Can Anyone Help Me With This?

[tomhartman]

I have a 1 gig/ 512 ram PC built by Soundchaser with GigaStudio 160.

I cannot play the Steinway B from East West without clicks and pops...and I mean big and loud ones...when I use the sustain pedal. This is the only patch I have trouble with....Garriton Strings and other heavy patches have no problem. Other pianos have no problem..including Gigapiano. It is ONLY the Steinway B.

East West sent me replacement CDs and I reinstalled. No help.

The folks at Nemesys were unable to help.

The folks at Soundchaser couldn\'t help.

East West was kind but had no idea.

Is there anyone out there that uses this patch successfully, or can somehow trouble shoot this with me? I\'m new to Giga, I\'m not a PC guy...I use the Mac for recording (Pro Tools) and the PC ONLY runs Giga. I have the Montana/Dakota card.

All signals are taken digitally from the SPDIF outs into the Pro Tools 888 interface.

Again, this ONLY happens when using the sustain pedal, and sometimes with as few as 34 voices.

Anyone who could hack through this with me would be my hero. I really need to get to the bottom of this, or find out if there are any Giga experts in the South Florida area. Thanks!

[ursatz]

Tom,

I have no idea if this will help, but it\'s what I have to do on my system: with certain gsp files I get pops. But if I load the gsp file, reset, then load it again, no pops at all. Others have posted about needing to do a more complicated routine of unloading some of the instruments, then unloading the rest, then loading a smaller gsp, then reloading the original one (or something like that...). In my case, that doesn\'t help! I don\'t know if this applies to you, but you might try making a gsp with just the piano in it, and see if resetting and reloading makes any difference. BTW, when I get pops, they don\'t seem to depend on how many voices are playing; they just seem to appear at random times.

I think Nemesys just needs to publish the secret list of incantations.


[This message has been edited by ursatz (edited 02-06-2002).]

[Mark_Knecht]

Tom,
I\'d be very happy to try and hack through this with you. I\'d love to be a hero! http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/wink.gif It sounds like an interesting problem to solve.

I am a PC guy, and participate a lot in the Pro Tools area on PCs. Let\'s give it a try.

Can you please post a complete description of your PC? I\'d like to know:

1) What motherboard you\'re using?

2) What OS is installed? What upgrades?

3) What cards you have installed?

4) What slot is each card in?

(Note: Number the slots as:
AGP
PCI1
PCI2
PCI3
PCI4
PCI5

just put your cards behind each of these designations. Thanks.)

4) What are your current interrupt settings?

5) What kind of disk drives do you have?

I hope all of this doesn\'t put a Mac guy off. PCs are really OK beasts once you tame them. They\'re just not for the masses yet! http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/wink.gif

Take care,
Mark


<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=\"1\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by tomhartman:
<SNIP>Anyone who could hack through this with me would be my hero.
<SNIP><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

[tomhartman]

Mark, thanks so much!

I will get all this info and be back with it up here tomorrow....stay tuned...and thanks again.

[tomhartman]

Here Goes Mark....


\"Can you please post a complete description of your PC? I\'d like to know:

1) What motherboard you\'re using?


Asus A7U133

2) What OS is installed? What upgrades?

Windows 98SE

3) What cards you have installed?


4) What slot is each card in?

(Note: Number the slots as:
AGP Video Card is Matrox 6450
PCI1
PCI2
PCI3 Dakota/Montana Audio Card
PCI4
PCI5

just put your cards behind each of these designations. Thanks.)

4) What are your current interrupt settings?

Sorry, I have no idea. How do I find this out?

5) What kind of disk drives do you have?

IBM 20 Boot Drive (C)
IBM60 Audio Drive (D)

There is 512 RAM in system, virtual memory is off ( it originall was on, but I read that it was better OFF in Giga. Neither setting helped.)

Vcache Entry is
16384

And DMA is Enabled for the drives.
Windows sounds are disabled.
Monitor set to SVGA
autoexcec.bat (emptry)
config.sys(empty)

There\'s what I know so far...

Remember, this problem is ONLY happening with the SUSTAIN PEDAL down.

Thanks....

[Mark_Knecht]

Tom,
I know the A7V133 very well. Up until last weekend it was my main DAW MB.

You\'ve got the sound card in the best slot for that MB. That\'s good. We need to check theinterrupts now.

To do this, right click \'My Computer\', choose \'Properties\', choose \'Device manager\'. Computer (at the top) should be highlighted. Click the \'Properties\' button at the bottom. You\'ll get another window that will report the IRQ settings. Post them back.

One quick thing you can do with this board is set the IRQ by hand in BIOS. To do this, reboot and hit the \'Del\' or Delete key. Go to the Advanced page, and then the \'PCI Configuration\' near the bottom. Hit enter and find the spot for slot 3. It probably says auto right now. Highlight it, hit enter, and choose IRQ9 or IRQ10. Either should be fine. 9 is a bit better, but it won\'t matter if you only have these two cards in your system. Exit BIOS saving your changes and reboot again.

Go back into windows and look at your interrupts again to make sure your audio card is on 9 or 10. If it is, test to see if the problem is gone.

If it is not gone (and even if it is) please do a defrag on your samples disk. The problem may be as simple as the pedal down samples are in a slow or fragmented place on the drive. If the drive can\'t get the sample, then you get noise sometimes.

Do not dispair. We will also want to look at how you have your hard drives configured. Are you using the Promise controllers?

Let me know how things are proceeding. I\'ll check in this evening.

Cheers,
Mark

[tomhartman]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Mark_Knecht:
[B]We need to check theinterrupts now.

