Firmware update causes noise ß crackles

hmm - i should have known it after this years overall performance of NI.... but i was silly enough to update the firmware of my AK 1 to 23 (shown in control software). before the update it worked quite well with buffer 2ms and latency 5-6ms.
now, after the update it doesnt work without making digital cracks and pops ALL THE TIME. even if the host is stopped and nothing is played - cracks, pops.
so at the moment the interface is worthless and not usable.
is there a possibility to remove the new Firmware and replace the old one.

Use it on a Turion 64 laptop with 1 gig ram, kore, komplete 4, cubase sx 4 and a few steinberg plugs (grand, groove agent).

with my focusrite saffire, which i use normally on my studio computer all works fine on this laptop....

the kore controller audio interface beside also never worked without pops from time to time, so i could also not use it. even more i was surprised that the AK 1 worked if you plugged it into the 1st USB port it worked best.

- before the firmware update - .
again a not really tested update by NI - thanks!
and no possibility to help yourself - there is no FW - update - remove program in the download area....

 

Hey man

Baically i had this problem before the update and i had it for ages, and it just got worse and worse!
to a point where it was about 100db! lol

i swapped it for a new one in the shop, and its been proved faulty.

So tbh i think its just the unit itself.
not the update.
i tryed everythin to stop mine from making the crackling an noise but it jus gets worse.

peace

 

hmm, no, the performance run down to "unusable" after the firmware update. i dont think its broken.

i read a thread similar to my problem and the guy owned a turion laptop , too - maybye there is the problem

 

Same problem here amd turion processor , getting noise and crackles from the AK1 ,
I'm gonna try getting my money back, this is unacceptable

 

Funny thimg is, that it works very good on my studio pc (intel dual core).
So the driver and or the firmware is having trouble with USB chipset and or turion processor systems.
that simple.
But its funny that NI Support didnt ask for the chipset or something like that.
you only get short standard-answers already written down in the troubleshooting guide.

hmmm - thats no good support - and it wont fix the problem that other users out there also have.

 

I have unregistrate my AK1 and put out for sale... 10 hours fixing and trixing... thats enough... really bad support on the products...

I have used Tascam u122 and alot of other soundcards... this is the worst ever I bought...

Best Regards
Per Edström

 

i would not say its the worst ive ever bought - once i had a emagic 2/6 using usb 1.1, or once i owned a terractec ews 64 - that was hard work to get those working (all designed in germany..... ;-)
in between i had interfaces of edirol, tascam, egosys and focusrite.
Overall i just can say that firewire works better than USB.
You always have mouse, dongles, etc. also running on usb sharing the bandwith with the soundcard. KORE for example is NOT usable as sound card AND controller together - it needs too much usb bandwith - hello crackle again!

A Firewire Soundcard uses this port exclusively - and that works on "older" systems - too.

but beside all of that - the ak1 works fine on my intel dual core pc - it doesnt work on my lap with an amd turion processor.
the bad thing is, that they did not test their product well enough on different configurations - i mean a turion laptop is not an exotic product.

beside that from sound quality, size and overall design its a fine sound card - but at the moment not for my lap.... lets see if they can fix it.

 

just found out one funny thing - somebody reported in the forum that it works better the higher the sample rate is - thats what i also found out

i found out for my configuration at 48khz with 6ms latency i get no drops and nasty noises, but at 44,1 khz it doesnt work without dropouts and crackling

- equal which latency i tried, from ultra short to 30ms and over

can somebody at NI please explain this???

an interface that doesnt work with one sample frequency...
and thats not a problem of driver and or hardware construction???

i had so many audio-devices through the years, but thats really absolutely curious - but im glad it finally works - after hours of trying different settings --- i dont touch my settings from now on....

 

I was almost going to bring back the device.

After trying your suggestion/setting, all my problems are gone and the device sounds awesome, not as nice as my Creamware, but it sounds really good with no more cracks and such.

Thanks for posting!

Great device, now i am going to order the upgrade to Traktor Full...

Regards and thanks.

 

It works at 44.1- but you have to remember that it only works at 24 bits with 44.1; 16 bits isn't supported there. Trying to use it in a 16 bit project will give you trouble.

ew

 

i only use it with kore - i even would not know where i could switch the bit rate inside kore.

in kore it works now with48 khz ,1ms usb, 6-10mslatency. im connecting the ak1 now via a usb2 pcmcia card with the possibility to connect a power adapter.

now it works better. is it really a problem with power consumtion? than its a big design bug that there is no possibility to connect a power adapter to the ak1 itself.

i tried it on my studio pc (intel core duo), there were no troubles using it with 44,1 khz 24bit under cubase sx 4. of course it made trouble playing older projects recorded with 16 bit. so thats why i would never use it as recording/playback device for the mixing computer in the studio....

so still remainig is the bug that on my lap it only works with 48khz without crackle - i can live with that playing my virtual instruments - but if i buy a piece of hardware today i expect that it works as described in the ad`s..

