which computer,,how much ram?and so forth and what not

hard drive article and question

Bones, that SCSI vs IDE harddrive article you posted a link to is great.


I've been using n-track. n-track displays your cpu usage while recording and playing. When I'm at about 18 tracks of 24 bit 48hz wav, the cpu is still at only about 14%. I do start having performance and skipping problems at about that point. I'm using 256MB ram with a p3 500, and, as it seems my cpu isn't being stressed much, my theory is that RAM must be the limiting agent. Of course, this could be an illusion. It could also be that n-track doesn't handle RAM very efficiantly. I'm on the verge of springing for another 128MBs. Anybody have any ideas.
 
Hey Bones. Is someone actually making gear now that does 32-bit audio; or was that a typo?
Seems to me like 24 bit is more than adequate, and I haven't heard of anyone using 32 bit stuff.
 
Heya guys,

Nah it was a typo but when I tried to edit the post the sever chose that point to crash.......

There are a few others too......umm typos.

Bdemenil; it sounds like your HHD is the bottle neck not your RAM. I'm getting 20 tracks with lots o FX in VST24 with a very simillar box (P3 666 (500@ 133mhz)) with 128 mhz RAM.

Have you got a seperate Audio drive, and have you partitioned it so the arrangement you're working on is on the 1st or outside partition? This will up your sustained transfer rate no end.

Does n-Track allow you to set the cluster size of your Audio is written to HD?
the bigger the size the faster tranfer rates will be, easier for the heads in the HHD to read apparently. 64k clusters works for me.

You could also try using the UDMA66 conectors for your IDE connection, it has 80 wires instead of 40, the extra 40 are grounds that can lower errors that can force your CPU to ask for data twice.

Umm what else.... did you find the program called DiskBench? This one has helped me to actully see if all the tweaks and tunes are actually helping the whole thing. It's in that HDD article I posted.

Cheers man :)
 
HD bottleneck

Bones,

You're right about the Hard Drive bottleneck. After defragmenting my harddrive, all the skipping I was experiencing went away. I'm using a seperate drive for all my audio files - a 10K rpm seagate SCSI. One concern I have is that windows uses my slower IDE drive for virtual memory.
Right now, my SCSI drive has a single partition (its only 4gig). I'm wondering if I should partition it just to divide a faster front partition from a slower back one. Also, as you suggested, I plan change the sector size. That article you posted a link to mentioned there's a way to do this without re-formatting your drive.

still, I'd think if I had more RAM, more of my audio data could be stored in RAM, reducing the demand on my HD.

By the way, I'm searching for a large (>=40gig), fast IDE drive to use for storage. Any suggestions?
 
can i change the subject just for a second?i am still the amatuer,and must ask these basic questions,though i find the subject matter forces me to really research the entire matter completely.something was mentioned about the learning curve,is there any programs,sound card,multi-track packages,etc that would be good for a hands on learning experience without seriously causing irreperable damage to work in progress,the computer,and such?i have a few friends that really praise vegas/sonic foundry,what do you guys think?also,my brother and i had decided that he will build most of the computer in order to have a customized ssetup,thus having unlimited p[ossibilities.we did decide on mac,although that ,right there is so*@#*&#* expensive,but the most pending issue is the ability to upgrade later on once i start gaining the necessary experience,and truly knowing what is appropriate,i know it is a necessity.plus(let me just come out from left field here)i do eventually want to be able to work in soundtracks for video/film,and all medias,i know this is about ten years down the line,and so much to learn,but is there just one basic no frills setup that is interchangable with all studios,sound and film alike?and what is the most basic at entry level?'cause i always want to do my own music,and work other people's projects,creative-like,and still use the same system for the visual jobs.i took video editing in the late 90's at sf art institute.although what i learned is obsolete,i have a rather small clue about the concept of audio with video.sorry to just run the gammut with subject matter,i can really babble,all or one response ,whatever.-thanx
 
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