H6 Recorder Interface in to Audition using WASAPI caused major distortion

Report · May 11, 2018

Did a remote recording session using an H6 as my audio interface and and has WASAPI selected as my Device Class. the Latency was set to 400ms and Sample Rate at 48kHz. All levels were nominal. Monitored the recording off of the H6 headphone jack and everything seemed ok. When reviewing the audio at the end of the day, got a bit of a shock when all of the files had this digital distortion in it.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_r-Qg-IbpmiqI9ygFyVrBywO7shUD44b/view?usp=sharing

Anyone have a clue whether this can be fixed? I tried running it through the de-clicker, but that didn't fix it.

Report · Aug 02, 2019

I had the same thing happen. Don't really know why, but I found that if you switch to the ASIO or MME it'll work.

From what I've read, the Wasapi is an old Windows Vista software that works probably just as well as Vista did. I haven't been able to find anything else helpful in trying to troubleshoot the actual device class or fix the audio. We had to re-record the whole session.

It was a pain.

Report · Aug 02, 2019

Not quite sure why we didn't pick this one up at the time. That distortion is fairly typical of a buffering error, and cannot be fixed at all. This is because, like all distortion, there is no 'correct' reference to base a repair on.

WASAPI in general has never worked very well, and is certainly completely outmoded these days. The best thing to do with an H6 (or any of the other models it supports) is to download Zoom's ASIO driver and use that. This should give you the lowest latency possible.

The other thing to note, and this goes for any recording system at all, is that before you record anything for real, do a test recording first, and play it back. That way you get fewer nasty shocks...