Audigy 2 echo and low volume in "What You Hear" Windows 7 64 bit

cabrown3 · 26 Sep 2012

Hi,

I have 2 systems and the other is listed in my profile so here are this system's specs.

Intel e7200 cpu
Gigabyte EP43-UD3L Motherboard
4 gigs of ram
OCZ 120 gigabiyte SSD for OS
Seagate 1TB 7200rpm storage drive
Nvidia 9800 GT
Sound Blaster Audigy 2
Windows 7 64 bit

I just upgraded this system with a new SSD and a clean install from Windows XP 32 bit to Windows 7 64 bit. I do a lot of audio recording with this system. I use Sony Sound Forge 9 and Sony Vegas 10 for recording editing and CD production. I have always kept my computer recording settings at "What you hear" so that I can record multiple sounds from the line in with a turntable and the computer simultaneously. This has always worked flawlessly with XP.

After installing windows 7 and the latest drivers from Creative I set things up with "What You Hear" and at first things seemed all right. But then I went to record something in Sound Forge and I could not get the volume above -12 db. I also noticed that if I was playing a song in iTunes and stopped it there was a reverb or echo that faded after I hit stop.

I tried reinstalling the drivers. No help. Then I turned off "what you hear" and the echo was no longer there but the volume was still low.

Is this a Creative driver problem? Or is this possibly some other conflict that I can't seem to find? I am looking for other new cards that may be more compatable with windows 7 like the Asus Xonar DSX which is in my price range but I don't want to buy it only to find out that I slill have the same problem.

If anyone has any ideas I would appreciate it.

Thanks,

Larry Brown

fireberd · 26 Sep 2012

I have a Sonar (X2 Version) studio. I don't use my PC's sound card (or a SoundBlaster) for recording, I have a Roland Octa-Capture and an MAudio Fastrack Ultra 8R that I use with Sonar (and I also have Pro Tools MP9 that I can use the Fastrack Ultra 8R with).

Do you have any "Sound Enhancements" enabled in the Creative/SoundBlaster options?

Also, sounds like some type of "audio return" (output back to input) that could be causing this. Some sound features are handled differently in Vista/Win 7. Try disabling the other recording devices (e.g. mic, line in) one at a time in the Sound Panel/Recording section to see if it makes any difference.

One other thought. Since you are using a separate sound card, The Realtek integrated (on the motheboard) audio must be disabled in the BIOS.

Finally, if you have installed EasyTune, uninstall it. My new recording system is using a Gigabyte Z77X UD5H motherboard and when I installed the Gigabyte drivers I also installed the EasyTune. I was getting some pops in Sonar when recording, I ran the DPC Latency Checker and it showed large Latency spikes. Thanks to a custom recording studio PC builder who knew about EasyTune causing this problem, he advised me to uninstall it. That fixed my clicks and latency problem.

cabrown3 · 26 Sep 2012

fireberd,

Thanks for getting back to me. I think I have solved the problem. Most of the things you suggested I had already checked. I did have the onboard sound disabled and had not even installed the drivers for it. So I did an experiment. I uninstalled and disabled the audigy 2 and then enabled and loaded the the 64 bit drivers for the onboard sound. The problem was still there. So I knew it wasn't the sound card. The next thing I did, since the problem had to do with recording, was to uninstall and reinstall Sony Soundforge. The problem was gone. There was something wrong with my Sony installation. I don't know what because I had just installed it and had not played with any settings.

So thanks for the suggestions. They were much appreciated.

Larry Brown