KRK are cackling mad..driving me insane..!HELP

theaaao

hello hello,
got a pair of krk rokit 6's and havent been able to use them yet! Im obviously not setting them up right.
Have the alesis io2 as an audio interface with two balanced TRS to TRS cables. Been trying to set them up with ableton now but all im getting through the monitors is a hissing and cackling noises.
Its driving me insane becasue I dont know enough about using the settings to my advantage.
Downlaoded the ASIO4ALL driver which is allowing me to change some settings for the io2. The actual driver for the io 2 wont let me change anything.
Im new to 'Bedroom producing' but mad to get going at it. Using headphones arent an option anymore!
If anyone can help or point me to some sites or videos.
cheers

CrimsonSounds

Hi There !

When you say cackling and hissing, are you sure that this is the monitors and not your soundcard crapping out ?

If you use headphones in your soundcard while this is happening, is the sound OK or do you hear cackling and hissing aswell in there ?

First thing to do is figure out where exactly the problem is - i'd be surprised if it was the monitors alone - are they new ?

theaaao

CrimsonSounds wrote: »

Hi There !

When you say cackling and hissing, are you sure that this is the monitors and not your soundcard crapping out ?

If you use headphones in your soundcard while this is happening, is the sound OK or do you hear cackling and hissing aswell in there ?

First thing to do is figure out where exactly the problem is - i'd be surprised if it was the monitors alone - are they new ?

Yep there new. The hissing/cackling morse code type of sound comes from both the monitors and the headphones when headphones are connected via the sound card. So I'm pretty sure it's the sound card that's the problem. Im not sure if changing its settings around would forge trick or if it's just not suited for the monitors.
Someone mentioned an attenuator to me? Could this solve my problem?
Thanks for your input. :-)

madtheory

Attenuators will not help. You need to look at the source of the problem- the soundcard, or your computer. Is it a laptop? If so, check if the problem goes away when you're running on battery only i.e. disconnect the power supply.

Iomega Man

Hi theaaao,

The first thing that you need to do is strip this back to the essentials and try in a different environment.

By that I mean, take your laptop (Assuming that it is a laptop), Alesis and headphones and move them to another location and see does that solve the problem.
Depending on where you are set up there are plenty of devices that could cause interference.
In my own experience I've had problems caused by devices such as Broadband routers, CRT displays etc......

I'd do that first and at least you are ruling out all environmental issues with a stripped back set up.

Let me know how you get on and we'll go from there.

IM

theaaao

Iomega Man wrote: »

Hi theaaao,

The first thing that you need to do is strip this back to the essentials and try in a different environment.

By that I mean, take your laptop (Assuming that it is a laptop), Alesis and headphones and move them to another location and see does that solve the problem.
Depending on where you are set up there are plenty of devices that could cause interference.
In my own experience I've had problems caused by devices such as Broadband routers, CRT displays etc......

I'd do that first and at least you are ruling out all environmental issues with a stripped back set up.

Let me know how you get on and we'll go from there.

IM

Okay, moved laptop, monitors and alesis soundcard downstairs, away from broadband router. No luck unfortunatly. Still the same problem. Also tried the whole set up with the laptop just running on battery.

On a sidenote, the alesis io2 soundcard is working grand with connecting my yahama keyboard to ableton via midi in/out.

Iomega Man

Ok.

When you plug your headphones directly into the laptop do you have any problems with the sound?

The other thing to do would be (if you can) to connect the Alesis and speakers to another PC.

GTE

What is the buffer size in ASIO4ALL?



Assuming you're running Windows, what is your power option?



Again, if you are Windows based you should carry out at least step 4 in the following link.
http://www.focusrite.com/answerbase/en/article.php?id=1071

theaaao

Firstly, I just tried the alesis and krk monitor with my home desktop computer. Didnt have ableton installed on it but played a random music file with VLC without any problems. Great to finally hear music from them. No need to change any settings or anything, it just played fine, automatically through the krk.

The image below is what comes up under sound settings on my laptop which is what ableton is installed on. Should one be disabled while another works? Or is this irrelevant?

Change my power option to High Performance now I think, as well as following steps 1-4. Same problem though.

AND no problems with sound through the laptops heaphone jack or through its speakers, once the speaker are enabled in the sound settings and not the io2.
ALSO im running windows 7 with plenty hard drive room and 4gb of ram and 32 bit operating system.

GTE

theaaao wrote: »

Firstly, I just tried the alesis and krk monitor with my home desktop computer. Didnt have ableton installed on it but played a random music file with VLC without any problems. Great to finally hear music from them. No need to change any settings or anything, it just played fine, automatically through the krk.

The image below is what comes up under sound settings on my laptop which is what ableton is installed on. Should one be disabled while another works? Or is this irrelevant?

Change my power option to High Performance now I think, as well as following steps 1-4. Same problem though.

AND no problems with sound through the laptops heaphone jack or through its speakers, once the speaker are enabled in the sound settings and not the io2.
ALSO im running windows 7 with plenty hard drive room and 4gb of ram and 32 bit operating system.

