Cakewalk Guitar Tracks 2

[Thunder33]

Ok, I bought this program for $50 and it is well worth the money. It came with no real manual to speak of but if you have ever used a 4 track, you can figure it out. I use it mainly as a note pad for writing songs but I have recorded full length songs on it that have sounded pretty good.


Here is my problem. After using it for about a year, I started getting problems with dropout. I also get other crazy errors but I can live with those since the system is HP and I get them anyway. It is an older computer and has 64mb of ram. Will increaing the ram stop the drop out?


I know that this is about as low budget as a home studio can get but I have a family to support so I do what I can.

[James Argo]

Regardless to your OS (was it 98 or XP ?) having bigger size RAM is highly recommended. 64MB RAM is not enough to keep your system running audio application in good stability. RAM is cheap now, I guess. Upgrade it for at least 256MB won't kill anyone On the other hand, what is your soundcard ?

[Thunder33]

Riptide sound card. Windows 98.

[James Argo]

Originally posted by Thunder33
Riptide sound card. Windows 98.

Well, I guess there's not many option for you to increase the quality without spending some bucks to upgrade the RAM and soundcard. BUT, there's some advice to get better performance...

1. Make sure your HD does not run out of space.
2. Defrag your HD periodically (eg. once in a week).
3. Try reduce any system activity (eg. antiviruses, scheduled task, messenger, etc) durring Cakewalk session. Turn them off for a while, so you can have a bit free resource.

Well, that's all I can remember for now, I'm sure many other member around will give more advice. Good luck.


Jaymz

[Thunder33]

I guess I am slightly smarter than I thought because I set it up to defrag once a week and I disable prett much everything that I don't need. I am pretty sure the HD is not running out of space. I guess the RAM is the only option. Otherwise I am happy with the sound quality even though the sound card is a POS.


Thanks for you help man!

[dachay2tnr]

Have you tried increasing your latency? If you are not using Input Monitoring (does GT have input monitoring?) or recording live midi, you should increase your latency setting. That should help with dropouts.

Also, running with a nearly full hard drive isn't helping either. Can you dump anything?

As James said, more memory is always a good thing. May not fix your problem, but always a good thing.

[James Argo]

Originally posted by dachay2tnr
As James said, more memory is always a good thing. May not fix your problem, but always a good thing.

Did I say that Gees... I wish I remember...

[dachay2tnr]

Originally posted by James Argo
Did I say that Gees... I wish I remember...

That's understandable, James. I mean it was all the way back to yesterday when you said it.

[James Argo]

Originally posted by dachay2tnr
That's understandable, James. I mean it was all the way back to yesterday when you said it.

DOH !!! "Sounds" like I need more memory here...

[moskus]

Wow.... a really good play on words.... errr....





Thunder, you might also want to check what background applications are running. Virus-scanner, firewalls, etc drain CPU-cycles you know...