Shouldn't this Basic setup work??

[Snowdog]

I'm dipping my toes into the digital realm. I'm using Cakewalk Guitar tracks 2 in my PC. I'm running with 192mb of ram. I composed about a 4 minute track using Drop and Drag drummer and used my Pod to record a guitar track on channel two. Upon playback the 2nd track starts lagging behind at around the 3 min. mark and gets progressively worse as the recording moves along. Twice I've gotten "Time out" and "Drop out" messages. This is with only 2 tracks! I would think 192mb ram would be enough to run the Starship Enterprise let alone Cakewalks most inexpensive multitrack program. Any suggestions?

[AlChuck]

What kind of CPU? What sort of hard drive and controller?

[Snowdog]

HP 6640C CPU w/AMD K6-2/500mhz processor
I have 12.4GB available in the hard drive

[Snowdog]

Forgot to mention I am using a SB sound card but it should be capable of simultanious playback and recording.

[kennedy connor]

check wav position out for timing.... options/audio/device profiles...this helps with midi...take trouble shooting audio help section and methodically try everything they suggest....I've had success following their directions...good luck...

[bball jones]

My specs seem quite meager in comparison to what your running Sdog, but I am getting better results. My midi may occasionally drop out of time on me but recorded audio parts usually are OK. If I recorded them OK.

You may want to consider re-recording the dragging part and then make comparisons between both versions.

[AlChuck]

When I asked about the hard drive, I meant, is it 5400 rpm? 7200 rpm? UDMA-66, or UDMA-33, or just old fashioned EIDE?

The drive and drive controller type can make a tremendous difference.

For some info about tuning a PC to be a DAW, here's a link:

http://www.audioforums.com/win95_setup.html

-AlChuck

[Snowdog]

Sorry,,5400rpm.. plain old fashioned EIDE

[AlChuck]

Well, that might have something to do with it. When I had such a setup in a P-200 MMX last year I only got maybe 4 tracks if I was lucky. Read this article at Cakewalk's website:

http://www.cakewalk.com/support/faq.htm#38

The crux of the article is "your audio hard disk must have an 'uncached' or 'sustained' transfer rate of 3.1 MB per second or higher." They have a pointer to a tool called WintTune that lets you test this parameter.

Good luck!

-AlChuck

[Snowdog]

I ran the test and the results were an uncached performance rate of 3.47 mb per sec. Shouldn't that be fast enough to run 8 tracks?

[AlChuck]

Well, good... then you have a chance of getting it to work. Did you go through all the points in that optimizing audio article?

-AlChuck

[Snowdog]

Thanks Alchuck and Kennedy!! I also ran Echo Reporter and it said my system should be able to playback 32 channels so I started changing some settings and it appears to be working much better now. My Pod sounds awesome and no more tape hiss!! My Tascam is now a submixer(for the time being).
Now on to my next question. I don't want to eat up all my hard drive space with audio files and it was suggested to me to put evrything on 250mb zip disks via my USB port. Is this a good idea? Or is there a better way about it? Please excuse my lack of knowledge on this subject. I'm sure these questions are very elementary in nature to some of you.

[AlChuck]

If you have a zip drive, by all means archive your audio tracks to zip disks. I have a CD-RW drive and I use CD-Rs for the same thing. Plus I get to make audio CDs of my stuff too (if I ever finish anything!).

-AlChuck

[kennedy connor]

I see both you guys have the pod....any ideas on reducing the noise from it? Also have you had any luck with the sound diver...I couldn't get it to work at all...I'm Baffled.
thanks

[Snowdog]

Mine is VERY quiet provided I keep my distance from my monitor. That seems to be very important. Also patches with Chorus seem to want to be noisier than others.
AlChuck, with the zip disks can I download the entire project in seperate track format so it can be reinstalled at a later date when I feel I can improve it? I have a CD burner in my CPU. Can I use it for the same purpose?

[AlChuck]

SnowDog,

Hmmm, with Cakewalk you should really save it as a BUN file so all the audio is tied together with the project file. I guess with big enough files it might not fit on a 250-MB disk... I wonder if you can export the individial tracks as WAVs and reassemble the file again from the pieces later?

I guess this might also be an issue with CD-R since you still have a ceiling, though 400 MB more than the ZIP disks you mentioned...

kennedy connor,

My POD doesn't seem any noiser than a miked guitar amp would... and yes, I have managed to get the SoundDiver to work, though it's cryptic as hell and I haven't bothered to really learn how to use it... did you download the PDF manual from the emagic website?