Okay, when you use an interface like this on Windows and use it for what are called system sounds or sounds made by VLC, Firefox and any other program that isnt one like Ableton, it does NOT use the ASIO or at least it doesnt use the same one that Ableton would use.

I have a feeling something in the program is causing your problem now. Ableton could be overriding your ASIO4ALL buffer size or maybe the buffer is still too small. The buffer size is the most common and easiest to fix source of noise like this.
A slightly more complicated problem is that your project sample rate is one which the interface can not operate with.

The pic you opsted should be irrelevant as Ableton doesn't look to that set of settings to operate. Do try and disable or make something else the default devices and try but I am fairly sure at this stage that its your buffer settings.

CrimsonSounds

bbk wrote: »

The pic you opsted should be irrelevant as Ableton doesn't look to that set of settings to operate. Do try and disable or make something else the default devices and try but I am fairly sure at this stage that its your buffer settings.

+1 for that. It's got to be your buffers.

Especially if you can play mp3/cd music with no issue. The noise you describe sounds like a soundcard struggling to process the audio at the buffer rate it's set at.

Adjusting the buffer rate is a tradeoff between system performance and latency. The lower the buffer (64/128) the lower the latency when recording. However, when you're computer/soundcard are struggling to process at 64, they will click, pop, sound like a record needle scratching across the surface of a record, crash the machine and do all varieties of that.

The trick is to learn for yourself what lowest buffer size is possible for you to get out of the setup without hearing pops clicks and destruction !

An easy test is to set the buffer at it's absolute highest setting in ASIO4All, and open Ableton. Go into the Ableton settings, and check the Audio Settings in it's options modules, and make sure it's the highest there too.

Now, do you have the problem ? I suspect not.

Next, you start bringing the buffer level down towards 64 in increments.

Of course, as you start to build a project, you may often find that while you can start at 128/256 when the project is empty, as you load it up with tracks and progress through the project, that sample rate my start to cause the problems you are having now. Ultimately, you need to learn the limits of your setup to avoid hearing that dreaded noise !

Good luck ;-)

theaaao

any ideas how to call on the asio4all driver settings from outside of ableton? I understand that its a driver and is only called on when a program uses it, so how can i change the settings before opening ableton?

TelePaul

theaaao wrote: »

any ideas how to call on the asio4all driver settings from outside of ableton? I understand that its a driver and is only called on when a program uses it, so how can i change the settings before opening ableton?

Did your interface come with it's own dedicated drivers? Been away from this stuff for a while but my understanding is that your interface should be used to handle all audio over your stock soundcard.

theaaao

yeah I installed the alesis driver from the disc I got with it. But when I selected the io2 option instead of ASIO4ALL, it doesnt allowed me to change the buffer size. Thats why I went and got ASIO4ALL and use that now to control the io2 rather than the direct driver I got with it. I have since uninstalled that driver. And i have checked for an updated driver for the io2 on their website, but they just give you a link for the asio site.

TelePaul

theaaao wrote: »

yeah I installed the alesis driver from the disc I got with it. But when I selected the io2 option instead of ASIO4ALL, it doesnt allowed me to change the buffer size. Thats why I went and got ASIO4ALL and use that now to control the io2 rather than the direct driver I got with it. I have since uninstalled that driver. And i have checked for an updated driver for the io2 on their website, but they just give you a link for the asio site.

Okay. Seems a bit odd that the buffer is fixed on the Alesis. Are you trying to adjust latency from within Ableton or via the Alesis control panel? My Alesis has it's own dashboard where you can adjust buffer size.

CrimsonSounds

theaaao wrote: »

any ideas how to call on the asio4all driver settings from outside of ableton? I understand that its a driver and is only called on when a program uses it, so how can i change the settings before opening ableton?

This is from the ASIO 4 All faq on their site:

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Q: I have installed ASIO4ALL but there seems to be no change in latency or anything. When I select the control panel on the desktop, the sample rate is grayed out (Version 1.x). So what?[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]A: Chances are you never worked with ASIO before. I wasn't thinking that this may become a FAQ but here we go: You have to set up your audio software to use ASIO in order to notice any change. How this is done depends on your particular audio software and there usually is some sort of an audio configuration dialog. The sample rate is always grayed out if the control panel is launched from the desktop, this is per design. Please use the "ASIO Control Panel" button from inside your audio application in order to adjust the driver settings instead. About every audio application has such an option and the desktop control panel is only for those few that do not. ASIO4ALL will definitely not do anything to the sound output of your games etc. Please refer to the first question in the list for that matter. If you were told somewhere that this is going to "overclock" your sound card or BS like that, this is not my fault and no, it does not "overclock" your sound card. [/FONT]

http://www.asio4all.com/

theaaao

unfortunately I havent been able to make any more progress since last time I posted . I havent had much time recently but tomorrow will get stuck ino again and update ye. Thanks a lot for the info and advice Ive got so far!:D