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GothicV
Location: Canada
Posts: 28
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 Posted - Sat Jun 28, 2003 12:30 pm
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Hey all; Ill start with my gear.
Digi001
Protools
Cool Edit 2.0
tc electronics G-Major
behringer Virtualizer Pro
behringer MX802a mixer
Yorkville CR-5 poweramp
Yorkville y110 speakers w/horn
set of behringer truth monitors
Some mics and stuff (sm57, e835, a few others layin around...)
p4 2.4g
512mb ram
2 40gb hardrives at 5400rpm
I am experiencing some dropouts in the recording. Protools just stops with an error, cool edit stutters and the audio stops being in time. I think it's the 5400rpm harddrives not being able to read/write fast enough for 8 tracks of audio being recorded simultaneously, but maybe it's the ram (stupid sdram) that should be doubled up to 1024.
Opinions?
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SteveG
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 6695
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Posted - Sat Jun 28, 2003 1:25 pm
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| GothicV wrote: |
| I think it's the 5400rpm harddrives not being able to read/write fast enough for 8 tracks of audio being recorded simultaneously, but maybe it's the ram (stupid sdram) that should be doubled up to 1024. |
You think it's the drives? 8 tracks at once on 5400rpm drives sounds like a suicide mission to me... and what OS are you using? Win98 can't use more than 1/2Gbyte of RAM at all. I don't think it's the RAM - people were doing this with less RAM than you've got ages ago. But they were using SCSI drives with fast access times. I'd go for some nice fast IDE drives now - at least 7200rpm, or quicker if you can get them. Then you might be able to record 8 tracks without hassle!
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GothicV
Location: Canada
Posts: 28
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Posted - Sat Jun 28, 2003 2:41 pm
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I use winxp pro for the record. Thanks for your input!
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330ms
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 22
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Posted - Sat Jun 28, 2003 5:05 pm
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I have an Athlon 1.6Ghz with 512Mb SDRAM and WinXP with 2x7200RPM drives 40Gb/80Gb(NTFS), and I have no problems recording 8 simultaneous tracks at 44.1Khz/32bit via my STA C-PORT.
I assume that you have discounted any IRQ-sharing and disk space/fragmentation-type issues?
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If at first you don't succeed - re-define success. |
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ozpeter
Location: Australia
Posts: 3200
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Posted - Sat Jun 28, 2003 5:37 pm
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Is DMA enabled on the drives (if the setting is available) as it should be?
I'd concentrate on getting Cool Edit running smoothly before you try to get PT to work - on my system I can replay 24 CE tracks while recording 8 others with no problem, but PT reports that my system is too slow for it to record one track! Useless.
- Ozpeter
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GothicV
Location: Canada
Posts: 28
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Posted - Sat Jun 28, 2003 6:52 pm
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yeah I don't like protools terribly, but I bought the digi001 yesterady with the assumption that it would work with cool edit. Now it seems I have to use pro tools to record 8 channels, because the limit is 2 with cool edit due to the lack of asio drivers.
unless somebody has found a way to record 8 tracks from the digi001 in cooledit?? And the stupid store won't let me return it, even though I was misled to believe it would work in cool edit!!! Maybe I should talk to the manager of the music store...
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GothicV
Location: Canada
Posts: 28
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Posted - Sat Jun 28, 2003 6:55 pm
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oh yes i have checkout the dma - it is enabled, and the disk is freshly fragmented. There are no irq conflicts.
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ozpeter
Location: Australia
Posts: 3200
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Posted - Sat Jun 28, 2003 8:34 pm
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If someone at the store actually said it would work with Cool Edit, you've got reason to pursue it with the manager, I would have thought - though you say in the previous paragraph that you bought it on the assumption it would work - whose, assumption, yours or theirs? And I'd have been suspicious if the music store salesperson said "I assume it will work with CE" - I'd have followed that with "So can I bring it back if your assumption is wrong?"!
Somebody's remarked here before (Graeme I think) that it's a good scheme to search this forum for references before buying anything....
Anyway, you don't want anymore salt in that wound. Re solving your actual problem, have you got any other soundcard in your system, and if so, what happens if you use that with the Digi001 not installed? That would help to prove whether the drives are suspect or not. Even if you have only got a stereo soundcard, there's no reason why you can't record eight identical tracks with it simultaneously by way of a test.
- Ozpeter
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GothicV
Location: Canada
Posts: 28
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Posted - Sun Jun 29, 2003 11:18 am
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thanks for all your input everyone. I tried recording 8 tracks using my integrated soundcard and my soundblaster live and both crapped out at around 8 minutes. I suspect it's the drives, and will spend my cash on a new harddrive later today. Regarding the asuming, he said "it will work great in whatever software you use" I mentioned cool edit multiple times, and he seemed confident that it would work. Annoyingly, I had actually went there to pick up a MOTU 24i, they were selling it for $700 w/pci card since motu released the 24i/o. They sold it a few hours before I got there apparently. What a piss off lol
also I would like to celebrate cool edits "group normalize" function. I set up about 60 tracks to be normalized for my dj-ing (I don't like doing it, since I am a guitarist and singer, but I have a PA system so why not??? the $$$$$ is great) and went to bed I was really surprised at how well that function worked when I woke up this morning.  The quality is wicked, and that means less work for me. Now all I gotta do is organize it into 74-minute waveforms, burn it to cd, and whala, for a 4 hour gig, I only need to do beat-matching and crossfading 4 times!!! Saves me massive work.
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clintfan
Location: USA
Posts: 455
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Posted - Sun Jun 29, 2003 7:32 pm
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| Quote: |
| I tried recording 8 tracks using my integrated soundcard and my soundblaster live and both crapped out at around 8 minutes. -GothicV |
Oh no, not the 8-minute thing again! And with XP, no less! See 'suht down when recording 8min. limit' There is no solution in this link, but some kind of 8-minute failure thing has been around for years. I always chime in any time I hear about it, not that it's much help.
I'm with SteveG on the drives, they seem underclassed compared to your CPU and RAM. Might want to make sure the drives are able to run at rated speed, say, ATA/100, if your MOBO supports it. This usually requires a special shielded 80-conductor cable, the same upgraded cable that is used with ATA/66. 18 inches max. length.
But really, there are like about a hundred things that can cause dropouts, including bad drivers. Be sure to take a stroll through the 'OPTIMIZATIONS...Cool Edit 2K, Pro' thread in the Tips & Tricks forum.
Hope this helps,
-clintfan
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What is causing my lag/dropouts?