Need some help figuring out some issues i'm having

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Nathan1984

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Ok, I am having issues with drop outs. I'm a novice, I just really have been getting serious about recording my material, due to the lack of musicians around my area. Well, here is my problem. I am using a toshiba satellite, with a 1.6 gb dual core processor. I recently upgraded to 4 gb of ram (thinking it would fix the problem). Well, I run Sonar 8 PE and I can't hardly run anything without drop outs. I have a line 6 ux2 interface, i record guitars, vocals, and bass with it, and i use ez drummer for midi drums. I will have a drum track loaded in, and recording guitar with say impulse cabs in place, and i start getting stutters, and drop outs. I don't really understand latency, bit rates, and sample rates and what not. I don't know if I have something running wrong or what. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
Look in the Task Manager and see what other processes are running, what the CPU Usage is, etc.
 
I do normally delete alot of the unneccesary programs off task manager. I am pretty sure it has to do with my latency, and bit rate stuff. I will tell you what i am doing alittle more in detail, maybe this will help. I will have my midi track (ez drummer) loaded, ready to do guitars. I have been trying to use TSE X30 and LeCab for my modeling. I have drop outs extremely bad. Forget about using Ozone for mastering if it didn't drop out either. Here is my settings on my asio panel, both for ux2 and sonar 8. Line8 audio device driver 44.1 Hz and 16 bit with 1024 buffer and 16 bit depth, and my buffer on my monitor out is over half way to large if that makes any sense. Now for my sonar settings. My default settings for new project 44.1, playback and record i/o buffer sizes are both at 512 kb. I mean that is about everything that i could possibly tell anyone that could possibly help. There isn't any way my computer should have these problems. I have 4 gb of ram, a intel centrino duo core 1.6ghz processor, and 100 gb of hard drive space. I reformatted my hard drive so it only has recording software on it. Thanks for any advice you can give me.
 
Did you try experimenting with different buffer sizes on the Line6? Try lower as well as higher.
 
I don't think i tried going lower, i will give that a try and see what happens.
 
mastering

Hi
just got an tascam dp02, trying to learn how to mastering,this where i'm at,i've assigned an track from my casio keyboard, i pree play and record i can hear the music when i press rewind and press play, but to get it master , i'm lost at that piont any help or suggesting what i may be doing wrong or what i need too do from hear to master.
 
jeffert said:
Hi
just got an tascam dp02, trying to learn how to mastering,this where i'm at,i've assigned an track from my casio keyboard, i pree play and record i can hear the music when i press rewind and press play, but to get it master , i'm lost at that piont any help or suggesting what i may be doing wrong or what i need too do from hear to master.
Click to expand...

Suggestion: Start your own thread....
 
First question to the original, original poster: is your laptop connected to the internet and do you have any anti virus software running? If so, shut both these down. Wifi and AV can both be very problematic when you're trying to do audio work because both the networking and AV are give a high priority when they demand CPU cycles.

Bob
 
@ Bob, yeah, i did have the wifi on and I use avast anti-virus. I will try disabling them and seeing if that will make a difference. I did read an article about adjusting your system for recording last night. I did do alot of changing afterwards, so i will give that a go and see what happens.
 
Well, I have tried with the wifi turned off, does help, but when i try using ozone, out like a light. I had quad tracked rhythm guitar, and double tracked a lead. Placed in a 6 bar midi drum track, and as soon as I plug in ozone, i get drop outs. I have no idea why it is doing this, cause if I take it out, and use the mastering program that sonar provides, whatever it is called, i don't have nearly as much trouble. But it still dogs out my cpu usage for some reason. Any ideas guys?
 
Sonar is about the worst program when it comes to drop outs. It always seems to screw up for no reason.
 
Install the Reaper trial and see if you get the same problem. Are you using a lot of VST effects on your tracks?
 
I'm not really using a bunch of effects. I may use like three vst plugs when i get drop outs, I don't really wanna try another program, because i am so familiar with sonar now, i have been using it for around three years. I know everyone says they all are about the same, but im my experience they aren't even close, set up wise.
 
so i tried all kinds of ideas, there are certain things that cause my drop outs, like when i try to use Poulin LeCab, TSE X30 real time, isotope ozone. Sometimes when i get a long drum track in ez drummer if starts dropping out. what the crap guys? anyone got the solution?
 
Nathan1984 said:
so i tried all kinds of ideas, there are certain things that cause my drop outs, like when i try to use Poulin LeCab, TSE X30 real time, isotope ozone. Sometimes when i get a long drum track in ez drummer if starts dropping out. what the crap guys? anyone got the solution?
Click to expand...

The solution is to get a better computer or use a DAW and VST's that do not use so many resources. Your not running Ozone AND real drummer at the same time are you? Ozone is a mastering plugin - I am pretty sure you should only use it on your stereo mix down file, not in your mix.
 
EZDrummer and Ozone are both fairly heavy, if your also using guitar rig for your effects that will tally up the old processor usage too. You can always optimize your system by playing around with the buffers and ASIO drivers and canceling processes, but you will find you are working to the limit of your computer.

Tips that may help

1. Try mixing down your EZDrummer track down once in place so it isn't using the vsti anymore. This will let up some memory and processing power.
2. Like said earlier look for a less heavy DAW
3. Using send tracks can also help increase your laptops performance, as lots tracks can be passed through one effect, instead of having multiple effects on different channels.
4.Ozone does more then mastering, it can help you with presets for different tracks. Learning compressors, EQ's etc will help you move away from this and also reduce unnecessary strain on your computer.

All these work around's could disappear if you upgrade to a better laptop or PC.
 
yeah, i plan on going desktop anyway. I don't use ozone on tracks, just my master bus. What did you mean by mixing ezdrummer so it isn't using the vsti? Like do drum tracks, and export them to just be an audio track? Then do guitars, and such?
 
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