[iarwain]

There must be some people here knowledgeable about this subject. How
much RAM do professionals who engage in intensive multitrack recording
have in their computer? I'm wondering about how many tracks can be
played at once and what limits this? Would increasing RAM increase
the amount of of tracks you could play at once? I have 1.5 GB of RAM
on a Pentium 4 3 GHz machine. What would increasing the RAM to 4 GB
do for me? Anything?

I tried to run about 16 tracks at once and it got a little way in
before it started to pop and click and then froze up completely. I
have a Soundblaster Live card using ASIO drivers. Would upgrading to
an M-Audio 2496 increase the amount of tracks I could multitrack at
once? How many tracks can you reasonably expect to run at once on a
computer?

[[email protected]]

On Aug 25, 10:58*am, iarwain wrote:
There must be some people here knowledgeable about this subject. *How
much RAM do professionals who engage in intensive multitrack recording
have in their computer? *I'm wondering about how many tracks can be
played at once and what limits this? *Would increasing RAM increase
the amount of of tracks you could play at once? *I have 1.5 GB of RAM
on a Pentium 4 3 GHz machine. *What would increasing the RAM to 4 GB
do for me? *Anything?

I tried to run about 16 tracks at once and it got a little way in
before it started to pop and click and then froze up completely. *I
have a Soundblaster Live card using ASIO drivers. *Would upgrading to
an M-Audio 2496 increase the amount of tracks I could multitrack at
once? *How many tracks can you reasonably expect to run at once on a
computer?

You'd be better off getting a faster hard drive (7200 rpm) with a
faster interface (firewire 800 for Mac, SATA, USB 2) with a larger
buffer (8 or 16 mb).

[Laurence Payne[_2_]]

On Mon, 25 Aug 2008 10:58:36 -0700 (PDT), iarwain
wrote:

There must be some people here knowledgeable about this subject. How
much RAM do professionals who engage in intensive multitrack recording
have in their computer? I'm wondering about how many tracks can be
played at once and what limits this? Would increasing RAM increase
the amount of of tracks you could play at once? I have 1.5 GB of RAM
on a Pentium 4 3 GHz machine. What would increasing the RAM to 4 GB
do for me? Anything?

I tried to run about 16 tracks at once and it got a little way in
before it started to pop and click and then froze up completely. I
have a Soundblaster Live card using ASIO drivers. Would upgrading to
an M-Audio 2496 increase the amount of tracks I could multitrack at
once? How many tracks can you reasonably expect to run at once on a
computer?

Can we assume you're using a sensible format - no higher than 48KHz/24
bit? And that these are just audio tracks - if you start piling
insert effects on you can run out of computer very quickly :-)

In the old days we'd have started talking about SCSI and RAID. But
modern hard drives can cope - last time I tried, on a system similar
to yours but with a M-Audio 1010 card (roughly equivilent to five 2496
cards in parallal - though in this case I was only using one of them),
I got bored after counting 60 stereo tracks of playback at 44.1/16.
Whatever the bottleneck, it isn't going to be a properly functioning
hard drive.

Is the ASIO driver for your SB Live! adjustable? If so, have you set
it as low as possible? Try increasing it.

Maybe the SB is really as bad as we all like to think. The trouble
is, anyone who knows anything about serious audio probably hasn't SEEN
a SB for years, let alone used one for multitrack work :-)

Playback buffers in a multitrack sequencer are of the order of a few
KB per track. You've got enough RAM for LOTS of those! That isn't
quite the whole story - if you want to jump around and stop/start a
lot the system can be quite clever about having what you want next
already cached in RAM. But you're talking about problems with
straightforward linear playback I think?

[philicorda[_6_]]

On Mon, 25 Aug 2008 10:58:36 -0700, iarwain wrote:

There must be some people here knowledgeable about this subject. How
much RAM do professionals who engage in intensive multitrack recording
have in their computer? I'm wondering about how many tracks can be
played at once and what limits this? Would increasing RAM increase the
amount of of tracks you could play at once? I have 1.5 GB of RAM on a
Pentium 4 3 GHz machine. What would increasing the RAM to 4 GB do for
me? Anything?

I tried to run about 16 tracks at once and it got a little way in before
it started to pop and click and then froze up completely. I have a
Soundblaster Live card using ASIO drivers. Would upgrading to an
M-Audio 2496 increase the amount of tracks I could multitrack at once?
How many tracks can you reasonably expect to run at once on a computer?

You will need at least a Pentium 200 with 256Mb of ram to run 16 tracks.

That machine should be able do at least 40-60 tracks at 44.1KHz 24bit.

I suspect something is up with the soundcard/driver combination and it
would be a good idea to fix that first. Try it with MME, DirectX or WDM
rather than ASIO. The M-Audio has been a solid choice for many people.

Lots of memory is not a huge help for multitracking in my experience.
It's more when you start using software samplers or lots of plugins and
virtual instruments that it comes in handy.

[Geoff]

iarwain wrote:
There must be some people here knowledgeable about this subject. How
much RAM do professionals who engage in intensive multitrack recording
have in their computer? I'm wondering about how many tracks can be
played at once and what limits this? Would increasing RAM increase
the amount of of tracks you could play at once? I have 1.5 GB of RAM
on a Pentium 4 3 GHz machine. What would increasing the RAM to 4 GB
do for me? Anything?

I tried to run about 16 tracks at once and it got a little way in
before it started to pop and click and then froze up completely. I
have a Soundblaster Live card using ASIO drivers. Would upgrading to
an M-Audio 2496 increase the amount of tracks I could multitrack at
once? How many tracks can you reasonably expect to run at once on a
computer?

