OK, how many tracks are you getting...REALLY?

G

gener1c

New member
All,

Recently I ungraded to Logic Audio 4.5 and I have found a way to squeeze out 11 tracks with a lot of plugins...like 2 or three on each track. How many tracks are the yall averaging? Ive heard some ppl on here claiming as high as 48. Im talking about true beefy tracks...not triangle hits and crap.

I have the following:

PIII 550
128MB Ram
20GB 7200RPM (Audio files only)
4.3GB 5400RPM Base drive (has win98SE and Logic and stuff)
Echo Layla with driver version 5.05

Give me some real world scenarios. Thanks!

-gen
 
Hehehehehe!!!

I get 24 tracks whenever I want (up to 48 if I need it and borrow a few more decks) and can have as much processing as I want.....:)

Thanks Digital Audio Tape!!!

Ed
 
My system: PII 400 (I claimed it was a 450 before... I was mistaken), 96M memory, single 7200RPM HD.

I've never tried to find out how many tracks I can run "dry" (no plug-ins). I'm guessing I could run 24 to 32 tracks of solid audio (not small bits). Some disk benchmark programs suggest I can support 60+ tracks... maybe so, I've never tried it (though, that seems a bit optimisitic). I've recorded 8 tracks at once on muliple occasions without the HD or CPU even breaking a sweat.

It's very difficult to guage plug-ins, though. Certain types of effects require more processing than others, some plug-ins are programmed more efficiently than others, and some plug-ins simply need a lot of processing to deliver high quality results. There are just too many variables involved.

I've had several projects running 12 to 16 tracks with a "decent amount" of real-time processing going on. Reverbs are notoriously CPU hungry and are best left to Aux busses where one plug-in can be shared by mulitple tracks.
 
Yep, it's all about plugins.

A current project of mine consists of 14 stereo files and 9 mono files (44/16) divied into 19 tracks. I'm also running 2 DX compressors. My CPU time runs about 25-35% throughout the mix. This is pretty typical for me anymore. I don't ever worry about choking the machine either...I just don't notice it ever since I started recording on NT.

Plugins however will start to choke things though. I'm looking at another one of my mixes. 16 tracks, 16 files, 3 stereo 13 mono. I'm running 4 compressors and 5 reverbs and 7 small EQs. My CPU usage while playing this mix runs from 55-65%. I'm of course also running a couple web browsers, IM, and the POD softare while I'm recording typically.

My system is (currently) not dedicated for recording and consists of:

Celeron 400Mhz overcloced to 500Mhz (Abit BE6)
164MB generic
15GB 7200RPM 2MB cache Maxtor hard drive
Ensoniq AudioPCI
1 TNT2 32MB Video Card
1 2MB S3 Trio64 Video Card (dual monitors)
Netgear PCI 10/100 Ethernet
Generic CDROM
Windows 2000
n-Track
Drums! 2.0
BlueLine and Fasoft Plugins

You know, one thing I've found is that it's WAY too easy to use effects when doing software mixing. I'm starting to think of it as really rather unhealthy. That second example I mentioned above was from about 4-5 months ago, the first is recent. Prior to both I was using about 2-3 effects per track...EQ, reverb, and compression. Then one day I realized that everything seemed very fake. Now I think my stuff sounds "good" without software effects and "better" after I apply a bit of compression here and a bit of reverb there. The point is to get a good sound on tape before you start playing with the effects. But that's all subjective. Basically, if you don't run a LOT of effects, you should be able to squeeze out a LOT of 16 bit audio tracks with a 7200RPM hard drive in a modern machine.

Slackmaster 2000
 
Slack reminded me of a couple of points I forgot to mention. First, my examples were for 16-bit/44.1. 24 bit audio means 50% more information per sample, so you should expect an appropriate overhead hit for processing and you'll need 50% more storage space to hold 'em. 96kHz is more than double the amount of samples per second vs. 44.1, so same thing there only worse.

Second, stereo tracks should be counted as 2 "tracks". There are two channels of information stored in 'em, and it's effectively the same thing as 2 mono tracks from a storage and processing standpoint (though, there are important functional differences between the two).

32 mono tracks at 16/44.1 might equate to roughly 6 stereo tracks at 24/96!
 
Real benchmark

36 real tracks. PII 450/128MB RAM/7200 RPM HD.
I did this by copying an audio file (several minutes in length) 37 times while giving each .wav file (16 bit/44.1KHz) a different name and loaded them up one at a time in Vegas Pro. No problems up to 36.
It choked repeatedly on track 37.
Had to do a -25db cut on each one to prevent the whole mess from clipping.
 
Doc made me curious

Nothing like a real-world test. I used Doc's method on a file just under 3 minutes.

OS: Win98 (not SE)
Software: CPA 9
HD: 12G WD caviar, 7200RPM (with just over 1G free ;))

48 tracks playing right now (even with the chatty modem going). CPU usage reports roughly 22%, disk usage spikes at about 68% at the start of play, and eases back to about 55-58% during playback. I'm pretty sure I could get close to 60 dry tracks after all. Due to the on-going drive space shortage, I'm not gonna bother finding out. Imagine what a dedicated drive could do. (P.S., it played all the way through without a dropout).

[pps... time for a defrag tonight, methinks]
 
I've never tested to see how many tracks I can get, but average setup:

7 drum tracks
2 acoustic
2 electric
3 vocals
1 bass
2 lead guitar tracks
2 Keyboard tracks

19 tracks average - not all playing continuously. I can get up to 30 as long as they don't all have a FX on.

FX

4 to 8 Waves 6 band eq
2 - Trueverb
1 - Timeworks Reverb (this one is a buggy verb)
1 - VST Delay
2 to 4 - Waves C1 compressor
4 - VST Gates
1 - VST Chorus

This pretty much tops out on my machine, any more and I find the interface gets kinda bogged down.

Cubase VST V3.7r2
PIII 650MHz on a Microstar 6163
8GB Maxtor for the OS
- Windows 98 Lite - First Edition
20GB 7200 Quantum KX for Audio Data
128MB RAM
V770 TNT-2 32MB
 
hmmnnn..i find it interesting that your running windows 98 lite emeric , any specific reason you arent using nt4 or windows 2000?

- eddie -
 
I'm using 98 lite because it works well for me. I can honestly say I never crash. If the machine aint broke....

My sound card doesn't have NT drivers, so I never experimented with it, I probably would though if this were the case.
 
I tried copying the same six tracks until I had around 70, but I'm not sure that gives an accurate example because they are the same six tracks and I think the program has a way of using duplicate tracks easier than if they each had different data.
 
Keeping the test honest

Monty- ya gotta give them all unique .wav file names to defeat the program's sensible approach to duplicate tracks.
 
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