Everything works. not hearing anything

[zoharar]

hi everyone.
thanks for taking the time to help me out.

im the new owner of a very used pulsar 2, running on an old machine with xp and scope 3.1 (until my new key arrives)

i wanted to check the sound so i ran media player and saw the mixer channel was working. connected my RCA- L-in R-In to my headphones... and nothing...
switched to the L-out R-out... nothing.

on the mixer i see that the output fader is directed to Pulsar 2: R-in, L-in.

i checked the breakout cable with a ohm-meter and everything was connected fine.

what else can i do? working on getting the thing to work for 4 days now.


and another tiny question. i didnt have modular II in the keys that the guy gave me, isn't that suppose to be included in all keys? could it be that it's not in my license? if so im returning it...

thanks

[dante]

Can you post a screenshot of your Scope project ?

[zoharar]

sure,
not being sure what the project means, ill post anythnig

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scope2.JPG (20.82 KiB) Viewed 2759 times

scope1.JPG (71.32 KiB) Viewed 2759 times

[garyb]

what do you mean, you connected the rcas to your headphones? isn't there an amp of some kind in-between?

[zoharar]

well yeah.

im using a roland edirol fa-66 soundcard on my main machine (win 7 x64).
so i connected the rca to the input of that soundcard. and i checked the gain and still nothing.

the mixer looks OK?
what else can it be?

[garyb]

maybe the cable whip is not fully seated.

there's not much to do. if the software works, and the cable whip is ok, and you have signal out of the mixer into the analog dest, it almost HAS to work. why not try connecting to something other than the edirol, like a stereo receiver or powered speaks?

[zoharar]

checked whip connection to the card... seems fine... checked amp... seems fine.

i saw one pecuiliar thing.

im attaching my sound devices menu from the win xp control panel
its partially in hebrew so i'll translate the important and strange stuff

this is the strange part.

scope11.JPG (27.85 KiB) Viewed 2719 times

see that i cant control the gain level? above the slider it says: "no Audio Device"

in the next pictures the audio and sound tabs show me i can choose to output the sound to pulsar source 1 and 2.

its now on 2 because i tried to check if it made it better. but the thing with "no Audio DevicE" is strange to me. is it suppose to be this way?

annyway... now reinstalling win xp, hoping it would work. i dont know where to get some other hardware to try it on... maybe the internal pins are somehow damaged... hmmm how could i check that?

thanks for all the helpers and gary!!!

[garyb]

no, that is proper.

Scope is external, as far as the computer is concerned. the audio is calculated on the dsps, not the cpu. a Scope card is not a standard windows soundcard. windows has no idea what is happening in regards to audio. when a Scope card is used.

if you see level in the mixer, there IS audio there, period.

one thing to try, is to reseat the i/o daughtercard. take the card out of the computer. do NOT touch any of the gold contacts with your hands. if you do, you should clean the contacts with either a soft eraser, 99%(NOT rubbing!) alcohol, or a good commercial contact cleaner. carefully remove the four nylon screws holding the daughter card to the main card. pry up the i/o card carefully and evenly and then realign the pins and press back together(carefully!). you can even use contact cleaner on the pins before reassembly. reattach the screws. don't over tighten. return the card to the computer and test it.

there is a slight possibility that the i/o card is damaged. it's also possible that there's some other physical issue between the card and the monitor amp. it's impossible to say for sure without being there, but it looks like it SHOULD work. Scope is not flakey when it comes to handling an audio stream. it's just about as plain, to the point, and as reliable as an actual wire between hardware jacks. no, it's more reliable than wire in some ways.

[zoharar]

ok

cleaned the doughtercard. broke one of the screws but its ok.
vacummed it (didnt want to use alcohol or ether).

all this made the card flakey in the sense that it had some connectivity problems with the PCI.
"cant connect to the hardware" and stuff... eventually it connected.

but still same result with the sound.

brought my pc today to the best audio lab in israel (called "Audio Lab").
if they cant fix it, im buying a shotgun

[garyb]

ether?

one fingerprint is enough to make it not work.

[dante]

At this point you probably need to try the board in another PC. Seems the fault could be in either up to now therefore need to eliminate one or t'other.

[siriusbliss]

I think in Scope 3.1 there is a soundcard module to link between Scope card and another soundcard. Maybe try that next.
Otherwise I think there's probably a easy solution.

Reinstalling XP, etc. seems like a sledge-hammer approach and probably won't fix anything.

If you're seeing levels in Scope all the way out through the mixer, then try hooking up ONLY the analog output module to some powered speakers or external amp (with speakers hooked up), and disconnect the wav and SPDIF modules in the project. Keep it simple.

Disconnect the Edirol or take it out of the PC entirely. and run only the Pulsar and see what happens.

Make sure the volume is turned up on your monitor
(I've forgotten this many times because I HATE loud bursts of sound when I first start listening to mixes).

Why is your mixer routing showing Pulsar IN? Shouldn't it be seeing Analog out?

Seems like you have some (internal) wires crossed

Greg

[zoharar]

Hi all

thanks again for helping.

the edirol is a soundcard on another computer. i wanted to give pulsar its own machine (an old one, to match). so its my external amp... and i checked it (volume, connectivity, everything)

but Greg said something interesting.
i was wondering about it too.
Gary said the wiring was fine but i was wondering why the mixed bus channel (dunno if thats the official name), the right most channel, was routed to pulsar R-in L-in. isnt that suppose to be R-out L-out?

wiring problem matches all of the symptoms... could it be?

[Mr Arkadin]

but Greg said something interesting.
i was wondering about it too.
Gary said the wiring was fine but i was wondering why the mixed bus channel (dunno if thats the official name), the right most channel, was routed to pulsar R-in L-in. isnt that suppose to be R-out L-out?

No, it's correct as it is. You are wiring the outputs of the mixer to the inputs of the module. That module just happens to be your analogue output but could be anything. Anyways, you can't wire outputs to outputs, Scope won't let you (although it does allow inputs to inputs - I just tried to confirm).

[zoharar]

its official
this card i/o is busted.

and...
long playback result in an error...

i sure hope the guy is gonna give me my money back

[garyb]