Blasts of static on Digi 002

David Piper · Post by **David Piper** » Tue Nov 25, 2008 8:53 am

Lately Pro Tools (I'm on a Digi 002) has been giving me these insanely loud blasts of static across my main, monitor, and headphone outputs. Re-opening Pro Tools seems to get rid of it for a while, but it happened two or three times during a mix session the other day. I thought it was related to using lots of plug-ins, but then it also happened once the other day while I was just working with four tracks, doing some editing. Anybody else ever experience this? So far it's only happened during mixing/editing, but I'm concerned about it happening while recording, while clients are in headphones. It's quiet an unpleasant jolt.

GooberNumber9 · Post by **GooberNumber9** » Tue Nov 25, 2008 9:04 am

Check your clock source selection in Pro Tools and make it's internal if it's not already set to that. If it's not that... I got nothing. Maybe make sure your PT has all the latest patches?

digitaldrummer · Post by **digitaldrummer** » Tue Nov 25, 2008 12:30 pm

Actually that happened to me just the other night when I was doing some tracking. It was never a "recorded" sound but showed up for a 1/2 second or so in the pre-roll playback - and it happened a few times. I also don't know what caused it yet. I'm going to check my clock settings to make sure all is good. Not sure what would have changed. I had not installed anything new (including PT updates) in months and had never experienced this before.

Mike

Jay Reynolds · Post by **Jay Reynolds** » Tue Nov 25, 2008 12:43 pm

I remember that the original run of 002's had bad power harnesses. The times I saw it happen, the unit would power up, but the 1394 indicator wouldn't light and PTLE wouldn't "see" the interface.

kdarr · Post by **kdarr** » Wed Nov 26, 2008 2:47 am

superaction80 wrote:I remember that the original run of 002's had bad power harnesses. The times I saw it happen, the unit would power up, but the 1394 indicator wouldn't light and PTLE wouldn't "see" the interface.

There were actually two runs of bad harnesses... if you got an early 002 and then did the first fix, it will probably still go bad or has already. The third version of the harness (which has been around for a few years now) seems to be stable. I used to work at a shop that replaced about a million of those.

This static problem that the OP talked about doesn't seem to be a typical symptom of the power harness issue, but the one you mentioned happened every time in my experience. It's probably a good idea to check which harness it is anyway.

The current harness has a molex connector with the wires feeding straight from the back, and fairly tight-sized holes on the open side. The previous version was similar but had larger holes, and the original was a fatter connector with wires that fed from the side.

Hope that helps. You can get the harness from Digi for not too much dough last time I checked, and it's a snap to replace.

[<|>]

Jay Reynolds · Post by **Jay Reynolds** » Wed Nov 26, 2008 6:50 am

I replaced one three or four years ago and I don't think Digi charged us a dime. As long as the 002 is within a certain serial number range, they'll comp you.

digitaldrummer · Post by **digitaldrummer** » Wed Nov 26, 2008 10:26 am

I've definitely been through the power harness (2 days after I bought it) and those symptoms are quite different in my experience (PT will claim clock errors or just crash and the 002r doesn't even come up properly).

anyway, this one may be clock related. I'm using an external clock from an RME ADI via ADAT so it's possible something wigged out there. I was doing more tracking yesterday and never had a problem.

Mike

David Piper · Post by **David Piper** » Fri Nov 28, 2008 1:15 pm

I replaced my power harness a few months back with the free kit from Digi, so I've been through that ordeal... these symptoms seem different to me. I clock to an API A2D... it's not little intermittent pops like when you have the sample rate set wrong. It's like "Ahhhhh!!!! (throwing headphones across room) white noise in a startling LOUD sort of way.

It's happened to me a few times this afternoon, too, which is why I'm taking a look at people's responses. I'm starting to think it might be related to plug-ins, because it seems to be showing in the meter in Pro Tools on just one track. For instance, I had the bass solo'ed, it happened, and I noticed that the bass track's meter went crazy and was pinned until I stopped playback. It also seems to happen when I'm mixing, and changing several parameters on plug-ins quickly. Which would be consistent with it not happening while I'm tracking, and not really using many plug-ins or adjusting them all that much. I use Digi, Waves, and AutoTune plug-ins.

johnny7 · Post by **johnny7** » Fri Nov 28, 2008 7:40 pm

I get that sound if I am using inputs through that lightpipe, but not using the external clock. If I forget to turn on the external clock before firing up PT, the computer reverts to the internal clock.

tonic889 · Post by **tonic889** » Fri Nov 28, 2008 8:29 pm

I have actually had the same exact problem on my Mbox (original). Usually unplugging and replugging solves it. But it really sucks when it happens.

Al_Huero · Post by **Al_Huero** » Sat Nov 29, 2008 7:42 am

I've had the white noise blast issue a couple of times as well with an 002 at PTLE. If memory serves, it was related to a plugin on a track--can't really remember which plug it was, maybe Amplitube?

David Piper · Post by **David Piper** » Sat Nov 29, 2008 8:37 am

Okay, spent several more hours editing/mixing and dealing with this problem off and on yesterday. I realized that it's happening on both my 002 and MBox 2 Pro, so it's not the hardware. It could be the plug-ins, but I'm starting to think it's actually my external hard drive.

It seems to happen much more when I've left the computer for a few minutes to take a break, get a snack, have a conversation, etc., and then when I come back the computer freaks out for the first several playbacks. I even heard static coming in and out at different volumes on left speaker/right speaker, and also, if I turned the monitors way down and just let it play through a few fits of static, it will happen at the boundaries of certain regions - in particular it was happening at some points where I had pasted in notes across all my drum and bass mics. It was also acting funny in some fades - big clicks or pops, as if it couldn't find the fade file even though I drew it, re-drew it, and it displayed on the screen fine.

It goes away for a while if I unmount the drive in the Pro Tools Workspace window, then plug it back into the MBox. I've also been ditching my Digi "volume.ddb" and "wave" preference files each time that happens, though maybe I should just do one or the other to isolate the problem. I also checked the "put discs to sleep when possible" preference in MAC OS preferences. It's unchecked, so it's not that.

So it seems like it's a noise that happens when the drive can't keep up and 'find' all the audio files quick enough to keep up with the session. Anyone else ever have this happen?

It's a Maxtor One Touch 4 Plus 500 GB drive, and I'm running it off of the Firewire 400 port, daisy chained through the MBox. I remember I used to look to see if drives had the Oxford 911 chip set, or something like that. This one doesn't say anything about that, but I thought pretty much all drives had that nowdays.

Ugh. Any thoughts appreciated. This is not stopping work, but really slowing me down.

GooberNumber9 · Post by **GooberNumber9** » Sat Nov 29, 2008 10:32 am

Maybe the drive is going to sleep on its own (not from the OS) or something. I'm pretty sure the annoying WD MyBooks do that. You could check the Maxtor web site and see if they have some tool that lets you manage the drive and turn off power saving features, etc.

starbearer76 · Post by **starbearer76** » Mon Feb 02, 2009 1:21 pm

reinstall protools and all the digi drivers. this is a common fix that gets over looked often.

suppositron · Post by **suppositron** » Tue Feb 03, 2009 12:33 pm

Wow. That had also happened to me with my Mbox when recording a friend's band except it wasn't a short blast. It was everytime I hit record the meters were pegged with noise. I ended up shutting down pro tools and unplugging the mbox then plugging it back in. That's the one and only time I experienced it. Maybe you should try run your sessions off of your internal harddrive and see if that fixes it.

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Blasts of static on Digi 002

Blasts of static on Digi 002

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