Track Count Issues

Curt wrote on 2/11/2003, 3:23 PM
Here's my problem. I'm recording about 9-10 tracks of mono audio. I go to add another track. As soon as I start recording the new track, the system starts skipping, almost like someone is tapping on the "pause" button intermitently. All the other tracks play back fine as long as I'm not trying to add more tracks.

Am I limited to the number of tracks I can record and play back?

FYI:
I'm using a P3 550MHz with 128M ram, 7200 rpm IDE dedicated audio drive, running in DMA mode.

Any thoughts?

Comments

Cold wrote on 2/11/2003, 4:17 PM
Are you using lots of plugs? 9 or 10 seems an excessively low track count to be having stuttering issues. It sounds like something else may not quite be right. For sure all the tracking is going onto your audio drive? Is your audio drive in a master/slave configuration on one cable with a slow data drive, cause then both will run at the slower speed? None of the files are being accessed off of a cd? Just trying to guess some easy things to start with. Your system should have more ram and be faster for doing serious work, but it should be able to play more than that. Are you recording at 16 or 24 bit? 44.1 or faster? high resolution audio will also limmit your track count in a hurry. I ended up using a 2 drive (7200) raid array to deal with track count limmitations. Perhaps a little overkill but it's one less issue that I just don't have to worry about.
Steve S
Geoff_Wood wrote on 2/11/2003, 8:53 PM
Fire up a CPU% monitor to see if you arte running out of steam *which it does sound like typical sympotoms of)...

Should get more than that without problems. Make sure audio *and temp* file directories are on your audio drive. Also use buss effects instead of track fx where possible (esp reverbs, etc), or disable track effects while recording new track.

geoff
Curt wrote on 2/12/2003, 8:33 AM
Cold:
I hadn't thought of the master/slave issue. That's definitely something I should check. Thanks for the heads up. As far as the other issues you raised, I've got those covered. (All audio is going to the audio drive, nothing coming from a CD, 44.1 16 bit, etc.). If I recall, I probably was using a lot of plug-ins at the time.

Thanks again

Curt
Curt wrote on 2/12/2003, 8:35 AM
Geoff:

Yes my "temp" files are directed to the audio drive. I hadn't thought of using buss FX as opposed to track FX, I'll definitely look into that one.

Thanks,

Curt