I wonder if anyone has had any experience recording audio on their notebook with the Echo Indigo IO sound card.
Over the years, I've tried a few inexpensive sound cards on my little Toshiba Libretto 100CT, but have never had 100% success at getting a clean recorded signal. Inevitably theres always a slight amount of clicking in the recorded audio no matter how hard I've tried to tweak drivers, driver settings, audio software settings, and Windows audio settings for the recording device.
The Libretto only has a 166MHz CPU, and 64MB RAM. But in years gone by, I've had great success setting up sound cards to record on old 486 / P75 desktop systems. At the moment I have an old Wavejammer (Eiger Media or New Media?) sound card that almost works with an old copy of SoundForge, but I always end up with numerous low level clicks in the recorded signal every few seconds.
I've watched prices on PCMCIA audio i/o cards come down a bit in the past couple of years, and have spotted that Echo Indigo IO sound card on sale now for $159. But I'm wary of buying it without having some idea it'll function without the clicking issue I just haven't been able to escape in the past.
The only recent post I've found in this forum that dealt with an Echo Indigo (audio out only model) also addressed a clicking issue that didn't seem to be resolved: Is my Echo Indigo faulty?
I'd really appreciate any feedback on this.
Thanks
Full Version: Recording audio on notebook
Surprised about the clicking, but then, that's a dead slow cpu you've got! What are you pluging in to the sound card? It might be the source or software rather than the sound card.
I'm feeding the line input on the old sound card dongle with output from my NEXII portable MP3 player. That, after realizing it was easier to use than moving the Libretto to the home stereo, and feeding it from the receiver there.
With headphones, I can hear the audio source as it's being recorded, and then immediately compare it to the playback of the recorded signal. I can set the SoundForge cursor to a position just before I heard clicks, and then just replay the recorded file from that point over and over to confirm I am hearing clicks, and not being fooled by the audio going by too quickly.
When I repeat recording the same 10-15 seconds of this Arturo Sanoval track 'Blue', I find clicks are always in different positions in each new recorded file. So it's a problem with the recording process, not a problem with the source signal.
I've tried a number of different programs for doing the recording, all old verions of SoundForge, CoolEdit Pro, WaveLab, a basic Voyetra hifi stack from an old Gateway, and Total Recorder. After initial problems with sound drivers, system settings, and software settings that caused each piece of software to stutter wildly on playback, I've pretty much gotten most of them to record a signal clean enough to fool the average ear. These clicks are less evident than LPs produced in their classic years.
But all too eveident to my ears. 
About a year ago I had also tried this old Wavejammer sound card on another Libretto, a 70CT with a P120 32MB RAM with the same problems. I thought perhaps this newer P166 64MB RAM 100CT would have done better. As I've said, way back in the mid '90s, I had 486 and P75 systems recording audio through an Ensoniq sound card, and never had any problems getting a clean recorded signal. So the power of the system isn't necessarily a factor. But this is a different sound card, and a different system, and most people who've struggled setting up numerous systems over time know how frustrating it can be to work these sorts of issues.
Perhaps I should write eshylay directly and see if he resolved his problem with the Echo Indigo, though it seems unlikely his issue with clicks would apply to mine.
With headphones, I can hear the audio source as it's being recorded, and then immediately compare it to the playback of the recorded signal. I can set the SoundForge cursor to a position just before I heard clicks, and then just replay the recorded file from that point over and over to confirm I am hearing clicks, and not being fooled by the audio going by too quickly.
When I repeat recording the same 10-15 seconds of this Arturo Sanoval track 'Blue', I find clicks are always in different positions in each new recorded file. So it's a problem with the recording process, not a problem with the source signal.
I've tried a number of different programs for doing the recording, all old verions of SoundForge, CoolEdit Pro, WaveLab, a basic Voyetra hifi stack from an old Gateway, and Total Recorder. After initial problems with sound drivers, system settings, and software settings that caused each piece of software to stutter wildly on playback, I've pretty much gotten most of them to record a signal clean enough to fool the average ear. These clicks are less evident than LPs produced in their classic years.
But all too eveident to my ears. About a year ago I had also tried this old Wavejammer sound card on another Libretto, a 70CT with a P120 32MB RAM with the same problems. I thought perhaps this newer P166 64MB RAM 100CT would have done better. As I've said, way back in the mid '90s, I had 486 and P75 systems recording audio through an Ensoniq sound card, and never had any problems getting a clean recorded signal. So the power of the system isn't necessarily a factor. But this is a different sound card, and a different system, and most people who've struggled setting up numerous systems over time know how frustrating it can be to work these sorts of issues.
Perhaps I should write eshylay directly and see if he resolved his problem with the Echo Indigo, though it seems unlikely his issue with clicks would apply to mine.
Recording from line input should be easy. Does the task manager say you have CPU power to spare?
I checked mine: recording with Adobe Audition and an M-audio transit, maximum CPU usage is 25% with a P4 2.4. So obviously you'd need very efficient software and a soundcard that doesn't take up much CPU power. I don't know much about this, so 'fraid I can't help you more.
I checked mine: recording with Adobe Audition and an M-audio transit, maximum CPU usage is 25% with a P4 2.4. So obviously you'd need very efficient software and a soundcard that doesn't take up much CPU power. I don't know much about this, so 'fraid I can't help you more.
QUOTE(CSMR @ May 13 2004, 01:23 AM)
Recording from line input should be easy. Does the task manager say you have CPU power to spare?
As I recall, "task manager" is a component of WinXP, isn't it? It's not in Win98SE I'm running, but as I was writing here, I installed TaskInfo2002, and started up both it and SoundForge. Feeding SF a signal, and setting SF to 'Record' while I'm online, here's what TaskInfo2002 reports:
* CPU = 53-55% resources free
* SoundForge = 28-32% resources used
* Numerous system processes the rest
So CPU power doesn't seem to be an issue here.
And oh... I forgot Win98 does have 'System Monitor' that can be configured to report CPU useage.
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