 

"It works at 44.1- but you have to remember that it only works at 24 bits with 44.1; 16 bits isn't supported there. Trying to use it in a 16 bit project will give you trouble."

16Bits/44,1Khz not supported??? Is that a joke or something? How can a N.I. moderator say that this so-called "high-end" audio interface is not even capable to work at the native quantization and sampling rate frequency of CD???

Sometimes i really wonder if you, Native people, really use the stuff you develop and sell. I mean : even if I'm working at a higher resolution during the composing and mastering process, ultimately I will have to convert the PCM signal at 44,1Khz/16Bits, just to make it useable on any domestic device (DVD/CD players...).

Still, these sampling rate related problems I've already mentioned in an earlier thread are just unacceptable for a such high-priced device, and i want to know if N.I. is aware of those problems and plan to solve them with a real firmware or driver update. I think everyone here, your customers, the guys who put trust in your first steps as hardware manufacturer, deserve a definitive answer.

 

just a little "cut out" from the NI Homepage, technical specs of AK 1, "producer" section

General Interface Specifications
Input (A/D) Output (D/A)
Channels 2 4
Sampling Rate 44.1, 48, 96, 192 KHz 44.1, 48, 96, 192 KHz
Bit Resolution 16, 24 16, 24
Converter Cirrus Logic Cirrus Logic


so, please ewistrand check that back with NI - the ad tells me not, that i will have trouble, playing back 16 bit waves. it would also no sense, not to be backwards kompatible to listen to older tracks or as mentioned before to sounds from sampling cd`for example.

p.s. if it really does not support 44,1 16 bit it would be no catastrophy -
our least studio standard we use for recording here is 24bit 44.1khz (so i share files and projects with protools users owning older protools systems for example).

but thats not mentioned in the specs...

 

it never crossed my mind that this unit doesn't support 44.1 at 16bit - was so obvious from the specs.

Now, it may be a stupid question but given the above i'm wondering if AK1 is using ASIO-ver.2 driver, or is just ver.1 compatible - because I also assumed that when I bought it.

 

er... WHAT??

clarification please NI!!!!

 

So, all the problems people is having with crackling and noises could be due to using 44.1khz/16bit configuration?

I find it hard to swallow of an audio device that doesn't support probably the most used sampling rate/bit depth used in the world (everyone who pops a CD in their CD player is listening to that combination). It makes me remind of the dreaded SB Live! problem of not supporting 44.1khz natively, effectively downsampling from 48khz to 44.1khz (not good at all!!!).

 

The drivers had a tendency to drop out at regular intervals at 44.1/16 bit in both RK2 and KORE (it's the same audio driver as AK 1's is). I was the one who reported the issue, so I have first hand knowledge of it. For reasons unknown to me, the driver fix (which was last summer sometime) was to make 24 bits the default.

As far as the SBLive comparison goes, converting from 16 to 24 bits on the fly isn't half as degrading to the signal or processor intensive as downsampling is. All you're doing is filling in the eight extra bits with zeros,...

ew

 

As far as the SBLive / Audigy comparison goes, tomperson was probably referring to the fact that if you want to work at 16bit, you will be forced to convert from 44.1 to 48khz on the fly and that IS a degrading process.

This is a serious flaw and if NI's devices don't support 16 bit / 44.1 then their published specs are dishonest and misleading. That is VERY reminiscent of Creative!!

Can someone from NI please input to this discussion?

 

As far as the SBLive / Audigy comparison goes, I never mentioned bit rate reduction as a problem (it isn't, as far as a proper dither is used). I mentioned sample rate. I know lots of people who work at 24bit/44.1khz or 24bit/88khz just because they know their mixes will end at 44.1khz, and they want the "cleanest" path.

As a software developer myself, i find a bit awkward to implicitly say that the "driver fix" to the drop outs was that 16bit/44.1khz combination was banned. It's like if I made a software, and i tell my client that certain functionality (that was advertised, and that the client supposes will be there) won't be available anymore because it doesn't work as expected. What kind of fix is that?

 

So if I set Traktor to 24 bit it will stop cutting out?