Moan - too many tracks for computer

ido1957

ido1957

9K Gold Member
Since I upgraded to Sonar X3 I have had lots of glitches with projects with over 25 tracks. I get static, skipping, weird noises, when I scroll around or try to do track adjustments while listening to a track. On my most recent project and had to nuke form 35 tracks to 25 and then it behaved itself. I know it's probably a combination of computer (Quad core G6 Pavillion with only 4gb Ram) and Sonar X3 - maybe I need to upgrade as I've had this computer for several years.
 
If it has only happened since your upgrade maybe the new version isn't fully compatible, or many there are some settings that have been returned to default?

Not to insult your intelligence, but are you aware of buffer size settings, etc?
 
Just a thought; I notice slow workings in Cubase if I don't bounce edits. Like if I do a bunch of fade-ins or volume automation to a vocal track and leave the DAW to perform these things, even my recording only 'semi beast' will slow down. Just bouncing those edits speeds things up again.

Not sure if this is relevant at all but thought I would put it out there. :)
 
I know it's not the most solid point of reference, but the system requirements appear to be the same for X2 and X3.
Were you on X2 before?

Is there anything that's automatically enabled in your new version?
I remember upgrading ProTools and wondering why it sucked (more than you'd expect).
It turned out that the hugely intensive elastic audio was auto-enabled for every new track.
 
yeah I already defragged my hard drive after I installed X3 (I think I moaned about the time it took in Prime Time a while back)
 
I may be overloading it with plugins. I also recently installed Lexicon plugins so they may be CPU intensive compared to the stock reverb they have. It takes forever to export a wav file compared to Sonar 1... On the positive side I can burn a CD in just a few minutes whereas ten years ago it took an hour - if you didn't fail half way through.
 
Yup, reverbs are cpu intensive. You should be using one or two reverb plugs and "Sending" to them rather than "Inserting" on each track.

For my stuff, I only ever use one reverb plug and send everything to it. Vox, acoustic guitar, snare, drum overheads and/or drum room mic.
 
I just use a single drive for everything. Never used an external drive as my HDD was fast enough and has lots of capacity.
 
ido1957 said:
I just use a single drive for everything. Never used an external drive as my HDD was fast enough and has lots of capacity.
Click to expand...

There's your problem. The new software is making greater demands on your only drive and interfering with its ability to access the audio data.
 
Yeah I never had this problem on X2 and my friend's laptop runs fine with X3 (no external) and has all the same plugins (we share projects) so I suspect it's the laptop's inability to keep up - he has more Ram and a bigger CPU (same brand and both of us use W7)
 
Could be a RAM issue. 4GB ain't a lot, but minimum requirement is 2GB. I'm wondering if you have other programs running in the background. Sometimes anti-virus can eat up processing resources. But track limitations is usually a function of hard drive speed.

Plug ins are limited by CPU and RAM. Try disabling some plugs as a test and see if performance improves.
 
RAM and drive access are related through swap files. With less RAM the system has to store and access more swap file data on the drive. The updated software may be putting more demands on RAM which puts more demands on the drive which interferes with audio data access.
 
ido1957 said:
I just use a single drive for everything. Never used an external drive as my HDD was fast enough and has lots of capacity.
Click to expand...

Bingo.

Your computer has lots of simultaneous housekeeping chores to do.
Trying to stream audio, samples, etc at the same time is too much.

Most efficient setup for any DAW:

OS, apps and plugins on boot drive
Sample libraries on second separate drive
Audio projects and tracks on third separate drive.

Drives are TOO CHEAP these days ($50/TB) to not have multiple drives for efficiency.
I've done this with every daw I've had since my pentium2/400mhz days and never had a problem.
 
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