I can do dozens of tracks with a 2.4GHz machine with 1G ram. RAM size and
it's relevance depends on the application you are using. For most, disk
speed is far more important.

geoff

[bob[_3_]]

On Mon, 25 Aug 2008 10:58:36 -0700 (PDT), iarwain
wrote:

There must be some people here knowledgeable about this subject. How
much RAM do professionals who engage in intensive multitrack recording
have in their computer? I'm wondering about how many tracks can be
played at once and what limits this? Would increasing RAM increase
the amount of of tracks you could play at once? I have 1.5 GB of RAM
on a Pentium 4 3 GHz machine. What would increasing the RAM to 4 GB
do for me? Anything?

I tried to run about 16 tracks at once and it got a little way in
before it started to pop and click and then froze up completely. I
have a Soundblaster Live card using ASIO drivers. Would upgrading to
an M-Audio 2496 increase the amount of tracks I could multitrack at
once? How many tracks can you reasonably expect to run at once on a
computer?

i started out with a sound blaster card using the "kx project"
drivers. really stable and ran at least 12 tracks really easily with a
lesser machine (PIII 866, 1 gig of ram). it could have done more. i
upgraded to the m-audio 192 card and a p4 d920 and i could have
tracked forever(??)... and that would cost peanuts now, it ran
smoother and it sounded better too! but try the kx drivers first
because that's free! ;-)

[jwvm]

On Aug 25, 1:58*pm, iarwain wrote:
There must be some people here knowledgeable about this subject. *How
much RAM do professionals who engage in intensive multitrack recording
have in their computer? *I'm wondering about how many tracks can be
played at once and what limits this? *Would increasing RAM increase
the amount of of tracks you could play at once? *I have 1.5 GB of RAM
on a Pentium 4 3 GHz machine. *What would increasing the RAM to 4 GB
do for me? *Anything?


Have you set your computer up for digital audio work? Assuming that
you are running XP, you can turn off a bunch of the "eye-candy"
effects that slow things down. If you are running Vista, lots of luck:
Consider changing the OS. One of the responders asked if you were
doing real-time effects and that certainly is something else that can
cause problems. If your DAW software has a CPU indicator, what is the
CPU load? Task Manager will also tell you this and show memory usage
also. You might also see if your DAW software has settings for
buffering. If buffering is set too low, you will get all kinds of
clicks and pops. You might also want to pass along what software you
are using.

I tried to run about 16 tracks at once and it got a little way in
before it started to pop and click and then froze up completely. *I
have a Soundblaster Live card using ASIO drivers. *Would upgrading to
an M-Audio 2496 increase the amount of tracks I could multitrack at
once? *How many tracks can you reasonably expect to run at once on a
computer?

The sound card and driver here is not a critical issue. It sounds like
you are just playing back the mix through the sound card and even a
Sound Blaster should not be a problem and if it works well for other
applications, the driver won't be an issue here either. If you are
recording with it, you could have a driver problem.

[Ben Bradley[_2_]]

On Mon, 25 Aug 2008 10:58:36 -0700 (PDT), iarwain
wrote:

There must be some people here knowledgeable about this subject. How
much RAM do professionals who engage in intensive multitrack recording
have in their computer? I'm wondering about how many tracks can be
played at once and what limits this? Would increasing RAM increase
the amount of of tracks you could play at once? I have 1.5 GB of RAM
on a Pentium 4 3 GHz machine. What would increasing the RAM to 4 GB
do for me? Anything?

I tried to run about 16 tracks at once and it got a little way in
before it started to pop and click and then froze up completely. I
have a Soundblaster Live card using ASIO drivers. Would upgrading to
an M-Audio 2496 increase the amount of tracks I could multitrack at
once? How many tracks can you reasonably expect to run at once on a
computer?

In addition to the other good responses (mainly that the problem is
NOT a lack of RAM), what other things are running in the background on
this computer? Virus scanners and other "security" software should NOT
be running on a multitrack recording machine, nor should any "find
fast" software or "quick start" software that so many damn
applications load up with the little icons in the lower right of the
screen next to the clock. About the only thing you might want there is
a shortcut to the audio interface control panel. Even lots of programs
that DON'T have a little icon like that have a program that loads up
at boot time (making boot time longer) so that the initial "running
the program" will be (appear) faster. There's even something that
looks for a disk loaded in the CD/DVD drive, and either runs the
corrsponding program or asks you want you want to do with the disc.
You don't want that running either.
I recall there was some commonly-given webpage link some years ago
for "Optimizing a PC for multitrack audio" that would tell you what
all to remove to get the best performance (most tracks) out of a
recording PC. Maybe that's still around and someone remembers it.

And regardless of anything else, I strongly suggest upgrading to
the M-Audio, or to ANY similar semi-pro/pro audio interface (the
things musical instrument stores sell, NOT anyting available at
computer stores!) solely to improve the sound. After going through
several "consumer" soundcards a long time back, I found couldn't
digitize LP records on anything less than an Audiophile 24/96.

[Laurence Payne[_2_]]

On Tue, 26 Aug 2008 03:13:24 +0100, Signal wrote:

If you do buy more memory, be aware that with 32bit XP, windows will
only ever see 3Gb.. and chunk are taken out of that, to mirror your
graphics card memory for example.

Not quite. It will see 4GB from which chunks will be reserved for
device mapping. You'll be able to use 3GB or maybe a little more,
depending on the architecture of your motherboard.

