color changes when adding more tracks

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mixaholic

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why is it when i'm mixing in acid pro or any other mixing program, the more tracks i add the more the color of the sound changes? even when they track is muted it still changes the sound but then if i delete the track, the sound changes (sounds better) so why is it that the more tracks i add the more the sound changes?
 
normally I'd have said that the tracks are muddying each other up, which can of course be fixed with EQ (cuts, preferably).. but from what you're saying it sounds like a problem with your system, since it happens in all your applications, and as you said, even when the added tracks are muted.. possibly a bad sound card? bad driver? what sound card and drivers (ASIO, WDM) are you using?
 
Install updated drivers for it, just for the heck of it and let me know if that makes a difference.
 
can you give me a link to where i can download the upgrade drivers. I looked for the upgrades but can't find it and i registered my sound card. I have a Sounblaster Audigy 2. thanks
 
thanks. yea i already found the drivers after i posted and i installed them already. i'm checking how it sounds right now.
 
i still hear the bad sound but not as much so i guess it's just the design of the sound card :mad:
 
but the sound card should not be introducing issues like what he is describing.. sometimes hardware doesn't play nice, in cases like this I'd try moving the card to a different slot, seeing if that eliminates IRQ conflicts & noise.. sometimes it does. aside from that you should probably look into a better card for recording anyhow.. Something from M-Audio perhaps.
 
I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that it is the soundcard.

Mixaholic, I think you have good ears if you can hear the sound degrading when you add tracks. In my opinion, and this is just an unscientific opinion, DAW tracks can indeed sound worse as the CPU gets eaten up. It may be how well (or poorly) the software is coded, or a sign of a computer that is underpowered for the task at hand.

I've noticed that when plugins get stacked the audio can sound worse. I think it is to a certain extent the nature of the beast with digital audio, even though very few are willing to admit it. It's all numbers, even something as simple as changing volume. So the software, all of it, has to be really well written.

For these reasons I rarely if ever put more than two plugins on a track, and do most of my mixing using analog outboard. I've done *a lot* of listening tests over the years and I do feel I can hear a "processing sound" added to tracks with plugins. It has gotten better as plguins have improved, but I still think that a great deal of care has to be used when mixing digitally in a DAW.
 
The only way the CPU would affect the sound would be if it couldn't process samples quickly enough.. the fact that his phenomenon occurs in multiple apps makes me doubt this. Every DAW has its own conversion algorithms, its own sound, and own CPU utilization / performance. I could understand if one program started flaking out on him, but not all. He would have to have really poor system specs.. even then I pretty much guarantee you he would hear the audio chop up before he heard any differences in the sonic quality when adding tracks.. IMO, the wrong combination of hardware is a far more likely culprit. This is why people get custom built audio rigs..
 
yeah ya might wannna get a interface ... a card just isnt gonna cut it!
 
SonicAlbert said:
I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that it is the soundcard.
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I agree with Al that it's premature to blame the soundcard, even though the Audigy is not exactly the studio-quality card that we'd all like to see.

If there is coloration added to the sound, it's because there are changes to the values of the 1s and 0s being sent *to* the sound card. The sound card doesn't know if it's getting a data stream that's from one track or a hundred tracks. That's already been long ironed out way before it gets to the sound card. All it's doing is translating the data stream to sound. If the data stream has been colored because of simultaneous multitracking, it's beeen colored by the software or by the CPU/FPU (or both). Sure the soundcard adds it's own coloration, but that's only after the fact and unrelated to the multitrack coloration issue.

So is it the software or the mobo? My guess is that it's 85% software and 15% mobo at absoluet best (unless the mobo is ancient or buggy.) A key indicator would be the answer to this question posed to anybody with more than one NLE application:

Assuming all NLEs seem to color your system: Do they all color in the same way under the same circumstances? Does adding a third track to Audition color the first two tracks in the same way that adding a third track to Cubase does? If the coloration is different, then the software is definitely an important culprit. If the coloration is identical, then there may be more blame to spread around to the rest of the system.

G.
 
yes the coloration is identical. the more tracks i add the more the color changes. Right now i have a 1.7 Ghz lol. does that have anything to do with it? thanks
 
mixaholic said:
yes the coloration is identical. the more tracks i add the more the color changes. Right now i have a 1.7 Ghz lol. does that have anything to do with it? thanks
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If your computer was bult any time in the last 5 years, you have more than enough horsepower for your purpose.

The more I think about it, the more I have serious questions about this thread. I'd like to hear a before/after sample of this change in coloration.

G.
 
Some sequencing software packages auto-adjust levels when tracks are added/removed. Check your config settings.
 
Isn't it possible that the coloration being experienced here is just how audio assembles in a mix? It seems to me that as you add tracks, they could be stepping on each other. Basically, the more stuff you add, the more they affect each other which is true of any mix on any system analog or digital. Things like guitars stepping on bass etc...
 
That soundcard is pretty sucky, but for other reasons. It shouldn't do that. Mine never did that. The main probs I had were latency and crappy converters. But that shouldn't happen.
 
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