In an earlier article I mentioned that I had installed the EMU 0404 PCI sound card.
I basically got it off ebay for £30, and it was curiosity that made me go for it.
Curious about it’s zero latency and the built in FX.
I have a UAD card and even though I knew the EMU would not be able to compete I did think it would be interesting to see if it was any good at all.
The card went in fine, software/drivers installed – downloaded updates installed those.
Without touching the Patchbay software I fired up Sonar.
Created a new project and recorded a track.
Recording went fine.
I created a new track and copied the recording over.
Panned each track left and right
So now I’ve got a ‘stereo’ recording.
<—-Track 1—–>
Vol 0db
Panned Left
FX BIN – Sonitus: EQ and Compressor
<—-Track 2—–>
Vol 0db
Panned Right
FX BIN – PowerFX EQ and Compressor
<—-Problems—->
1. Clicks and pops on Track 2 that stop when PowerFX bypassed.
2. Time lag using midi controller to change FX parameters.
<—-Solution to problem 1.—->
Reinstall software/drivers – uninstalled updates and reinstalled older drivers form disc.
Problems still there – reinstall newest drivers still problem.
Disable Sonitus FX – no dice – still a problem.
Change latency settings in Sonar – still problem – in some case get’s worse.
I’ll keep digging but it’s gonna be a few days til I get to it again.
<—-Solution to problem 2.—->
I’m stumped with this one and it’s annoying as hell.
Will be trying to fix this as well.
<—-Overall—->
At the moment I’m contemplating going back to my M-Audio and binning the EMU.
It’s a lot of work really and I can’t in all honesty see myself recommending this device as it stands.
Think I’ll email EMU and see waht they have to say.
I’ll be back…
Ok so here we go solution 1 – Update Sonar
Update sonar 7 with service packs 7.1 and 7.2 – Problem still there…
Ok so here we go solution 2 – Disable unused motherboard items in bios
Disable unused items in bios – in this case my Game Port – never use it anyway. – Problem remains
Ok so here we go solution 3 – Check for IRQ conflicts
Sounds to me like a clipping problem, dunno why – but when I dsiable the Powerfx the clipping/click/pop goes away.
Anyway by all accounts the 0404 is even more a bit demanding on a computer’s resources.
So I ran a check
– start -run – msinfo32
Checked my IRQ assignments for any conflicts with the 0404 – found none – although I did notice the M-Audio 2496 had a conflict with my graphics card???
Think the next step will be to remove that.
—->Removed M-Audio 24/96 – problem still there.
Ok so here we go solution 4 – Totally remove drivers and software completely.
Takes to restarts of pc and will try to install drivers for emu each time – cancelled as I want to run CCleaner.
CCleaner will remove any gunk left over.
Reinstall newest drivers from that point – but will search for any remaining EMU plugins and delete before I start.
Checked registry for problems and cleaned them up.
Now re-install drivers and software – make sure latest are downloaded from EMUs site.
Then downloaded Sonar Tutorial for PatchMix DSP
Might as well start from scratch as I’m convinced now that this is a software problem.
—–>>>
Well the clicking popping was still there after all that.
But anyway after following the tutorial I started to mess with the latencyt settings again and it worked.
After going through a few times I ended up settling for 14ms latency settings.
Defragged again.
Seems a bit better, I’ll keep an ear on it this week.
But for now…