Is 24/96 recording possible on an older PC?

W

Wk2000

New member
When I record at 24/96, everything is fine until exactly 11.2 seconds into the recording, then I get a long (1/2 second) buzz in the audio. The HD "buzzes" at the same moment.

When I record in 24/48, I get the same problem with the read/write cache on, but not with them off. 24/48 sounds great and is reliable.
I have tried every combination of I/O buffers, playback buffers, etc, but nothing seemed to help. I called Sonar tech support, who said my 7200 ATA 66 HD was too slow, so I went and spent $200 at CompUSA last weekend, and bought a 7200 Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 80 gb hard drive, Ultra ATA 133 w/ a Maxtor 133 Ultra PCI card and installed it as a second drive. NTFS, single partition. The Sonar audio data goes to the new drive, program is on the old drive.

Same problem.

Everything is out of the start up menu, the hardware profile is such that the network card is disabled, the virus checker is off, etc.

Questions-

Is recording at 24/96 just impossible with this machine?

Is a faster procesessor and a dedicated audio PC the answer?

Does one need SCSI to record 24/96 stereo tracks?

Inquiring minds want to know...

Hardware - Dell XPS BrPIII 733, w/ 318 RAMBUS memory
60 gb 7200 main drive ATA 66 w/ on board controller
80 gb Maxtor 7200 133 ATA drive w/ Maxtor 133 PCI card in slot 2
Windows XP home
Delta 1010 in slot 3
2 video cards set to 800/600 16 bit (lowest rez settings) (1 AGAP, 1 PCI)
Sonar XL 1.3
All the latest driver updates
Midisport 2X2 USB
 
No
No
No

Ive recorded some 24/96 tracks with my Audiophile....no problemos.....Celeron 500mhz.....Maxtor 7200 rpm Drive.........
 
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Why not just stick with 24/48
I dont think your gonna hear much difference at 24/96
Its really not worth the headache unless you absolutly need this capability
 
If you have not done this recently -

Defrag that hard drive. You might be getting crosstalk problems where you are filling in a data hole that happens to be 11.2 seconds wide. The combination of processor buffers and available data write location could cause a choke.

Probably if you are running 2 drives at different bus speeds (which you are) you are getting crosstalk issues. This is common in video capturing where the C drive chokes because the program is on the slower drive and the data (d drive) being written is on the faster drive and you get crosstalk errors. Drives choke, whine. Very bad. I am sure this is the problem.

Put Sonar on the same drive as your data. If you are a purist then partion the drive into 2 logical ones and your problem should go away.
 
Well...

Spent the better part of the afternoon moving Sonar from the C drive to the D drive.

Same burst o' static at 11.2 seconds.

Anyone else have a suggestion? (other than record at 48 khz!)


Reminds me of that old joke --


Patient: Doctor, it hurts when I do this (moves arms above head)
Doctor: Don't do that.


Lame, I know...
 
Well, I tried. At least you have eliminated that variable.

Other possibles suspects:

-Could be a bad card 1010 card.
-Interrupt issue with 2 video cards and the HDD 133 PCI card. Try removing the PCI VGA.

Can you skip using the maxtor PCI card and using the MB bus for that 2nd hard drive? That could be an issue too.

It must be filling a buffer somewhere that maxes out. Possilbly bad memory.

I'm done. Good luck.
 
Middleman, Thanks a lot for the advice- Seriously, I've probably spent 40 hours and $300 over the past month trying to get this damned thing to work, and am about to give it up.

Geeze, replace all the RAM, replace the Delta 1010 card, get rid of the 2nd video card...LOL, I'll just record at 48 Khz for now!
 
problem solved

Just for the public record, after a lot of trial and error, I noticed the burst of static happened when Sonar moved the audio waveform display at about 10 measures. This led me to suspect the problem was related to the video display, which in fact it was. Tonight I replaced the PCI video card with a dual head Nvida Geforce mx-440 card, and the problem is solved. Apparently the PCI ATI Radon card didn't sit well with my set up. Thanks for all the suggestions.
 
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