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In an earlier article I mentioned that I had installed the EMU 0404 PCI sound card.

I basically got it off ebay for £30, and it was curiosity that made me go for it.

Curious about it’s zero latency and the built in FX.

I have a UAD card and even though I knew the EMU would not be able to compete I did think it would be interesting to see if it was any good at all.

The card went in fine, software/drivers installed – downloaded updates installed those.

Without touching the Patchbay software I fired up Sonar.

Created a new project and recorded a track.

Recording went fine.

I created a new track and copied the recording over.

Panned each track left and right

So now I’ve got a ‘stereo’ recording.

<—-Track 1—–>

Vol 0db

Panned Left

FX BIN – Sonitus: EQ and Compressor

<—-Track 2—–>

Vol 0db

Panned Right

FX BIN – PowerFX EQ and Compressor

<—-Problems—->

1. Clicks and pops on Track 2 that stop when PowerFX bypassed.

2. Time lag using midi controller to change FX parameters.

<—-Solution to problem 1.—->

Reinstall software/drivers – uninstalled updates and reinstalled older drivers form disc.

Problems still there – reinstall newest drivers still problem.

Disable Sonitus FX – no dice – still a problem.

Change latency settings in Sonar – still problem – in some case get’s worse.

I’ll keep digging but it’s gonna be a few days til I get to it again.

<—-Solution to problem 2.—->

I’m stumped with this one and it’s annoying as hell.

Will be trying to fix this as well.

<—-Overall—->

At the moment I’m contemplating going back to my M-Audio and binning the EMU.

It’s a lot of work really and I can’t in all honesty see myself recommending this device as it stands.

Think I’ll email EMU and see waht they have to say.

I’ll be back…
Ok so here we go solution 1 – Update Sonar

Update sonar 7 with service packs 7.1 and 7.2 – Problem still there…

Ok so here we go solution 2 – Disable unused motherboard items in bios

Disable unused items in bios – in this case my Game Port – never use it anyway. – Problem remains

Ok so here we go solution 3 – Check for IRQ conflicts

Sounds to me like a clipping problem, dunno why – but when I dsiable the Powerfx the clipping/click/pop goes away.

Anyway by all accounts the 0404 is even more a bit demanding on a computer’s resources.

So I ran a check

- start -run –   msinfo32

Checked my IRQ assignments for any conflicts with the 0404 – found none – although I did notice the M-Audio 2496 had a conflict with my graphics card???

Think the next step will be to remove that.

—->Removed M-Audio 24/96 – problem still there.
Ok so here we go solution 4 – Totally remove drivers and software completely.

Takes to restarts of pc and will try to install drivers for emu each time – cancelled as I want to run CCleaner.

CCleaner will remove any gunk left over.

Reinstall newest drivers from that point – but will search for any remaining EMU plugins and delete before I start.

Checked registry for problems and cleaned them up.

Now re-install drivers and software – make sure latest are downloaded from EMUs site.

Then downloaded Sonar Tutorial for PatchMix DSP

Might as well start from scratch as I’m convinced now that this is a software problem.

—–>>>

Well the clicking popping was still there after all that.

But anyway after following the tutorial I started to mess with the latencyt settings again and it worked.

After going through a few times I ended up settling for 14ms latency settings.

Defragged again.

Seems a bit better, I’ll keep an ear on it this week.

But for now…