Metro G4 crashing when recording audio..

[hallhenry]

Greetings:


I'm having some trouble with my Big Mac G4 and recording audio. I was trying to lay an audio track along with 5 tracks of Samletank. After I'd record, the track looks for a moment like it's buliding an "audio overview", then lights out. I also tried it alone with only one open audio track and same problemo.

By the way, I'm using a Quattro Audio Sport USB interface made fro Mac. And I have over 20 gigs of harddrive space. I have the new drivers for it too. This never happened before.

thanks for your help.

hh

[Jerm]

To diagnose this problem I need more info.

What OS?
What does "lights out" mean?
Have you tried using the built-in audio simply to see if it is an audio driver problem?
What version of Metro are you using?

It sounds like the audio file is recorded okay on your hard disk somewhere.

[Scoot]

Lights out probably means crash, hung or quit......nothing positive.

HH - when you say you're recording audio, are you combining all the sampletank tracks along with say a guitar while you're recording the guitar?

Ignoring your other tracks for a moment, can you just record a straight audio track of the guitar (or whatever) through your Quattro Audio Sport with success?

Have you managed to mix all the sampletank tracks into one audio track with success?

And when you say you tried it alone, are you saying you assigned an audio track to record, it recorded and then crashed before an overview of it was finished?

There's a few variables in your setup, and it's a matter of figuring out which is causing you grief with Metro.


scoot

[hallhenry]

thanks for such a speedy response:

Lights out means malfunction, program crashes, blue screen!
I'm using OS X 10.2.6. I did try to use the built in audio using the cmputer microphone and there was no probelm with recording my voice as audio. Again I'm using Metro G4.

As far as Scooterman:

I had 5 tracks, all of them Sampletank and they were not mixed down to one track. Even when I tried to record anew with only the audio track, still the program crashed each time after stopping the recording button.

"And when you say you tried it alone, are you saying you assigned an audio track to record, it recorded and then crashed before an overview of it was finished? ".......yes, that's correct.


Jeremy may be on to something about the drivers for Quattro. After a month of not recording any audio, only this weekend had I attempted again. But my I Mac G4 did not recognize the Quattro USB unit in the audio setup. So I reinstalled the Quattro drivers (made for OS X) once again and the computer identified unit.

what do you think?

thanks...hh

Could it be that two sets of drivers are installed causing Metro G4 to be confused?

[Jerm]

It sounds like it is a driver problem.

After reinstalling the drivers, have you successfully recorded audio through the Quattro using any other program? Quicktime?

[hallhenry]

Still no luck with the new drivers. Any thoughts?

[Jerm]

Still no luck with the new drivers. Any thoughts?

If you can't get sound in or sound out with the sound panel in system preferences then you will not be able to in Metro either.

Have you contacted MIDIMan?

[Scoot]

Does it work with the old drivers?

[hallhenry]

I discovered a few things. First, i plugged the usb connection to the back of the computer, not at the keyboard port, so enough power would be available if that were a problem.

Secondly, i was able to record a track of audio if i did not use the buit in audio as the core parameter output, only the usb quattro setting. I would have to go back and set the bulit in controller to hear what i recorded. But there was no crash at all.

thirdly, I noticed when i tried to record to my project doing the same method as above(output =USB Quattro), I had no sound for the dls or sampletank to hear playback, so i recorded just with a click track and played everything back re applying the buit in controller so i could hear everything. Nothing crashed. However, when I tried to re record and use the built in controller setting instead of the USB Quattro(where I could hear nothing), an error # 224 came up to say that the hard drive was not fast enough to record.

Again, this Quattro was working fine with the new OS X drivers installed last month. I'm wondering if i have too many mp3s on my hard drive(about 50gigs).

maybe tonight after i return from rehearsal, I will try and record onto my external firewire harddrive, its 120gigs.

thanks...hh

[Scoot]

The question is not do you have too many mp3s?
The question is how much space do you have left and what's the fragmentation like?

I remember some programs could suffer low memory available crashes.....but I don't know if there's such a condition with HD space unless you're running a program like photoshop using its own virtual memory.


The external drive sounds like a good plan though.


scoot.

[hallhenry]

Hi Again:

I have not had too much luck with solving my Quattro problem.
Upon futher experiments, I had no problem with the Quattro and Cubase SX, the other multi track program I use occassionally. With Cubase SX, I was able to record and there was no program crash.

i may have discovered wy the Metro G4 is crashing. Whenever I record from the Quattro, I have to change the digital input to USBQuattro, which by default changes the output to Quattro too. However, I was trying to use the USB direct support input then the built in controller output and that's when everything would crash. keeping the direct support input as Quattro and the output as Quattro did not result in a crash. I would only have to go back and set everything to built in controller to hear playback.

But i thought i was able in the past to use the setup that crashes.
Any thoughts? I realize too that i will have to invest in a mixer. Any recommendations for a firewire mixer or usb.

Finally, the hard drive seems to be no more trouble. but is it possible to defragment a hard drive on Mac? i remember being able to do such on my old Compaq Presario.

thanks...

[Jerm]

Whenever I record from the Quattro, I have to change the digital input to USBQuattro, which by default changes the output to Quattro too. However, I was trying to use the USB direct support input then the built in controller output and that's when everything would crash. keeping the direct support input as Quattro and the output as Quattro did not result in a crash. I would only have to go back and set everything to built in controller to hear playback.

Thanks, that is useful information. I will look into this configuration in a bit more depth to see if the crash is repeatable for me.

[Sami23]

"...the USB direct support input then the built in controller output ..."

Quiet awhile back I spoke to Apple support about this very "issue". I was trying to use USB in and the built in sound controller for an output. I had moved Metro from a USB's iBook to my older G4 that has actual audio in ports along with USB. I was use to using my Edirol UA-30 USB audio as a input device and wanted to keep using it.

Although it looks possible in the Sound Pref's panel... it will not work. Apple Support folk didn't know why this was and agreed with me that it "should" be possibel.... judging by the way the Sound Prefs were laid out... but 2nd level Support told 'em it just didn't work that way. Maybe one day Apple will get that together... but for now we are limited to using USB or the built in Audio controler... but not both at the same time