Skipping and garbled recording/playback.

Archived from groups: rec.audio.tech (More info?)

In article <61e32869.0411112032.14508ea7@posting.google.com>,
ferrycap@gmail.com (Perk) wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I've been having trouble converting my 33's to .wav format.
>
> The playback starts out well but, in a little while, it begins to skip and
> become all garbled.
>
> Do I have something set wrong ? Is it a resource problem ?
>
> I'm using Audacity and/or Audio Grabber. Also tried Goldwave (I
> realize it's not ideal for my system though).
>
> I run W-98 on a Compaq 1200 laptop.
>
> Thanks much,
>
> Perk (:> )

My guess would be a system resources problem. RAM, disk space, and
virtual memory all interact when using those software products, and a
limitation in any one of those resources could result in the effects you
hear.

My Power Mac G4/400 has similar problems though, not any where near as
bad as garbling the sound... just nasty static-like glitches towards the
end of long recordings. I'm assuming that's because I'm using OS X
10.2.8 on a machine equipped with only 448 MB RAM and 5400 rpm (or
slower) IDE drives.

As I cannot afford to upgrade my hardware, at present, I limit my
recording time to one album track at a time or resort to some
painstaking manual repair work on the digital copies to remove the
artifacts.

You may also be able to decrease your artifacts by creating recordings
of a much shorter duration. If possible, you could try installing more
memory and/or faster hard drives, but not having owned a laptop, I'm not
sure how easy such upgrades can be.

At the very least, you could always try disabling your Windows swap file
(virtual memory) and see if that makes a difference. Since you're using
Win98, you might be able to get away with this radical trick. Just
remember to turn the VM back on when you're not using your laptop for
recording.

Steve