[Gareth Magennis]

"Ben Bradley" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 25 Aug 2008 10:58:36 -0700 (PDT), iarwain
wrote:

There must be some people here knowledgeable about this subject. How
much RAM do professionals who engage in intensive multitrack recording
have in their computer? I'm wondering about how many tracks can be
played at once and what limits this? Would increasing RAM increase
the amount of of tracks you could play at once? I have 1.5 GB of RAM
on a Pentium 4 3 GHz machine. What would increasing the RAM to 4 GB
do for me? Anything?

I tried to run about 16 tracks at once and it got a little way in
before it started to pop and click and then froze up completely. I
have a Soundblaster Live card using ASIO drivers. Would upgrading to
an M-Audio 2496 increase the amount of tracks I could multitrack at
once? How many tracks can you reasonably expect to run at once on a
computer?

In addition to the other good responses (mainly that the problem is
NOT a lack of RAM), what other things are running in the background on
this computer? Virus scanners and other "security" software should NOT
be running on a multitrack recording machine, nor should any "find
fast" software or "quick start" software that so many damn
applications load up with the little icons in the lower right of the
screen next to the clock. About the only thing you might want there is
a shortcut to the audio interface control panel. Even lots of programs
that DON'T have a little icon like that have a program that loads up
at boot time (making boot time longer) so that the initial "running
the program" will be (appear) faster. There's even something that
looks for a disk loaded in the CD/DVD drive, and either runs the
corrsponding program or asks you want you want to do with the disc.
You don't want that running either.
I recall there was some commonly-given webpage link some years ago
for "Optimizing a PC for multitrack audio" that would tell you what
all to remove to get the best performance (most tracks) out of a
recording PC. Maybe that's still around and someone remembers it.

And regardless of anything else, I strongly suggest upgrading to
the M-Audio, or to ANY similar semi-pro/pro audio interface (the
things musical instrument stores sell, NOT anyting available at
computer stores!) solely to improve the sound. After going through
several "consumer" soundcards a long time back, I found couldn't
digitize LP records on anything less than an Audiophile 24/96.


I get rid of sll this gunk as a matter of course now.
Go to Start / Run then type msconfig, press OK. Click the Startup tab.
This will show a list of all the programs that are run automatically at
boot. Most of them you don't need.
Best thing to do is copy their names into Google one at a time. You will
then find out what they are and what they do, and whether it is safe to
uncheck its checkbox so they do not run at all.

Annoyingly, some of these come back, notably MsMessenger which irritates me
a LOT. I don't want it to start on my system but it seems I have no choice.
Grrrrr. Sometimes it takes several days before it sneaks its way back



Gareth.

[Don Pearce]

Gareth Magennis wrote:
"Ben Bradley" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 25 Aug 2008 10:58:36 -0700 (PDT), iarwain
wrote:

There must be some people here knowledgeable about this subject. How
much RAM do professionals who engage in intensive multitrack recording
have in their computer? I'm wondering about how many tracks can be
played at once and what limits this? Would increasing RAM increase
the amount of of tracks you could play at once? I have 1.5 GB of RAM
on a Pentium 4 3 GHz machine. What would increasing the RAM to 4 GB
do for me? Anything?

I tried to run about 16 tracks at once and it got a little way in
before it started to pop and click and then froze up completely. I
have a Soundblaster Live card using ASIO drivers. Would upgrading to
an M-Audio 2496 increase the amount of tracks I could multitrack at
once? How many tracks can you reasonably expect to run at once on a
computer?
In addition to the other good responses (mainly that the problem is
NOT a lack of RAM), what other things are running in the background on
this computer? Virus scanners and other "security" software should NOT
be running on a multitrack recording machine, nor should any "find
fast" software or "quick start" software that so many damn
applications load up with the little icons in the lower right of the
screen next to the clock. About the only thing you might want there is
a shortcut to the audio interface control panel. Even lots of programs
that DON'T have a little icon like that have a program that loads up
at boot time (making boot time longer) so that the initial "running
the program" will be (appear) faster. There's even something that
looks for a disk loaded in the CD/DVD drive, and either runs the
corrsponding program or asks you want you want to do with the disc.
You don't want that running either.
I recall there was some commonly-given webpage link some years ago
for "Optimizing a PC for multitrack audio" that would tell you what
all to remove to get the best performance (most tracks) out of a
recording PC. Maybe that's still around and someone remembers it.

And regardless of anything else, I strongly suggest upgrading to
the M-Audio, or to ANY similar semi-pro/pro audio interface (the
things musical instrument stores sell, NOT anyting available at
computer stores!) solely to improve the sound. After going through
several "consumer" soundcards a long time back, I found couldn't
digitize LP records on anything less than an Audiophile 24/96.


I get rid of sll this gunk as a matter of course now.
Go to Start / Run then type msconfig, press OK. Click the Startup tab.
This will show a list of all the programs that are run automatically at
boot. Most of them you don't need.
Best thing to do is copy their names into Google one at a time. You will
then find out what they are and what they do, and whether it is safe to
uncheck its checkbox so they do not run at all.

Annoyingly, some of these come back, notably MsMessenger which irritates me
a LOT. I don't want it to start on my system but it seems I have no choice.
Grrrrr. Sometimes it takes several days before it sneaks its way back



Gareth.



I can help you with msmessenger. Outlook Express is starting it for you.
Go to the OE options menu and you can turn it off.

Otherwise a copy of Enditall is a piece of magic when it comes to
shutting down all the unneeded dross.

d

[Gareth Magennis]

"Don Pearce" wrote in message
et...
Gareth Magennis wrote:
"Ben Bradley" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 25 Aug 2008 10:58:36 -0700 (PDT), iarwain
wrote:

There must be some people here knowledgeable about this subject. How
much RAM do professionals who engage in intensive multitrack recording
have in their computer? I'm wondering about how many tracks can be
played at once and what limits this? Would increasing RAM increase
the amount of of tracks you could play at once? I have 1.5 GB of RAM
on a Pentium 4 3 GHz machine. What would increasing the RAM to 4 GB
do for me? Anything?

