How many tracks !!!

[Mastermindzz]

Hey N track users, I will be using a 1 to 1.2 ghz Athlon, 512 MB Ram, 72000rpm 40 GB Hardrive, how many audio tracks shall I be able to access since it depends on the computers power, please state your cpu,ram, and hardrive size. I was going to purchase the digi 001, but for the price I think N Track kicks Pro Tools LE to hell and back, I also need a Midi Box, soundcard, and preamps, I was thinking of getting a Behringer MX20004A for a mixer and preamps,what do you think??

 

[Gidge]

cheap ass HP Pavillion 500 mhz Celeron, 192 mb ram, and a 30gig 7200 Maxtor hard drive....with N-Track i get around 20 tracks, but havent tried for more....thats with the buffers set pretty high...i usually use 5 plug-ins, (2 reverbs and 2 compressors and a limiter across the mix).....

Try a Mackie mixer (VLZ Pro series)...blows away the Behringer's ....not too much $$$ more, but worth it.....

for sound cards, it will depend on the quality you are looking for (amateur, demo quality, pro quality), your input/output needs, and how much $$$ you want to spend......

 

[psmith66]

cheap ass HP Pavillion 500 mhz Celeron, 192 mb ram, and a 30gig 7200 Maxtor hard drive....with N-Track i get around 20 tracks, but havent tried for more....thats with the buffers set pretty high...i usually use 5 plug-ins, (2 reverbs and 2 compressors and a limiter across the mix).....

Gidge,

I've got a Celeron 533 with 128 mb ram - I haven't ventured beyond ten tracks so I don't know the limitations. I have found that I can't go beyond 5 or 6 plugins in total with more than 6 or 7 tracks happening. Is that your experience generally? Also, what are your buffer settings?

 

[Gidge]

PS,

Plugins are a killer on this baby....I have to crank the buffers to max, which leaves the mixing process quite SLOWWWWW if you know what I mean....eq and effects adjustments are far from real time , but tolerable.....i usually use up around 16-20 tracks....

i dont wanna upgrade this computer but what I have been thinking of looking into is a pci card that powers 6 plugins....i read about it in a magazine but now I cant find it anywhere....but if not, im perfectly happy with what i have....

 

[getuhgrip]

Here we go again! I'm running a coppermine 700 with 256MB, and a Darla24. I have nothing on this rig except for win98 and Ntrack. When I add reverb, delay or compression this thing hick-ups to no end. Gotta be this 5400rpm hard drive. Damn, I hate to spend $$ on stuff that isn't fun!

 

[BaltJack]

oh boy...

I just want to complain about my machine and put things in perspective for you guys. *grin*

I'm using a Pentium 166 (with the all important MMX), 48 megs of ram, and a 2 gig hard drive. I'm about an order of magnitude behind you guys. I crank the buffering up all the way, and I seriously have to mix down ALL the time.

I can push about 5 simultaneous tracks with effects. *sigh*
The good news is, that I"ll be putting together a dream machine in a few months. Thank god.

Balt

 

[Chris Shaeffer]

P133, 64 Meg Ram: 6-7 tracks with 1 or 2 plugs, if I remember correctly.

Celeron 700, 192M ram: Haven't yet maxed it out and I've been up to around 16 tracks with the resource meter humming along around 30%. 16bit files, by the way.

Both machines had the buffers cranked. Why not? Slow mixing, but more more more tracks. I'll trade patience for tracks.

Getuhgrip- have you tried other multitracking programs? It may be that n-track isn't playing well with your Darla. It doesn't like my US-428 at all.

Chris

 

[charger]

As a point of comparison, referring to the original post, I have a Digi001, with Pro Tools LE, and on my old PII-500 I got 24 tracks (playback) @ 24-bit with a few eq plugs no problem. I could only record about 8 tracks at a time with that system though.... also, with low latency monitoring, the record latency is around 30 samples, and the maximum latency in the system (buffers for n-track) is 1024 samples. I upgraded due to motherboard death... with a PIII-866 I can record 18 tracks, play back 24 trks, 4-band eq on each track, two stereo verbs, and 6-10 digi compressors... people with the 1.2 Athlon are getting insane amounts of plugs on the 001, you can check out Digidesign user forums for more...

