I’ve been struggling with recording music in Windows Vista.  I had no problems with my Alesis IO|26 on my Windows XP computer, but I’ve been wrestling the device in Vista.

Here’s the problem.  Audio recording and playback pops, crackles, sometimes works, and is generally unreliable.  I’m using the Alesis IO|26 as my system sound card (no other sound cards are running).  I can replicate the issue every time by playing a song in Windows Medial Player and flicking through a few pictures in Windows Photo Gallery.  Flicking through a few pictures and the song starts to snap, crackle and pop…..

The fix was to turn off the Windows Vista Aero interface.  So no more Windows eye candy for me, but my audio playback seems to be solid.

Here’s a link for more info.

http://createdigitalmusic.com/2007/04/05/how-to-kill-windows-vista-bottlenecks-pt-i-aero-and-display-issues/

 UPDATE:  It seems that Windows Classic mode is the way to go.