I tried to run about 16 tracks at once and it got a little way in
before it started to pop and click and then froze up completely. I
have a Soundblaster Live card using ASIO drivers. Would upgrading to
an M-Audio 2496 increase the amount of tracks I could multitrack at
once? How many tracks can you reasonably expect to run at once on a
computer?
In addition to the other good responses (mainly that the problem is
NOT a lack of RAM), what other things are running in the background on
this computer? Virus scanners and other "security" software should NOT
be running on a multitrack recording machine, nor should any "find
fast" software or "quick start" software that so many damn
applications load up with the little icons in the lower right of the
screen next to the clock. About the only thing you might want there is
a shortcut to the audio interface control panel. Even lots of programs
that DON'T have a little icon like that have a program that loads up
at boot time (making boot time longer) so that the initial "running
the program" will be (appear) faster. There's even something that
looks for a disk loaded in the CD/DVD drive, and either runs the
corrsponding program or asks you want you want to do with the disc.
You don't want that running either.
I recall there was some commonly-given webpage link some years ago
for "Optimizing a PC for multitrack audio" that would tell you what
all to remove to get the best performance (most tracks) out of a
recording PC. Maybe that's still around and someone remembers it.

And regardless of anything else, I strongly suggest upgrading to
the M-Audio, or to ANY similar semi-pro/pro audio interface (the
things musical instrument stores sell, NOT anyting available at
computer stores!) solely to improve the sound. After going through
several "consumer" soundcards a long time back, I found couldn't
digitize LP records on anything less than an Audiophile 24/96.


I get rid of sll this gunk as a matter of course now.
Go to Start / Run then type msconfig, press OK. Click the Startup tab.
This will show a list of all the programs that are run automatically at
boot. Most of them you don't need.
Best thing to do is copy their names into Google one at a time. You will
then find out what they are and what they do, and whether it is safe to
uncheck its checkbox so they do not run at all.

Annoyingly, some of these come back, notably MsMessenger which irritates
me a LOT. I don't want it to start on my system but it seems I have no
choice. Grrrrr. Sometimes it takes several days before it sneaks its way
back



Gareth.

I can help you with msmessenger. Outlook Express is starting it for you.
Go to the OE options menu and you can turn it off.



Thanks Don! That's got it..


Gareth.




Otherwise a copy of Enditall is a piece of magic when it comes to shutting
down all the unneeded dross.

d

[Monty Parts]

Ben Bradley wrote:
I recall there was some commonly-given webpage link some years ago
for "Optimizing a PC for multitrack audio" that would tell you what
all to remove to get the best performance (most tracks) out of a
recording PC. Maybe that's still around and someone remembers it.

Http://www.blackviper.com

BV is an excellent resource to understand what is running in the
background.

Also get to know services.msc. That is where you can see and shutdown
services you don't want running.

PN

[Laurence Payne[_2_]]

On Tue, 26 Aug 2008 08:56:49 -0400, Monty Parts
wrote:

I recall there was some commonly-given webpage link some years ago
for "Optimizing a PC for multitrack audio" that would tell you what
all to remove to get the best performance (most tracks) out of a
recording PC. Maybe that's still around and someone remembers it.

Http://www.blackviper.com

BV is an excellent resource to understand what is running in the
background.

Also get to know services.msc. That is where you can see and shutdown
services you don't want running.

Yeah. But this isn't about tweaking to get the last ounce of
performance or to prevent the odd crackle in a recording. This is a
reasonably powerful computer that seems to be completely running out
of steam FAR too soon!

[iarwain]

Original poster here, thanks for all the comments. Sounds like
perhaps I should be getting better performance than I am getting.
I'll try to answer a few of the questions:

I'm not running any effects, just the audio clips (they are imported
from a Tascam 2488).

The audio clips are 44khz/24 bit

The hard drive is 7200 rpm.

There are some things in the Start menu I can turn off, I will look
into that. Thanks for the tip about MS Messenger, I hate that
thing.

I'm running XP.

I do have virus software on my computer. Are you saying I should
disable it when multitracking? Doesn't that leave my computer
vulnerable?

I was running the clips on FL Studio. I realize this is more for
sequencing than running multitrack audio. Would I get better results
with something more oriented toward recording?

The ASIO properties say buffer length=512 samples (12 ms). There are
latency compensation bars that can be adjusted - both in and out are
set at 32 samples. I'm not sure what this stuff means.

I don't think I would know how to set up a RAID.

[jwvm]

On Aug 26, 12:28*pm, iarwain wrote:
Original poster here, thanks for all the comments. *Sounds like
perhaps I should be getting better performance than I am getting.
I'll try to answer a few of the questions:

I'm not running any effects, just the audio clips (they are imported
from a Tascam 2488).

The audio clips are 44khz/24 bit

The hard drive is 7200 rpm.

There are some things in the Start menu I can turn off, I will look
into that. *Thanks for the tip about MS Messenger, I hate that
thing.

I'm running XP.

I do have virus software on my computer. *Are you saying I should
disable it when multitracking? *Doesn't that leave my computer
vulnerable?

Actually, the chances of getting a virus are pretty slim but there is
ugly stuff that can sneak in through the web. So if you turn your
virus scanner off when multitracking, be sure to turn it back on when
you are on the web. I use VirusScan and Spybot and they don't seem to
cause problems but I am not trying to mix 16 tracks. You can certainly
turn that sort of software off and see if it makes any difference.
This doesn't really sound like your problem.


