sound problems in all my emulators

i'm not sure if this is the right place to post this, but it applies to P64 and you all seem like a knowledgable bunch

the sound in all my emulators (p64, espxe, zsnes, wgens, vba) has recently become distorted. it's difficult to describe, but it's become choppy and sped up with a sort of crackling noise, and in the case of zsnes the best i can get is a weird tapping sound.

now this was the case in P64 and ePSXe back when i started using them, so i put those down to dodgy plugin configuration, so i'm not sure if the problem is exactly the same or even related in my 32/64bit emulators and16bit emulators, but it definately sounds the same. mp3s, CDs and system sounds all play fine, and i've already re-installed all the emulators and updated my soundcard drivers to try and solve the problem, all to no avail. i don't know much about sound issues but i think something that effects such a similar range of apps in such a specific way would be pretty easy to identify, or at least i hope so anyone have any ideas?

specs...
1.5gig P4
GeForce2MX400
300+MB RAm
SoundBlaster AudioPCI

yeah, before a few days ago the sound in all my 16bit emulators was perfect and it wasn't bad in P64, now it's messed up in all of them.

i found that sound playback was going through "total recorder" rather than my soundcard. i changed it and now all is well, thanks for the help

while i'm on the subject of sound, i've found that azimer's older sound plugin is best for eliminating the "crackling" sound from things like the super mario kart menu and does everything else almost perfectly but there's a pause of about a second between what happens on screen and it's accompanying sound. the newer version of the plugin eliminates this pause but has some of the crackling noise back and seems to slow down the visuals slightly.

anyone else find this?