And the Angels Sing (Chapter 4 of Setting Up a Linux-based Recording Studio)

Late this afternoon, my husband and I sat down with the intent to figure out this buzzing issue, and he had an additional computer-nerdy agenda item that was not explained to me beyond “I am trying to fix the problem.”

So I read several articles about the Casey Anthony trial verdict while he worked his programmer angle, accomplished what he intended to do, and we got started on our scientific study. We systematically ran through the variables.

We recorded as it was currently set up in Ardour and Jack (QjackCtl) and there was in fact a buzz.

This evening we adjusted two factors in Jack: the sample rate and the periods/buffer*, and also the gain on my Layla (my digital audio recorder.**) The gain was an afterthought as the levels were rather low in the mixer in Ardour. I took down notes to keep straight what we tried, and it is all a jumble now. That makes no difference because the weirdest thing happened: after we adjusted the gain the first time, we were unable to to replicate the buzz – not even when we set the parameters back to what they were at the start of the night. We tried to get the gain back to where it was when we had buzzing, but it is a dial with no numbers, so it would not/could not be exact. We wonder if there was some quirk about the dial.

No combination of 44000 vs 96000 sample rate, and/or 2 vs 3 periods/buffer could make it buzz again. So we are guessing it was the gain. Or a tricksy gain nob.

What ever the reason, Hallelujah the BUZZ IS GONE!

* We have yet to learn what this periods/buffer thing does. It’s on the to-do list. We decided to adjust it because we saw it mentioned in various problem-solving threads on forums.

** reference my entry called “My New Toy (in 3-5 business days)” to learn more about the Layla.