I was running the clips on FL Studio. *I realize this is more for
sequencing than running multitrack audio. *Would I get better results
with something more oriented toward recording?

The ASIO properties say buffer length=512 samples (12 ms). *There are
latency compensation bars that can be adjusted - both in and out are
set at 32 samples. *I'm not sure what this stuff means.


Its the buffers in your DAW software that may be more important here.
You might want to read this link:

Buffer underruns & maximizing FL Studio performance
http://www.flstudio.com/htmlhelp/htm...y_underrun.htm

I don't think I would know how to set up a RAID.

You don't need a RAID. People were doing 16+ tracks plain old EIDE
hard drives years ago. You don't have something set up correctly.

[Mike Rivers]

I do have virus software on my computer. Are you saying I should
disable it when multitracking? Doesn't that leave my computer
vulnerable?

It's a very good idea to trun off virus scanning software when you're
running an audio program, at least that's what the experts say. It's
continuously looking for viruses and that keeps the computer and disk
drive kind of busy. Screen savers should also be turned off, and another
thing that's constantly looking for something to do is Auto-Play on
CD/DVD drives. Turn that off too. Also some network adapters keep up a
constant "keep alive" signal (disabling mine cleared up a clicking
problem with the Mackie Onyx firewire option card), and wireless
networking is always looking for a network to connect to.

As far as endangering your computer with the virus scanner turned off -
well, if you disable the network adapter then your computer won't get
cooties. The hard-nosed among us don't connect our audio computers to
the Internet except to get program updates or download project files
that someone sends to us.

I was running the clips on FL Studio. I realize this is more for
sequencing than running multitrack audio. Would I get better results
with something more oriented toward recording?

Try Audacity. It's free. Or Reaper, if you want to use ASIO drivers.
Audacity doesn't support them yet.

I don't think I would know how to set up a RAID.

You don't need it. The person who suggested it is clueless (at least
about that).

--
If you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring and reach
me he
double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo -- I'm really Mike Rivers
)

[Laurence Payne[_2_]]

On Tue, 26 Aug 2008 19:23:06 GMT, Mike Rivers
wrote:

It's a very good idea to trun off virus scanning software when you're
running an audio program, at least that's what the experts say. It's
continuously looking for viruses and that keeps the computer and disk
drive kind of busy.

You're making it sound like a virus program will constantly churn the
disk searching for viruses. It doesn't do this. Though if it's set
to do a daily full scan this WILL be disk-intensive. I've learnt to
schedule this for 8.00 a.m. (when I probably won't be tracking) rather
than 1.00a.m. (when I well might be :-)

Has anyone reminded him to set processor priority to Background
Services?

[Richard Crowley]

"Laurence Payne" wrote ...
Mike Rivers wrote:
It's a very good idea to trun off virus scanning software when you're
running an audio program, at least that's what the experts say. It's
continuously looking for viruses and that keeps the computer and disk
drive kind of busy.

You're making it sound like a virus program will constantly churn the
disk searching for viruses. It doesn't do this.

In theory. But there are other processes/applications which make
what amounts to random (or at least unpredictable) demands on
CPU and/or disk resources. A great many are potential show-
stoppers for serious real-time audio or video recording.

Standard MS Windows is a poor real-time platform at best (when
all the non-essential services are forcibly terminated.) And remember
that I am an erstwhile big fan-boy of MSwin.

[Laurence Payne[_2_]]

On Tue, 26 Aug 2008 14:34:18 -0700, "Richard Crowley"
wrote:

You're making it sound like a virus program will constantly churn the
disk searching for viruses. It doesn't do this.

In theory. But there are other processes/applications which make
what amounts to random (or at least unpredictable) demands on
CPU and/or disk resources. A great many are potential show-
stoppers for serious real-time audio or video recording.

Standard MS Windows is a poor real-time platform at best (when
all the non-essential services are forcibly terminated.) And remember
that I am an erstwhile big fan-boy of MSwin.

Sure. It's amazing that a Windows PC manages multitrack recording at
all. But it does, and today's powerful machines generally do it
without the need for all the "tweaks" we used to get a Pentium 200
with 64MB RAM to do it at all!

Look at it this way. You're playing 20 tracks, plus half-a-dozen
effects. The system could easily manage 20 more. It doesn't
generally fall over just because a background process asks the disk
for a few KB.

[Mike Rivers]

Laurence Payne wrote:

You're making it sound like a virus program will constantly churn the
disk searching for viruses. It doesn't do this. Though if it's set
to do a daily full scan this WILL be disk-intensive.

Maybe "virus scanner" or "virus program" isn't the right term. I know
that there are programs that are constantly on watch and check
everything that comes in as it comes in, so something must be running.
It may not be churning the disk, but it's spinning some wheels in the
CPU. I don't know enough about computer architecture to really know how
much effect it has, but it's easy to turn off. At least some of them are
- some may think so highly of themselves that you have to be too smart
in order to turn them off.


--
If you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring and reach
me he
double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo -- I'm really Mike Rivers
)

[jwvm]

On Aug 26, 6:31*pm, Mike Rivers wrote:
Laurence Payne wrote:
You're making it sound like a virus program will constantly churn the
disk searching for viruses. *It doesn't do this. *Though if it's set
to do a daily full scan this WILL be disk-intensive. *

Maybe "virus scanner" or "virus program" isn't the right term. I know
that there are programs that are constantly on watch and check
everything that comes in as it comes in, so something must be running.
It may not be churning the disk, but it's spinning some wheels in the
CPU. I don't know enough about computer architecture to really know how
much effect it has, but it's easy to turn off. At least some of them are
- some may think so highly of themselves that you have to be too smart
in order to turn them off.


