24 bit/96 recording

larryo wrote on 11/22/2001, 11:24 AM
My first projects using Vegas/Sound Forge 5.0 have surprised me with limitations and glitches. Perhaps I under estimate the requirements of recording projects as 24 bit with a 96k sample rate?? I have 256meg ram/a 30 gig IDE drive(7200rpm), PIII/600 processor, etc. As I approach 10 tracks or so recorded audio, Vegas starts to do some serious gapping in playback despite all the recommended adjustments. My RAM meter has never exceeded 97/256, but the disk% indicator typically does go yellow/red when I'm this deep in the project. But well before reaching this point, I have FREQUENT "lockups" where a hard reboot is all I can do. The lockups come in varieties of black sceen, siezed or distorted display, a locked stuttering audio that has me diving for my monitor power, or the dreaded "a fatal error has occurred" message. All background programs are closed except sys tray and explorer.

If any seasoned Vegas users out there have any suggestions to this I'd appreciate it. I thought I'd have a considerable more amount of usage than this.

LarryO

Comments

jmpatrick wrote on 11/22/2001, 11:34 AM
Do you have a seperate drive for your audio files?
Is it defragged?
Where is your TEMP file located?
Are you running a lot of effects?
How about Busses?

I've had 24 24/96 tracks running on a 1gig Athlon with 768 Megs of PC133 RAM...so you can figure from there.

jp

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larryo wrote on 11/22/2001, 10:42 PM
Clearly I'm somewhat of a novice to digital recording, so bear with me. I have 2 drives; C and D. C is where Vegas/Sound Forge and all my other other programs are loaded. I have a nominal amount of audio files located on this drive thus far. This is my newer IDE 7200rpm drive (30 gig). D previously was my only drive. On it are quite a few mixed files of audio that I created in Sound Forge 4.0XP and CD Architect before I got Vegas/SF 5.0. This drive is something like 4.2 gig and not compatible with Vegas, hence the upgrade. Defrag done on a regular basis and I don't believe it to be a variable. I don't quite understand your query regarding the location of my temp file(again, - novice). I presume it's in windows on my C-drive(??). I have experimented with effects and certainly the problem is accentuated with more in the chain. I have gone as far as applying effects from acoustic mirror and elsewhere by actually adding them to the track(s) in sound forge, thus making the edit a permanent addition to the track, but freeing up the real-time effects. Better, but no cigar... Regarding busses....uhhh, I haven't got that far with screwing with Vegas. So far, my projects have 1 stereo master fader, so I presume 1 buss. One side bar question... The first time I tried to use acoustic mirror, it became apparent to me it's files didn't load with the program. The program kept looking for acoustic mirror in "E" (my CD drive)and couldn't find it anywhere else. I hastily loaded acoustic mirror from the installation disk into a folder on my desk top, where it currently resides. Is this a bad thing?

LarryO
Doug_Marshall wrote on 11/22/2001, 11:04 PM
You can set the temp drive and directory Vegas will use in the Options/Preferences/General dialog box. I suggest you locate this on your faster drive. The File/Properties/Audio dialog should also explicitly be saving your files to the faster drive--I presume you are already doing this.
VU-1 wrote on 11/22/2001, 11:36 PM
If at all possible, you really need to seperate your audio files from your program files. By this, I mean that you should use one of your drives (a smaller, slower one) as your boot/program drive and your bigger/faster one to store all of your audio files on. If you have to, you can move some audio data to your C: drive for temporary storage or backup purposes but you need to get Vegas to work strictly off of your D: drive (as far as storing & accessing the audio data).
Also, you should defrag your D: drive frequently so Vegas doesn't have to hunt & peck all over your drive to find the files you are asking it to play.

Hope this helps.
Jeff Lowes
On-Track Recording

BTW- what do you mean that your other drive isn't compatible w/Vegas?
Rockitglider wrote on 11/23/2001, 12:27 AM
Hello,
Does your BIOS identify your drives properly? Do you see "LBA" and "UDMA 66" when your booting up and your drive is identified? It is best to have your drives permenantly identified, rather than reidentifying the drives every time you bootup.

See ya, Rockit

BTW: If your other drive is a 5400 RPM, You can pick up a 7200 drive very cheap right now.
Cheesehole wrote on 11/23/2001, 12:43 AM
also make sure your OS has recognized your newer drive as Ultra DMA or performance will suck.

in Win2k you can check by going into
Administrative Tools | Computer Management | Device MAnager

then go View | By Connection

the drill down by clicking the plusses till you get to PCI | IDE Controllers and look at the properties|Advanced for your Primary/Secondary controllers. the one with the newer drive should say Ultra DMA mode. if not, change the transfer mode to DMA if Available and reboot. if it already said DMA if available, but it says PIO mode, you need to download the latest IDE controller drivers for your motherboard. if you have VIA IDE controller, you can use the 4 in 1 VIA drivers available at their site.

- ben (cheesehole)
larryo wrote on 11/24/2001, 3:44 PM
Thanks, all - especially Ben (Cheesehole). I downloaded new 4-in-1 from Via as well as some IDE upgrade and for now the lockups are gone. I still am experiencing audio gapping though on playback when I run effects. For now I still have all my programs on this drive (7 gig out of 30 used). Oddly, neither my ram nor disk% meter indicate anything extraordinary happening when gapping starts. In fact, I can make it through vitually the entire track, even the busiest portions, without gapping. Then at the end of the track (on the "outro") where vocals and other instrumentation are out, it'll start gapping. I'm running windows 98 and don't seem to be able to run the sequence down as suggested to "view by connection", but the new IDE download from VIA identifies my larger drive as "Ultra DMA-ATA 100", so I presume I have the correct setup. But for now, I'll go back to the studio and rejoice in the fact that I don't have to keep rebooting. Thanks, again. P.S. - my smaller drive is an older samsung that I presume isn't compatible for Vegas use because it isn't a 7200rpm drive.

LarryO