Problems recording

C

cat

Member
I'm running a DAW that has a AMD Athlon XP1400+ processor on a VIA chipset. I have been recording for years (mainly hardware, though). When I took the plunge into PC recording. I bought Cakewalk HS2002, but the program would lock up every time I tried to record. Upgraded to Sonar 3 and I was experiencing the same problem. Must be an AMD/Cakewalk compatibility issue. So I discontinued using Cakewalk. I bought CEP2 and began recording, haven't had any problems with it. I have been sequencing most of my songs on hardware and have been recording stereo to CEP2 because it only does audio. Now I need to record direct to PC and would like to track separately when I record. I've have been thinkning about buying another PC (intel based). Before I spend that kind of money, I wanted to know did anyone have any other suggestions?

My gear list:
Akai MPC 2000 sampler/sequencer
Akai DPS-16 (broken)
Roland JV-880 Sound module
SM-58 & Rode NT-3 mics
Echo Mia-midi
Soundcraft Compact-4 mixer
M-Audio 2x2 usb midisport
M-audio 61 key midi keyboard
Reason 2.5 production sw
 
This is not a hard-and-fast rule, and it's one that a lot of my gamer and hardware geek associates are dissatisfied with my taking, but on Windows platforms intended for audio and video editing, I have stuck purely with Intel boards. Not just the CPU, but the motherboards themselves. They may not always be the most tweaked speed-wise, but - unlike gamers and gear sluts - it doesn't bother me if my non-realtime effect takes 12.8 seconds to render instead of 12.2 seconds. But what's important to me is BIOS standardization and chipset compatability, neither of which I have had any problems with on the 100% Intel/Phoenix boards.

I'll grant you that this is probably more of an issue on the video side of things than it is on the audio, especially when you start filling up your PCI slots with high-speed video boards, rendering processors and the like, but it also can be important with audio stuff, especially new software versions that have not had the time for real field testing on a ton of hardware configurations or for systems with a few audio processing cards (and drivers) like combining MOTU interfaces and UA processing cards and stuff like that.

With laptops such decisions may not be available; finding pure Intel chipsets and motherboards, or even standard montherboards of any type across models of laptops is a tedious task at best. But for desktop DAWs, I'll stand by it. But equally important for both desks and laptops is to keep all your drivers for both hardware and software up to date.

G.
 
it also sounds like you have ram problems. Put a gig of DDR 400 in it (or whatever is top of the line right now) and never look back.

Also a good video card will speed up your recording software as well. I know because my video card drivers dont work with my plugins, I found out the hard way, so I disabled them, and then my audio multitracking program started going much slower...

I don't know which chips are better but I have heard of compatibility problems in home recording software in non-intel chips. I think you just need to figure out what software you will be using and use the chips that it supports.
 
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