This is why buffering is so important. When other processes need to
execute, the audio data stored in a buffer can still be playing and no
interruption is noticed. When the audio program is again running, it
refills the buffer before another process runs. Its an impressive
trick to keep everything running smoothly but even legacy machines ten
years ago managed it pretty well. With newer machines, things work
pretty well unless Vista is the OS. :-)

[Richard Crowley]

"Laurence Payne" wrote ...
Sure. It's amazing that a Windows PC manages multitrack recording at
all. But it does, and today's powerful machines generally do it
without the need for all the "tweaks" we used to get a Pentium 200
with 64MB RAM to do it at all!

The general philosophy around the office is that we make
more powerful uProcs every generation, and the Microsoft
boys suck it all up (and more) with every generation of
Windows. :-( "Intel giveth, and Microsoft taketh away."

Look at it this way. You're playing 20 tracks, plus half-a-dozen
effects. The system could easily manage 20 more. It doesn't
generally fall over just because a background process asks the disk
for a few KB.

Back in the days of 200MHz Pentiums with 64MB RAM,
it likely *was* only "a few KB". :-)

[jwvm]

On Aug 26, 12:28*pm, iarwain wrote:
Original poster here, thanks for all the comments. *Sounds like
perhaps I should be getting better performance than I am getting.
I'll try to answer a few of the questions:

I'm not running any effects, just the audio clips (they are imported
from a Tascam 2488).

The audio clips are 44khz/24 bit

The hard drive is 7200 rpm.

There are some things in the Start menu I can turn off, I will look
into that. *Thanks for the tip about MS Messenger, I hate that
thing.

I'm running XP.

I do have virus software on my computer. *Are you saying I should
disable it when multitracking? *Doesn't that leave my computer
vulnerable?

I was running the clips on FL Studio. *I realize this is more for
sequencing than running multitrack audio. *Would I get better results
with something more oriented toward recording?

The ASIO properties say buffer length=512 samples (12 ms). *There are
latency compensation bars that can be adjusted - both in and out are
set at 32 samples. *I'm not sure what this stuff means.

I don't think I would know how to set up a RAID.

One other thing that you should check. Right click on My Computer -
properties - hardware - device manager - primary IDE controller -
right click on properties - advanced settings and make sure that "DMA
if available" is selected. If not, select it and reboot. If the
current transfer mode is or remains PIO, that will be a serious
problem since disk I/O will be very slow. This would indicate that
there is a driver problem with the mother board.

[Richard Crowley]

"Mike Rivers" wrote...
Maybe "virus scanner" or "virus program" isn't the right term. I know that
there are programs that are constantly on watch and check everything that
comes in as it comes in, so something must be running.

Yes many (most?) virus scanners do "on-demand" scanning
IN ADDITION to the full hard drive scans. It is becoming
more intrusive to everything we do. Alas, here at the office,
there are several such things that we can't turn off, so we
suffer along with them. :-(

I hope that when we have quad-core processors (etc.), we will
be able to dedicate one of the CPUs to just malware-control
and leave us with *something* we can use for ourselves.

[Peter Larsen[_3_]]

iarwain wrote:

There must be some people here knowledgeable about this subject. How
much RAM do professionals who engage in intensive multitrack recording
have in their computer? I'm wondering about how many tracks can be
played at once and what limits this? Would increasing RAM increase
the amount of of tracks you could play at once? I have 1.5 GB of RAM
on a Pentium 4 3 GHz machine. What would increasing the RAM to 4 GB
do for me? Anything?

3 GB is sensible, you may not be able to actually use more because the mobo
facilities, disk controllers etc. and the graphics card memory is counted as
a part of the 4 GB's physical ram windows normally will allow you to see. No
harm is done upping to 4 GB's if the price is right, but you will not be
likely to actually use more than some 2.8 to 3.2 GB's of it. And with as
much ram as windows will see in the actual computer you could try to disable
pagefile entirely ... doing that disables some of the automatic background
management chores that windows likes to do and may leave your machine a bit
snappier.

Check whether you should feed it ram sticks in pairs ...

I tried to run about 16 tracks at once and it got a little way in
before it started to pop and click and then froze up completely. I
have a Soundblaster Live card using ASIO drivers.

Asio4all may remedy that.

Would upgrading to
an M-Audio 2496 increase the amount of tracks I could multitrack at
once?

You would get a clean sounding card with good driver software and it is not
all that costly, go for it.

How many tracks can you reasonably expect to run at once on a
computer?

Depends on how many realtime effects you want to apply. You leave audio
software and OS undefined ... different disk setups may be advantageous with
different software, but generally more than one physical disk is wise.

Kind regards

Peter Larsen

[Chris Hornbeck]

On Tue, 26 Aug 2008 09:28:19 -0700 (PDT), iarwain
wrote:

I do have virus software on my computer. Are you saying I should
disable it when multitracking? Doesn't that leave my computer
vulnerable?

Different people will have different results, but a data
point for what it's worth:

I've *never* used *any* virus software, and have never
had a single issue. This was true for my old computer
(built in 1996) with various Windows up through Win98SE
on dial-up, and on my new XPpro laptop on DSL.

The first thing I did when I got the laptop, in June,
was to completely remove the supplied Norton (IIRC).

Never say never, but IMO the fear of virii is greatly
exagerated for a conservative computer user.

Much thanks,
Chris Hornbeck

[jwvm]

On Aug 26, 8:07*pm, Chris Hornbeck
wrote:

Different people will have different results, but a data
point for what it's worth:

I've *never* used *any* virus software, and have never
had a single issue. This was true for my old computer
(built in 1996) with various Windows up through Win98SE
on dial-up, and on my new XPpro laptop on DSL.

