Buzzing Noise in Sound Studio

Apple Griffin iMic External Sound System

garageband not picking up the guitar...

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Hi, I recently bought an imic for recording into Garageband but, when I plug in my electric acoustic... (More)

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Apple Griffin iMic External Sound System

imic cuts out and have to restart...

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I have been having a problem recently with my iMic which I purchased approximately 3 years ago. It... (More) I have been having a problem recently with my iMic which I purchased approximately 3 years ago. It may actually be a problem with Final Vinyl but I have downloaded the most recent version of that and the problem continues. I am using an iMac with the most recent version of Leopard. The problem is that I will be recording an album (converting analog to digital) and sometimes when I am doing this the sound cuts out completely on the monitor. In order to describe exactly what is going on here I need to tell you how I have things set up. I am running my turntable through an amplifier and the line out from the amplifier is the input to the iMic. I then have the output from the computer set to run back through the iMic and thus come out through the speakers from the amplifier. That is, the input settings and the output settings in Preferences are both set for iMic USB audio system. Then while I am recording something I monitor it by setting the amplifier to Tape Monitor (if I set it to Phono I would hear what was being recorded, but it would not tell me what the computer was doing, that is if the computer stopped picking up the signal, I would not know). With this set up for no apparent reason that I have been able to determine at times in the middle of recording, the sound will suddenly cut out and the recording aborts. However, it doesn't exactly abort. If I look at Final Vinyl, there is still a signal showing and recording is going on, but there is no sound coming out of the speakers. When I check input level in Preferences there is a signal that shows also but it is not the recording of the LP. What it is exactly I'm not sure, but I suspect it is some sort of feedback loop which I will explain why and also what is going on with that continued input. If I save the file that has been recorded to this point and import it into iTunes I discover that at the point when the sound has cut out, but there is still input, a recording has continued that consists of the last note of the original signal repeating over and over in a loop for as long as I let the recording continue. Also regarding that continued input, even after I stop recording and turn off the amplifier, the signal still shows in the input of the Preferences panel. In order to get it to stop I have to switch the input to line in or internal microphone and then back to iMic USB audio system. There is one more wrinkle which involves iTunes. Once this stuff has happened iTunes will not play as long as the Output is set to iMic USB audio system, but it will play if the Output is set to line out/headphones. In fact if I set it to line out and start playing & then toggle back to iMic, iTunes stops playing but starts right up as soon as I switch back to line out. The only fix I have found for this (which takes care of all the above problems until they occur again randomly it appears) is to restart the computer. Once I do that everything works fine for a time. My question(s) then are if there is any known issue with the iMic that would be causing this? Would you know if it is the iMic or could it be the computer? As I said, the iMic itself is about three years old but the computer is only about a year and a half old (it is a 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo w/ 2 GB 667 MHz iMac). What would you suggest as a solution? An additional related problem is that the feed between the iMic and the computer will sometimes cut out when listening to music from the computer, even if it is not through iTunes, for example, this will happen when listening to a youtube feed. I contacted Griffin and they suggested I reinstall a newer version of the software, delete any old playlists and versions, and repair disc permissions. I did all this and the problem persists.

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Apple Griffin iMic External Sound System