I got 2 big problems - plz help. -_-

[Nicholestien]

For christmas I got a pair of KRKRP5's, everything was going fine up untill yesterday morning, I turned my computer on, and both the speakers are playing in mono. Or double stereo, I don't know, the point is, panning has absolutely no effect on the sound, so I know something is up. Any ideas on what it could be? It was working just fine I don't know what happend. :S

Another problem I got and it's starting to annoy me alot, is that I just realized that I've been making alot of mistakes because my computer is to loud, , do you guys have any tips and tricks to help keep the computer noise on check? It's a loud buzzing noise and I can't focus on the sound of my mix properly because of it.

[Dafydd]

Wear headphones. Make sure your computer has proper cooling and that there are no wires or cables stuck in the fans. Also check for other loose parts that might be vibrating, causing noise.

[Kanthos]

What sound card and setup do you have? Have you tried shutting down any and all applications that might possibly access the soundcard and trying again? Have you tried rebooting? Have you tried using a VSTI outside of your DAW (if you have one that has a standalone mode)?

[Nicholestien]

This is the soundcard I currently have,

http://us.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=209&subcategory=669&product=14066 - aka xi-fi extreme music.

I think it's important to note that I'm operating on a 32-bit version of windows vista, so the soundcard can only work if it uses something called "OpenAL", not sure what that is but i'm sure it will help.

here is my other computer information just it can be helpful

processor: AMD Athlon64 Dual Core Processor 4400+ 2.30Ghz

RAM: 1982 MB

oh yeah, it's a dell.

how i get my krk's to this crap soundcard of mines,

I got this cable, it's got two TRS outputs (Mono), one red, and one black, and one stereo input which goes to the computer (Ok, I'm not sure if i got the inputs/outputs mixed up or whatever. xD)

it dosn't go directly to the comp though, because creative is a peice of crap soundcard, so I have to put the signal trough yet, another adaptor, which converts the trs to a crap 1/8 headphone jack.

God, I hate windows vista, I hate creative labs, i hate! HATE HATE HATE HATE HAAAATE THEM! AND ABSOLUTELY DESPISE THEM! -kekfa

[Harmony]

Sounds like a ground loop to me...especially with the Soundblaster (I've got similar probs with mine). Give an audio sample of the buzzing and someone here would be able to make that determination for sure.

[Flexstyle]

Sounds to me like this problem is twofold--one, the adapter is blown (happened to me too recently). You'll need to pick up another one, I think. Second, as every good audio engineer knows--Creative cards are crap for mixing. My personal favorite cards are made by M-Audio, and I think for you the best one would be this or this. This is what I use, but as it seems you're not going to need the ten ins and outs it provides I don't think you need to spend the extra $$ for it.

[Nicholestien]

thanks for the feedback everyone.

about the post above mines, i'm pretty surprized to hear that actually, cuz i was told that soundblasters only suck for recording, but are passable if you are not recording at all and sticking all digital. can you give me more info on what your talking about just to make sure?

and yes, the adaptor is blown....

[Harmony]

Two of the biggest supposed problems with Soundblasters are

1) poor converters (problems with recording): this results in more hiss and other junk in your recordings if you're plugging a mic or a guitar or something directly into the card.

2) audio coloring: this means that instead of trying to reproduce the sound as accurately as possible in terms of the frequency spectrum, the SB will often try to make whatever sound comes through it sound as good as possible, often by adding some low and high freqs that can throw you off when trying to mix correctly.

I say bah to both of those "problems" since the SB signal to noise ratio isn't the best but also isn't the worst, and anyone who works with the card for a little while can train themselves to work with the audio coloring to get reasonably accurate results.

[Fray]

For christmas I got a pair of KRKRP5's, everything was going fine up untill yesterday morning, I turned my computer on, and both the speakers are playing in mono. Or double stereo, I don't know, the point is, panning has absolutely no effect on the sound, so I know something is up. Any ideas on what it could be? It was working just fine I don't know what happend. :S

Another problem I got and it's starting to annoy me alot, is that I just realized that I've been making alot of mistakes because my computer is to loud, , do you guys have any tips and tricks to help keep the computer noise on check? It's a loud buzzing noise and I can't focus on the sound of my mix properly because of it.

I think the blown adapter sounds like a good explanation. Try a new one.

Is the sound coming directly from your computer, or is it coming out of your speakers?

1) poor converters (problems with recording): this results in more hiss and other junk in your recordings if you're plugging a mic or a guitar or something directly into the card.

Poor converters reduce the quality of your output too, but it's only a problem in the monitoring department, and a smaller issue overall.

2) audio coloring: this means that instead of trying to reproduce the sound as accurately as possible in terms of the frequency spectrum, the SB will often try to make whatever sound comes through it sound as good as possible, often by adding some low and high freqs that can throw you off when trying to mix correctly.

True, but AFAIK you should be able to turn all that crap off in the driver settings. I don't think the coloring is fundamentally ingrained in the hardware.