Many people get into trouble clicking on nasty spam or dangerous
websites. And of course P2P software is perhaps the most common way to
infect a machine. Its very rare to download a file and find a virus in
it these days.


The first thing I did when I got the laptop, in June,
was to completely remove the supplied Norton (IIRC).

Norton is a virus! The free version that comes with new PCs is really
bad. Uninstalling Norton can be really difficult as is true of most
viruses.

Never say never, but IMO the fear of virii is greatly
exagerated for a conservative computer user.

Yup! But there are other hazards. Spybot may be a good alternative for
surfing protection.


Much thanks,
Chris Hornbeck

[Ben Bradley[_2_]]

On Tue, 26 Aug 2008 22:15:36 +0100, Laurence Payne
wrote:

On Tue, 26 Aug 2008 19:23:06 GMT, Mike Rivers
wrote:

It's a very good idea to trun off virus scanning software when you're
running an audio program, at least that's what the experts say. It's
continuously looking for viruses and that keeps the computer and disk
drive kind of busy.

You're making it sound like a virus program will constantly churn the
disk searching for viruses.

Some virus scanners DO run in the background and scan everyhing
that comes in on the Internet, or that gets read from or written to
disk (as a made-up but plausible example, an unrecognized virus may
decompress its encrypted payload and write that to disk as an .exe
file, or as a .wav file that later gets executed). And yes, doing that
takes substantial CPU bandwidth.

Also, some programs are badly written programs they will eat up
lots of resources just "idling" in the background. I saw Gnutella (P2P
program) do that so badly I could barely shut down the machine.

It doesn't do this. Though if it's set
to do a daily full scan this WILL be disk-intensive. I've learnt to
schedule this for 8.00 a.m. (when I probably won't be tracking) rather
than 1.00a.m. (when I well might be :-)

Has anyone reminded him to set processor priority to Background
Services?

[Don Pearce]

Chris Hornbeck wrote:
On Tue, 26 Aug 2008 09:28:19 -0700 (PDT), iarwain
wrote:

I do have virus software on my computer. Are you saying I should
disable it when multitracking? Doesn't that leave my computer
vulnerable?

Different people will have different results, but a data
point for what it's worth:

I've *never* used *any* virus software, and have never
had a single issue. This was true for my old computer
(built in 1996) with various Windows up through Win98SE
on dial-up, and on my new XPpro laptop on DSL.

The first thing I did when I got the laptop, in June,
was to completely remove the supplied Norton (IIRC).

Never say never, but IMO the fear of virii is greatly
exagerated for a conservative computer user.

Much thanks,
Chris Hornbeck

You may think you aren't but of course you are - you are just using it
in everybody else's machine that yours comes into contact with. It is
like the theory of not getting your kids immunized; while everybody else
in your neighbourhood has theirs done, yours are safe. But if sufficient
people follow your example the diseases show up in abundance.

By all means keep your working machine free of such programmes, but have
a buffer machine with a good virus checker as a quarantine point.

d

[Laurence Payne[_2_]]

On Tue, 26 Aug 2008 16:12:20 -0700, "Richard Crowley"
wrote:

Maybe "virus scanner" or "virus program" isn't the right term. I know that
there are programs that are constantly on watch and check everything that
comes in as it comes in, so something must be running.

Yes many (most?) virus scanners do "on-demand" scanning
IN ADDITION to the full hard drive scans. It is becoming
more intrusive to everything we do. Alas, here at the office,
there are several such things that we can't turn off, so we
suffer along with them. :-(

But what would be the "demand" while running a DAW? We've pulled the
plug on the Internet - what new file requires checking?

[Laurence Payne[_2_]]

On Wed, 27 Aug 2008 07:10:43 +0100, Don Pearce
wrote:

You may think you aren't but of course you are - you are just using it
in everybody else's machine that yours comes into contact with. It is
like the theory of not getting your kids immunized; while everybody else
in your neighbourhood has theirs done, yours are safe. But if sufficient
people follow your example the diseases show up in abundance.

My latest (female) cat is now entering her second year. Normally we
wait until she gets knocked up then combine spaying with an abortion.
But I guess there just aren't any entire toms round here.

[Scott Dorsey]

Laurence Payne wrote:
On Tue, 26 Aug 2008 16:12:20 -0700, "Richard Crowley"
wrote:

Maybe "virus scanner" or "virus program" isn't the right term. I know that
there are programs that are constantly on watch and check everything that
comes in as it comes in, so something must be running.

Yes many (most?) virus scanners do "on-demand" scanning
IN ADDITION to the full hard drive scans. It is becoming
more intrusive to everything we do. Alas, here at the office,
there are several such things that we can't turn off, so we
suffer along with them. :-(

But what would be the "demand" while running a DAW? We've pulled the
plug on the Internet - what new file requires checking?

The new CD that you just dropped in, of files you imported from the
other DAW....
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[jwvm]

On Aug 27, 9:37*am, (Scott Dorsey) wrote:
Laurence Payne wrote:

On Tue, 26 Aug 2008 16:12:20 -0700, "Richard Crowley"
wrote:

Maybe "virus scanner" or "virus program" isn't the right term. I know that
there are programs that are constantly on watch and check everything that
comes in as it comes in, so something must be running.

Yes many (most?) virus scanners do "on-demand" scanning
IN ADDITION to the full hard drive scans. It is becoming
more intrusive to everything we do. Alas, here at the office,
there are several such things that we can't turn off, so we
suffer along with them. *:-(

But what would be the "demand" while running a DAW? *We've pulled the
plug on the Internet - what new file requires checking?

