please help me out

[Laynestaley]

I am currently working on a song that has a lot of midi (vst instruments) in it, by 'a lot' I mean 6..'
However my processor can't seem to handle this and I get a lot of clicks and pops and sometimes things start to go really slow.
This is really frustrating cause this keeps me from working further on this song...!
I've checked the vst-performance window and the cpu use is indeed running into red.
I've tried altering the buffer size and the memory per channel but this doesn't seem to help. How can I free up more memory? I have an Intel Celeron 1,2 Ghz, 256 MB RAM.

[JR#97]

Print the midi tracks to audio tracks and close the vsti's.

[Laynestaley]

Hmm.. thanks JR#97 I'll keep that in mind.
For now I kinda figured it out by myself (by browsing this board..).

I changed the DMA Buffer size from 384 to 1024 samples. This changed the latency from 9 to 23 milliseconds.

So now I record at 384 samples, to have the low latency and I'll mix everything afterwards with the Buffer size set to 1024 samples to avoid the pops an clicks.
I can record at the lower buffer size without the crackling when I mute (some of the) other recorded tracks.

Does this sound crazy?

[Scott Mellish]

I often have to mute some tracks to stop pops and clicks etc. when recording with low latency...Normally when i'm getting up around 20 - 24 tracks. But I think its a fairly common thing to do.
I think what you're doing is the best way to solve your problem without upgrading your PC.
Scott

[Laynestaley]

Thanks Scott.
I was hoping someone would say that. I don't think I could ever get to 24 tracks on my system, maybe if they were all audio..
Anyway now I can go on working on this song woohoo! (after I get home from work that is )

[Bass Master "K"]

If the latency starts bugging you, JR's suggestion is right on. If you convert the tracks to audio it will drastically cut down the sapping of your system resources.

[vomortis]

Originally posted by JR#97
Print the midi tracks to audio tracks and close the vsti's.

I'm trying to find out how to do this at the moment - what is the process involved in converting a midi track into an audio track?

[Laynestaley]

Originally posted by vomortis
I'm trying to find out how to do this at the moment - what is the process involved in converting a midi track into an audio track?

Just export the midi track to a wav.-file and then import that wav.-file again.