Skips Like an Old LP

[AliveAndkickin]

Hello everyone. Just joined y'all. I recently downloaded Audacity to my emachines(etower 733i). My O/S is WinMe. (Yes, I AM that old). Upon recording from cassette, normalizing and removing noise...My playback "skips" like an old record. I can actually see the line marking off the actual .aud file while I am recording hesitate now and again...and it seems to be these points where the "skips" are on playback. What could be the cause of that? I have an AC'97 soundcard and I am not using a pre-amp....rather I am recording straight from a double tape "deck" connected by 2 RCA plugs to my soundcard (1/8" plug.).

[Electriclight]

I would check cables first. Next I would verify that the tape deck is not intermittent. You aren't using any demo plugins I assume?

[AliveAndkickin]

No demos....cables are ok. It's something else. Here are some specs on my computer's mb....Let's see if this helps: (I also have tried to attach a pic here...hope it works)

Trigem Cognac+ Mainboard


Documented General Info:
Processor
Intel® Socket-370 (370pin PPGA Socket)
Intel® Celeron® 300/333/366/400/433/466/500MHz processor @66MHZ Host clock
Cyrix® Socket-370 (370pin PPGA Socket)

Chipset
Intel® 810

Memory
Two banks of 3.3V SDRAM (168pin unbuffered DIMM) with max 256MB
SDRAM 100MHz front side bus
Single or double-sided DIMM with the following types (per each side of each DIMM)

Audio
Intel 82801AA AC’97 Audio/Modem controller
Independent channels for PCM in and PCM out, Microphone in
Left and Right audio channels
16 bit sample resolution
Multiple sample rates
AC’97 2.1 compliant AC-link interface

Video
Intel Direct 3D (810) AGP

Graphics Controller features
3D Hyper Pipelined Architecture ( PDP, PPI)
Full 2D H/W Acceleration
Motion Video Acceleration
H/W motion Compensation Assistance for S/W MPEG2 Decode
Software DVD at 30fps

3D Graphics features
Flat & Gouraud Shading
Mip Maps with Bilinear and Anisotropic Filtering
Fogging Atmospheric Effects
Z Buffering
3D Pipe 2D Clipping
Backface Culling
Per Pixel Perspective Correction Texture Mapping
Texture Compositing
Texture Color Keying/Croma Keying

Display features
Integrated 24-bit 230Mhz RAMDAC
Gamma Corrected Video
DDC2B Compliant

Graphics memory controller features
Intel D.V.M Technology (Dynamic Video Memory)

Onboard I/O Connectors
(1) DB-9 Serial Port
(1) DB-25 Parallel Port
(1) PS/2 Keyboard Port
(1) PS/2 Mouse Port
(2) USB Connectors
(1) DB-15 MIDI/Game port
(3) 3.5mm mini jacks for Line in, Line out, and Microphone

Onboard IDE
2 dual-channels enhanced PCI bus master IDE connectors

Expansion Slots
1 AMR
2 PCI (USA)
3 PCI (UK)

BIOS
• N/A

Onboard LAN
• N/A

IEEE 1394
• N/A

Form Factor
microATX
238mm x 238mm x 1.6t (4 Layers)

[Electriclight]

I don't know much about recording to stock soundcards. Is this 1/8" connector a stereo plug. This soundcard actually has a stereo input?

[fortyseven]

Just off the top of my head, the combination of the Celeron, low memory, slow FSB, WinME and AC '97 leads me to suspect latency. Its just a guess though.

[AliveAndkickin]

I am using a cable with 2 RCA connectors for the tape deck and a 1/8" stereo(2-striped) plug to the soundcard. I have 384mb RAM. It's gotta' be something in my 'puter though. What else can I post(attach) here to help? I have "Belarc", "Everest" a version of Driver and various other "Diagnostic Tools" that spew out stuff I dont comprehend. Thanks...Stevo

[Electriclight]

I'm not sure if a latency issue would show up as gaps in the recording but I think Fortyseven is probably right about your whole setup being "minimalistic". Have you tried adjusting buffer settings in the Audacity preferences?

[fortyseven]

Originally Posted by Electriclight

I'm not sure if a latency issue would show up as gaps in the recording

Im also not sure about latency however it does seem like the computer is struggling to process the data quick enough.

Of course I could also be completely wrong.

[AliveAndkickin]

So....it could be buffering.....RAM.....soundcard....other....OR.... a combination of some or all? I am not happy. While performing tests in the dxdiag...I encountered a notice on my "buffering". (I didn't know I was buffering....whatever that is.....!!!! I am trying to attach the dxdiag here. Maybe it will help. I do NOT have trouble cloning music cds....sometimes being able to load 8-10 at a time before burning them and deleting the files. I should not be having a RAM problem with Audacity if I can do that....should I ??? PS....the dxdiag attachment exceeds the limit for posting by 9kb......What a day

[Electriclight]

Yeah, you are buffering, but apparently not very well. That's a really good reason to go into Audacity and see if adjusting the buffers to a larger size will help.

I don't think burning CD's is relevant to this situation.