To do this, right click \'My Computer\', choose \'Properties\', choose \'Device manager\'. Computer (at the top) should be highlighted. Click the \'Properties\' button at the bottom. You\'ll get another window that will report the IRQ settings. Post them back.\"


Done. Here is what I found:

00 System Timer
01 Stand.Keyboard
02 Prog Int Controller
03 Via Tech 3038 PCI to USB Controller
03 As above
03 ACPI IRW HOlder for PCI Steer.
05 Dakato Audio Device
05 ACPI IRQ Holder
06 Stan F. Disk Cont
07 ECP Printer Port
08 System CMOS/realtime Clk
09 SCI IRQ Used by ACPI BUS
10 Win 95-98 Promise Ultra 100 Controller PDC20265
10 ACPI IRQ Holder
11 Matrox Millenium G450 Dual Head LX
12 PS/2 Mouse Port
13 Numeric Data Proc
14 Via Bus Master PCI IDE Cont
14 Primary IDE Controller
15 Via Bus Master PCI IDE Cont
15 Secondary IDE Controller

Then, I did what you suggested next:

One quick thing you can do with this board is set the IRQ by hand in BIOS. To do this, reboot and hit the \'Del\' or Delete key. Go to the Advanced page, and then the \'PCI Configuration\' near the bottom. Hit enter and find the spot for slot 3. It probably says auto right now. Highlight it, hit enter, and choose IRQ9 or IRQ10. Either should be fine. 9 is a bit better, but it won\'t matter if you only have these two cards in your system. Exit BIOS saving your changes and reboot again.\"

I chose IRQ 9 and rebooted.

I then launched Giga, but no luck. Still pops and clicks in the piano.



I am in the middle of a DEFRAG of the Audio drive as I write this.

I\'ll post again tonight when its done. This is looking like a tough one, because I think this CPU is set up properly....hmmm.

Thanks again
Tom

[Mark_Knecht]

Tom,
Was this IRQ setting before or after setting it in BIOS? I assume before, but please check your IRQ settings one more time to make sure that the Dakota is set to IRQ9 now.

The next thing I\'m going to ask you to look at is the way your hard drives are hooke up. By this, I mean which drive is on which cable? And which position on the cable? And which controller is driving the cable.

This seems pretty strange at first, but you will get through it.

IDE controllers can 2 drives on each cable. The one at the end of the cable is called a master drive. The one in the middle is called a slave drive.

I need you to look at your drives and cables and attempt to figure out which drives are masters, which are slaves, and which controller (chipset/Via or Promise ATA-100) is controlling each drive.

Let me know.

Cheers,
Mark

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=\"1\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by tomhartman:
[QUOTE]
05 Dakato Audio Device

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>



[This message has been edited by Mark_Knecht (edited 02-07-2002).]

[Mark_Knecht]

BTW - What do you mean by this? What is 1 gig? 1GB DRAM? Or gig as in GigaSampler files?

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=\"1\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by tomhartman:
I have a 1 gig/ 512 ram PC <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

[tomhartman]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=\"1\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Mark_Knecht:
BTW - What do you mean by this? What is 1 gig? 1GB DRAM? Or gig as in GigaSampler files?

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>


Sorry Mark, I was trying to remember the exact processor and meant \"megahertz\"..

I defragged the drive but still no luck. Lots of loud pops and clicks.

BTW, if you want to do this in EMAIL so we don\'t drag the board down, I\'m at tomhartman@adelphia.net

Thanks...I\'ll try to go check out the hard drive cables. BTW, the IRQ of 9 was AFTER the BIOS adjustment, and still is at 9.

[Mark_Knecht]

Emailed you....

[SOD213]

Hate to jump in without being asked, but try the following:

>There is 512 RAM in system, virtual memory >is off ( it originall was on, but I read >that it was better OFF in Giga. Neither >setting helped.)

Turn it back on, and make your own settings. Minimum 1024MB, Maximum 1024MB.


>Vcache Entry is
>16384

16MB is a bit low, try 32768 (32MB). I actually set mine for 512MB and it seems to work ok. I might play with that setting some later. If the system was working fine before and just all of a sudden started giving you problems.. My company\'s really had bad luck with the A7V series. We stopped stocking Asus altogether.

[Mark_Knecht]

SOD213,
No problem. There\'s enough room here for all of us.

Tom,
While there is nothing wrong with these instructions, I would like to ask you to wait on this until we do the work with the disk drives. I actually agree, in general, with the suggestions, but I\'d like to not change too many things at once. If the operation (or misoperation!) of your machine changes, it becomes more difficult to determine why.

As for the A7V comments - well, there are lots of us using these over on the Pro Tools forums and they\'ve been great motherboards. As I said earlier, I had one for a year, but it did just die. I was happy enough with the performance to go get an A7V266E. Personally I like Asus\'s package.

I\'m sorry SOD213 had so much trouble.

Cheers,
Mark

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=\"1\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by SOD213:
Hate to jump in without being asked, but try the following:

>There is 512 RAM in system, virtual memory >is off ( it originall was on, but I read >that it was better OFF in Giga. Neither >setting helped.)

Turn it back on, and make your own settings. Minimum 1024MB, Maximum 1024MB.


>Vcache Entry is
>16384

16MB is a bit low, try 32768 (32MB). I actually set mine for 512MB and it seems to work ok. I might play with that setting some later. If the system was working fine before and just all of a sudden started giving you problems.. My company\'s really had bad luck with the A7V series. We stopped stocking Asus altogether.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

[This message has been edited by Mark_Knecht (edited 02-08-2002).]

[This message has been edited by Mark_Knecht (edited 02-09-2002).]