Compression/EQ plugs and memory efficiency.

A

adventureboy

New member
I wanted to ask how you guys deal with this - I mix on a laptop with 2GB RAM, a typical song has 25 WAV file tracks. When adding compression and EQ to the tracks, the system can start to slow up and prevent me from having compression on some of the tracks. For instance, I want a certain kick setting and a certain snare setting. Is it viable, or even normal practice to 'write' those effects to track or will that affect the way the compressor sounds on those tracks as opposed to running it as a live plug-in etc. I'm thinking of ways to best use memory with so many tracks running. I know the simple answer is to upgrade the PC which is going to happen later this year hopefully, but I was just curious. Cheers:)
 
It is perfectly Ok to use the effect as a process rather than a plugin. It will sound the same. However, always keep the originals as backup. If I was in your situation, I'd probably have (using Sonar - other programs may not offer these features) a track folder containing all versions of the kick, with the unused ones in archive mode (better than muting because it actually ignores the audio and places less on your system).

EDIT: i'm not entirely sure what things use what part of a PC, but I don't think your RAM is the issue here. Sounds more like the CPU.
 
This is why God created the Lock or Freeze function (which one it's called depends upon you version of DAW software.) Look it up in your software manual or help files.

G.
 
doesn't solve the problem completely, but it might help to look into the idea of bussing plugins.

i know you said you want different compression settings, but if you find you're using three or 3 reverbs that are the same, or a whole load of eq's that are doin a similar job, you should set up an aux track with one instance of the plugin, and bus whatever tracks you want to effect to that aux.
 
BTW, just to clarify compression and EQ aren't really memory intensive, although some of them, especially some of the better "vintage" emulators can get pretty CPU hungry.

Reverbs and delays on the other hand are memory intensive, and the longer times they allow, the more memory hungry they will be (because they have to store a certain amount of audio in memory to repeat).
 
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