The new CD that you just dropped in, of files you imported from the
other DAW....
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. *C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

You mean like that nice rootkit from Sony that is installed
automgically when the CD is played in your machine?

[Laurence Payne[_2_]]

On 27 Aug 2008 09:37:45 -0400, (Scott Dorsey) wrote:

Yes many (most?) virus scanners do "on-demand" scanning
IN ADDITION to the full hard drive scans. It is becoming
more intrusive to everything we do. Alas, here at the office,
there are several such things that we can't turn off, so we
suffer along with them. :-(

But what would be the "demand" while running a DAW? We've pulled the
plug on the Internet - what new file requires checking?

The new CD that you just dropped in, of files you imported from the
other DAW....

Fair enough. But that's completely predictable and under your
control. Any more ideas - ones that would be a problem.

[Richard Crowley]

"Laurence Payne" wrote ...
(Scott Dorsey) wrote:
The new CD that you just dropped in, of files you imported
from the other DAW....

Fair enough. But that's completely predictable and under your
control. Any more ideas - ones that would be a problem.

Not all that predictable IME.

Most of the anti-virus products I've used scan EVERY executable
EVERY time you open it. That means that when you click on a
little-used feature button and the application goes out and opens
the DLL file that supports it, the anti-virus scans the DLL file
before it lets you use it. etc. etc. There is a LOT of overhead.

There is a lot more of that sort of thing going under the hood in
Windows than most people think. Just watch the Task Manager
process list or performance graphs for a few minutes.

Not to mention all the junk and cruft that collects as time goes
by. I'm appalled at the number of little process running, and the
tool tray full of little icons of stuff I don't want or need, but can't
get rid of.

[jwvm]

On Aug 27, 11:09*am, "Richard Crowley" wrote:
"Laurence Payne" *wrote ...

(Scott Dorsey) wrote:
The new CD that you just dropped in, of files you imported
from the other DAW....

Fair enough. *But that's completely predictable and under your
control. *Any more ideas - ones that would be a problem.

Not all that predictable IME.

Most of the anti-virus products I've used scan EVERY executable
EVERY time you open it. That means that when you click on a
little-used feature button and the application goes out and opens
the DLL file that supports it, the anti-virus scans the DLL file
before it lets you use it. *etc. etc. *There is a LOT of overhead.

There is a lot more of that sort of thing going under the hood in
Windows than most people think. Just watch the Task Manager
process list or performance graphs for a few minutes.

Typically, the antivirus stuff doesn't seem to consume all that many
CPU cycles but they do require memory.


Not to mention all the junk and cruft that collects as time goes
by. I'm appalled at the number of little process running, and the
tool tray full of little icons of stuff I don't want or need, but can't
get rid of.

Fortunately, most little processes don't use all that many CPU cycles
although memory usage can be a problem if RAM is limited. Idle process
tends to be at the top of CPU usage unless one is doing CPU-intensive
tasks like real-time effects or video encoding. Really devastating
performance hits occur when heavy page faulting occurs. If this is a
problem, more ram or fewer big processes are the only effective
solutions. Drive Gleam and similar monitoring utilities are quite
useful in alerting the user to these kinds of bottle necks since they
show CPU usage and avaialble RAM.

Things seem to have run a bit astray from the OP's problem since he
most likely has something very poorly set up to get such horrible
performance. Turning off virus scanners and similar fixes may be
something that he should do but they may not solve his performance
problem. Of course, getting rid of stuff that does nothing for the
user is always a great idea. It just keeps sneaking in. :-(

[Richard Crowley]

"jwvm" wrote ...
Typically, the antivirus stuff doesn't seem to consume all that many
CPU cycles but they do require memory.

I dumped McAfee completely because the "cure" was worse
than the disease. No virus scanner has EVER reported a real
"infection" on my computers. OTOH, it was getting to the point
where once or twice per day, the virus scanner would completely
lock up my machine and make it unusable for minutes at a time.
No keyboard or even mouse response. Might as well get up and
get some refreshment while you wait on your computer. :-(

[Les Cargill]

Laurence Payne wrote:
On Tue, 26 Aug 2008 16:12:20 -0700, "Richard Crowley"
wrote:

Maybe "virus scanner" or "virus program" isn't the right term. I know that
there are programs that are constantly on watch and check everything that
comes in as it comes in, so something must be running.
Yes many (most?) virus scanners do "on-demand" scanning
IN ADDITION to the full hard drive scans. It is becoming
more intrusive to everything we do. Alas, here at the office,
there are several such things that we can't turn off, so we
suffer along with them. :-(

But what would be the "demand" while running a DAW? We've pulled the
plug on the Internet - what new file requires checking?

I got rootkit-ed by a Sony CD once.... fortunately,
the band's website had detailed instructions for disinfecting, but
I have not bought one Sony thing since then, and most likely
never will again.

--
Les Cargill

[Ron Capik]

Richard Crowley wrote:

"jwvm" wrote ...
Typically, the antivirus stuff doesn't seem to consume all that many
CPU cycles but they do require memory.

I dumped McAfee completely because the "cure" was worse
than the disease. No virus scanner has EVER reported a real
"infection" on my computers. OTOH, it was getting to the point
where once or twice per day, the virus scanner would completely
lock up my machine and make it unusable for minutes at a time.
No keyboard or even mouse response. Might as well get up and
get some refreshment while you wait on your computer. :-(

Ah yes, much like we did in the old days with 5 MHz machines
and such. Hell, there were times you could go out for dinner
and be back before the process was done.


Later...

Ron Capik cynic-in-training
--