My experience with laptop soundcards, and some tips

[dooflocks]

So a few weeks ago I ordered the Novation NIO to go with my sweet new Dell audio laptop. I planned on using it to run 2 channels out of Traktor in to an external mixer. Unfortunatly, after about 4 days of scouring the net trying to figure out how to get Traktor to recognize outputs 3 and 4, I gave up and traded in, plus 50 bucks, for the NI Audio Kontrol 1. A friend had one and it worked great so I decided to go with it. Immediatly after installing, everything worked how it should, Traktor saw all 4 outputs, and I hooked it up to the mixer next door. Despite every latency setting I tried, I couldn't get rid of the pops and cracks. That sucked! Later that day I wend and got 2 studio monitors for my lab. Still popping and cracking, so I checked out the NI support site for help. They recommended I download DPC Latency Checker. I did, ran it, and it told me some of my devices were interfering with real time audio. So, under it's recommendation, I opened up device manager and started disabling devices 1 by 1. So the wireless was the culprit. As soon as I disabled it, a few nice pops came out, then sweet clean music. The graph on DPC went from max to 0 and problem is solved. Now everything is great, except when my laptop is plugged in charging a low hum comes over the speakers. Battery only it's gone, so next is sheilded cables I guess, but at least it all sounds nice now, no pops and clicks, and when I get my M audio X session tomorrow my lab will be complete with laptop, soundcard, monitors, roland MC505, and the X session.

[djxsquizet]

thats cool man how much is that NI audio kontrol 1

[midian]

about $250 US I think. I love mine! Its so fkn pretty, matches my macbook pro. and I love the extra midi controls!

[nem0nic]

This will tell you how to temporarily stop services in Windows so you can run music software without making any "permanent" changes in your services applet or device manager...

http://www.nem0nic.com/index.php?opt...=118&Itemid=48

And this will tell you how to get rid of that hum you're hearing when you have your laptop hooked to AC - it has nothing to do with shielded cables...

http://www.nem0nic.com/index.php?opt...=125&Itemid=48

[BentoSan]

Cool that was an interesting read, thanks Nemonic!