Reaper stuttering

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Drewdt3

New member
Hi all I've just got a trial copy of reaper. I like the look of this programme but whilst putting a couple of test guitar tracks on it that are about 18 seconds long it starts to stutter after a couple of play backs. With just one effect on one track the cpu usage is saying .34% so hardly anything.
Has anyone come across this problem before? I am running it on a fairly new vaio laptop with plenty of memory.

Cheers

Drew
 
Hi,
It seems unlikely, but is your HW buffer size small?
I can't remember the exact term, but reaper calls it something else. Block size, maybe?
Either way, it's a binary number in your reaper audio device settings. If it's 32/64 turn it up to 512/1024 to see what happens.

Are you running the session from the built in HDD, and is it a standard 5400RPM drive?
If so, move the session to a usb/firewire external drive.

Neither of these things should give you grief with a small session, but they're worth checking.
Also, are you audio device drivers up to date?
 
What audio device are you using? Just the built-in sound card on the laptop, or do you have a dedicated audio card/interface?

If you have a dedicated card, go into the Reaper options and find the Audio->Device section. Make sure that the Audio System that you have selected is the appropriate ASIO drivers for your audio interface/card. These drivers are MUCH easier on your system, and will provide much less latency/lag and CPU drain.

If you don't have a dedicated card/interface, I'd recommend googling and downloading the ASIO4ALL drivers, and select that as your Audio System in the Reaper Audio Device settings. These are pretty good as well, and will help your integrated sound card cope with recording and playing back audio from DAW software like Reaper.
 
I think the suggestions thus far are all good ones. Check your audio cards drivers and make sure you are using asio vs. Wdm!

From my experience laptops running windows don't make very good recording devices. At least not with out tweaks and hardware upgrades. You have some good starting points here. Good Luck.
 
Thanks for all the replies. I'm using a tascam us122 which I've tested on my old Vail with half the spec running sonar 5 and about 30 tracks with no problems at all. I'm just flushing everything that I can off this at the moment to see if I can isolate the problem. I've also tried it with sonar x2 trial but it's just the same. It starts stuttering after a couple of playback it only about a 20sec long track as well?
Back to the drawing board.
 
Drewdt3 said:
Thanks for all the replies. I'm using a tascam us122 which I've tested on my old Vail with half the spec running sonar 5 and about 30 tracks with no problems at all. I'm just flushing everything that I can off this at the moment to see if I can isolate the problem. I've also tried it with sonar x2 trial but it's just the same. It starts stuttering after a couple of playback it only about a 20sec long track as well?
Back to the drawing board.
Click to expand...

Take a look at buffer setting on your hardware, RAM size, virus scanners, etc. Also, pay close attention to your hard drive specs, RPMs and buffer on that plays a huge role in playback of audio files. You may need to tweak Windows to shut down services, but it sounds like either your hardware buffer or your hard drive performance.

This is why I wish these DAW manufacturers would make a Linux version. You can tweak that OS to a nat's a$$ rather easily (that is relative). Get all the power to your DAW and gain easy 40%+ performance gains on the application. Maybe soon, I have read a few are working towards that goal.
 
I think your problem will go away if you stop trying to record cover versions of songs like "Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes", "B-b-b-b-baby You Ain't seen Nothing Yet", and "M-m-m-my Sharona". :eek:
 
Hi all, this seems to be sorted now. I have totally restarted my laptop, but it still seemed to do it a bit, then I turned the WiFi off and all seems well. 3 midi tracks and 3 audio tracks with loads of effects added and it doesn't miss a, beat. I get the blue screen of death sometimes but I'm convinced that is the interface. Just need to learn how to use what seems like a cracking DAW now.

Thanks for all the help

Drew
 
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