-AlChuck

[kennedy connor]

pOD....WELL it just went psycho at a gig and I promptly unplugged for the rest of the evening....probably user error....the hum issues may be a "homestudio" grounding problem... too many wall warts?
Cake Storage...Alchuck is right on about CDR/CDRW is definitely...it....i saved a 20+ audio track /7 mins. song on one cdr.....but you can't put much else on it... If you are goung to put wavs on seperate disks check the CWAF tool to make sure you get ALL of them...

[Capt. Snazzy]

my pod is great, the only thing i ever had a problem with was a clipping type noise, but i figured it out.
i don't know about you guys, but even with all the options on the pod for effects i like to record with no fx then add them from the higher quality dx fx. with the channel volume high enough, you can actually get digital clipping from the
pod's reverb or fx section because they are digital fx, not analog. the only way i've found to fully disable the reverb is in the soundiver software (when you turn the knob full counter-clockwise, it's still on and in the signal path). so there is at least one advantage to getting the software to work. but also, as was mentioned previously, monitors cause a great deal of electromagnetic interference all the way to about 12 feet in front of it. i just set up the recording track then turn the monitor off, this results in sweet recordings with great dynamic range and a very low noise floor. well, there's my two cents...
Aaron

[kennedy connor]

Part of my pod noise seems to happen because the monitor(audio) isn't loud enough and i end up cranking the pod. Lately I've been monitoring the pod from the computer output this greatly reduces necessity for hi volumne.

I like the directx plugins but really hit the wall quickly when I use them....especially Waves which of course sound the best....I am runnung P3 750,256 ram 7200 hd. Is there something I'm doing wrong? the other day I had fifyt+ tracks with no efx....?

[darnold]

I find most drop out problems in cakewalk due to the harddrive. Especially with only a 5200RPM oldy EIDE. Probably whats goin on, is the harddrive isnt fast enough to move the head to find files that the computer needs to run windows, cakewalk, etc, and to move it back to continue the streaming with the audio. Anyone can have this dropout problem with even a 7200RPM ATA100 (and possibly even SCSI). Its the fact that the harddrive has to move the head of the drive to a different location to access files it needs, interupting the audio processing stream, which causes a dropout. My recommendation...get 2 harddrivs, one with windows and all your other running programs on it, and the other just used for straight recording .

Hope im giving true information here and if im not, someone correct me. And i hope i helped yah out in anyway.

Darnold

[Snowdog]

Okay,, Got it working and basically loving life for the moment with one exception. While I like the concept and operation of "Drop and Drag Drummer" the 115 bpms limitation really sucks! Is there a compatible(with CW Guitar tracks 2) virtual drum program that I can use? Drum tracks 3.0 maybe?

[kennedy connor]

Drum Trax? is a MIDI program. You didn't mention whether you were using MIDI in your original post. Midi will go up 250 bpm. I download drum patterns from Samplenet.com they have all kinds of interesting drums as well as a lot of other samples. There also sound editors like Sound Forge that can speed up audio samples....and sound like John Mclaughlin on crank.....cool

[Snowdog]

As I said in my original post,I am brand new to digital. Forgive me if I lack the knowledge of terms to get my point across adequately. I know nothing about midi. What in essance I am looking for is,a way to speed up the D+D drummer. The reason I brought up Drumtrax is I read somewhere else that it was possible to run my Alesis SR16 with Drumtrax using the same midi cable that I use out of my SB card to edit my Pod. Is this possible and if so can someone point me in the right direction to the info on how to do this (in laymens terms if possible). The sound and ease of use of the D+D drummer is cool but the limited speed is a pain.

[kennedy connor]

You are on the right track. Read the MIDI tutorial on this forum. The alesis I assume is a drum machine?...I'm not sure exactly how to configure your system but you are already using midi to edit pod on sound diver. You can use DDDrummer midi files as well as audio.Your sound card probably has a drum set on it General Midi channel 10.or midi out to drum machine.

Read the cakewalk tutorials and familiarize yourself with the basics....midi is a great tool and one of the advantages of Cake over purely audio recorders such as Vegas etc......Also don't hesitate to ask Cakewalk techs to help you configure your stuff...they have good info and usually respond in a day or so.

[lkmuller]

Just my 2 cents - using zip disks for archiving audio files could get expensive after a while. One project could easily use a hundred or more megs, which means you use one zip disk (around 6-8 dollars) for two projects. On the other hand, a CDr costs about 50 cents and has 650 megs, which could hold 3 or more projects.

Just a thought for you to consider.

By the way, I'm a guitar player too and have been hearing a lot of good stuff about the POD. Anybody ever ran a classical through one? My instrument is really the electric, but I've been recording a lot with a classical lately.

Lee
http://leemuller.iuma.com