)
Push 2 (lovely jitter on some encoders)
APC40 but almost never turned on
Edirol UA25
Pod HD desktop
other USB devices plugged in at all times:
Wacom Intuos 4 pen tablet
Seagate USB 3 external 4TB HDD
a little mouse
a keyboard
Another weird thing! Is it normal from drum rack return channels to have a lot of latency? This is new to me too! haha, and my one Tannoy monitor speaker has failed as well, though the repair should be trivial.
Ah yes, the apC40 has ... knob jitter ... overall.
As I just got back into recording music in the last month after some years away, this is not ideal.
I've been using an Edirol UA-25 since around 2004 and a Pod HD desktop since around 2013. The UA25's ASIO driver crashes randomly now (though I've since stopped sharing it with Windows sound - something that was never a problem before across three PCs the last 14 years) and I THINK it's a bit better now. It's very time-consuming testing these things. Sometimes it crashes so hard Live cannot find the device again even after PC restart. The Pod is mainly for guitar recording, but also a backup audio interface. This sometimes suddenly jumps out of sync with Live if used as the latter - never crashes - but suddenly it would gain a lot of latency. Turning it on/off solves it.
The current problem I'm focused on is a new one to me - The Edirol, seemingly stable-ish, can only feed what sounds like very garbled 2-bit audio into audio channels, or Live is not communicating correctly with the Edirol. Direct monitor through the UA25 sounds fine - mics and line inputs. It is specifically when monitoring the sound from an armed Live audio track that i hear this foul 2-bit garble. I've checked audio prefs - sample rate is the same as switch on back of interface (48khz), tried another audio rate, UA25 Advanced mode is on, swapped USB cables, swapped USB ports, reinstalled driver multiple times. The crashes were happening for a while now, but this is totally new. I hope I'm missing something very trivial and obvious and that I'm a massive idiot, but perhaps it has finally become defective properly, and I need to upgrade interface. Just to be clear - everything else in Live with the UA25 is fine - MIDI tracks, real-time playing, etc - it's just audio track monitoring.
Note that the same mic/line inputs record fine with no garble if using the Pod HD interface.
I'm eyeing a Scarlett 2i4 2nd gen, but not sure if these ASIO issues will persist, and if my PC might be to blame too. It's such a ballache to eliminate the source of these problems. Maybe just go with a damn RME and get rock-solid drivers and stuff. I don't know. Maybe the UA25 is simply too old with very old drivers that are not updated to keep up with OS systems etc.
Any assistance would be appreciated!
Live 10.0.5
i7 5820k (overclocked a little bit from 3.3 to 3.8 )
32 GB RAM
gtx 980 ti
500GB Samsung EVO SSD
Windows 8.1 (did not update for free last year to 10 because UA25 does not work properly on 10)
Push 2 (lovely jitter on some encoders)
APC40 but almost never turned on
Edirol UA25
Pod HD desktop
other USB devices plugged in at all times:
Wacom Intuos 4 pen tablet
Seagate USB 3 external 4TB HDD
a little mouse
a keyboard
Another weird thing! Is it normal from drum rack return channels to have a lot of latency? This is new to me too! haha, and my one Tannoy monitor speaker has failed as well, though the repair should be trivial.
Ah yes, the apC40 has ... knob jitter ... overall.
As I just got back into recording music in the last month after some years away, this is not ideal.