Also, when you talk about the price of the 001 (around 700) remember that you will have to buy a fairly nice soundcard, n-track, and a midi interface, and that the 001 also includes 2 pretty nice mic pres with phantom power.

don't mean to put down n-track, I have it too, and I still use it sometimes (along with fruityloops, reason, soundforge, etc.), but a dedicated hardware/software combo has a lot of nice advantages too.

 

[Gidge]

Damn,

Chris brought up an important point....my track count I listed was for 24bit/48khz files......for 16 bit I could probably get more, but my recordings suck and I need all the help I can get.....

 

[bdemenil]

OS?

None of you are listing what OS you are using. I found that when I switched from win98 to win2K, I was able to run fewer plugins. Everything seems much more CPU intensive in win2K. On the positive side, win2K has better memory management, and I get more tracks of simultaneous playback - indicating better disk access. Also, its much more stable. Also, when I move windows around - or otherwise tweek stuff durring playback, I often get skips - this is very anoying, and didn't happen so much in 98. I think the CPU thing has something to do with the fact that I'm forced to use ASIO drivers.


My system :
Athalon 1.2gig
2 7200 rpm drives with IDE Raid 0
384MB RAM
Delta 1010

I was getting a max of about 20 tracks with my p3-500- no raid. I haven't maxed out this rig yet.

 

[Gidge]

Windoze 98 here....

 

[Slackmaster2K]

Didn't notice this thread for some reason...

Let's see, last night I was working with 23 tracks, 25 technically since two were stereo. I record at 24bit/48Khz. I had two Prosoniq "North Pole" resonant filters going, one was working in stereo, plus one C1 compressor. I added two Freeverb2 reverbs and at that point I started getting hiccups, but not enough to kill playback. My CPU meter at this point was up to around 75%...I've found that anything over 60% is in iffy territory. I don't mind a few skips after adding a couple CPU intensive effects because I'm at least able to get the sound down, then destructively apply the effects to continue adding tracks & effects (always make backups before doing anything irreversable).

I'm running a Delta44 with ASIO drivers on Windows 2000. I have my ASIO buffer at 2700 samples, and I do get little minor skips and jumps here and there while I'm actively moving crap around and mixing....but really that doesn't bother me because it's not "real", and the low-latency of ASIO is so worth it for mixing(plus I'm stuck with it on Win2K).

I have n-Track setup fairly standard...running version 2.3...I set it to "high" priority and also enabled "High Priority DSP Thread", then I typically turn all the fancy crap off like the fast window redraw and smooth meters. I run my meters on a second monitor which does suck some performance but is worth it. Up to about 16 tracks I'll usually be running some background applications like IM and maybe fruityloops or something will be open. After 16 I typically start turning other shit off though.

My system is:

Celeron 400 oc'd to 500Mhz.
Abit BE6 mobo (stnd. config)
164MB PC100
Maxtor 15GB 7200RPM system drive (on highpoint cntr)
Maxtor 30GB 7200RPM audio drive (on highpoint cntr)
Delta44
Ensoniq AudioPCI
3Com PCI NIC (I hate 3com)
TNT2 AGP Video 32MB (primary)
S3 Trio64 PCI Video 2MB (secondary)
Sony 8x4x32 IDE CDRW (on intel cntr)
Generic CDROM
MS USB Optical Mouse (less efficient than PS/2 unfortunately)
Various USB devices
Windows 2000 (no service packs)

Overclocking to 500 of course means that I'm running PCI at 41Mhz and AGP at 83Mhz, but none of my PCI cards seem to mind (not even the delta!), and overclocking video isn't typically a bit deal.

Anyhow, it's worked well for me so far. Twenty-four tracks at 24/48 is nothing to be ashamed of. Time to plop in a new CPU though. I think the most important things to consider when building a system are the root components, most importantly the motherboard. The actual CPU speed you choose should be an afterthought and based solely on the amount of cash you have left over after buying everything else. A fast CPU does you no good if you can't utilize it.

Slackmaster 2000