Plug-ins are killing my comp...

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A1A2

A1A2

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I got myself a p4 2.4ghz with 518 DDR ram, and thought it will handle anything I throw at it. But, it turns out that doing 20 tracks at 24/96 with some Waves plug-ins is still hell!!


Umm, let me be a little more specific. I got 2-4band Waves' EQ on just about all of those 20 tracks (mostly mono tracks), 1 Rverb and 1 tap-delay on seperate bus. Is this too much to ask for my PC to do a decent job or I am doing something stupid here?

The computer, especially the program gets very slow, and there is a little clipping in between each loop/track.


ps. I am using ACID4 on this project, and the memory usage on lower right corner reads: 18/512MB, sometimes 50/512MB

ANy advice? or bouncing is the only solution? Thanks in advance

AL
 
I think it's cause your in 96 khz. It uses twice as much cpu power as 44. Or is it 8 times as much? Some rediculous ammount.

I don't know if there is a way to fix that.
 
you are right, maybe I should start tracking at 44. or 48. To be honest, I don't hear the differences anyway:D Maybe I should keep the 24bit for the headroom (from what I read here) and use 44. or 48 opposed to 96.

Can someone please explain the major difference between 44, 48, and 96k? just a brief explanation will do. Thanks

AL
 
24 bit is good I guess. 96 khz is a bit overkill maybe but 48k is a bit... well 8 khz better than CD quality so it must sound better right?

I don't know I record at 16 bit usually but when I'm feeling like it's 'time for the good china' I start a 24/48 ses. I can hardly hear the difference to tell you the truth.

Gimme tape anyday.
 
My understanding is that you'll get some problems converting from 48 to 44. 96 to 44 is supposed to work, I guess. I've only read and talked to people on this. Haven't tried it myself.

But tracking and mixing at 24 bit sure sounds better than 16 bit to me, even after converting down to 16. I just started recording 24 bit, and I'm not going back to 16, despite the fact that 24 taxes my computer pretty heavy.

96/24 will be pretty taxing on the computer. I'd go 44/24, but try 'em all out.
 
it could be something with acid too...
i had a friend that had a problem running acid with more than 20tracks and he has a very powerful pc..
i told him to buy sx and he can run much more.
i mean i've run back 64 tracks with over 48 of them having eq,reverb,delays,compressors etc.. my cpu was at 70-80% but it wasn't running slow.. have a xp2000 that i'm working on right now..
 
what is "sx"?


also, acid is not a multitracking application. it is design for looping small segments of audio. it is VERY ram intensive. this may be your problem. try vegas instead..
 
Sample/Bit

sample rate dictates your freq response, so a 44.1 sample rate is enough to sample a 22khz wave. Humans hear from 20hz to 20khz at best, so the higher the sample rate the higher the freq response. Although this is beyond human hearing it still effects the freq we do hear. you might only notice the difference with acoustic recordings of high freq instruments like snare drums, o/h. the bit resolution on the other hand is more obvious.

for every bit you gain about 6db of headroom. so between 16 and 24 you get 48db of room over the noise floor. so a better signal to noise ratio.

i personally use 24bit 44.1khz because i ultimatly go to cd
 
foreverain4 said:
what is "sx"?


also, acid is not a multitracking application. it is design for looping small segments of audio. it is VERY ram intensive. this may be your problem. try vegas instead..
Click to expand...

Acid 4 does recording very well, so long as you do one track at a time.

I use Acid 4 for tracking, because it makes arranging a breeze. And the interface is much easier to use than SX.

It has multitracks, you just can't record them simultaneously.
 
foreverain4 said:
what is "sx"?


also, acid is not a multitracking application. it is design for looping small segments of audio. it is VERY ram intensive. this may be your problem. try vegas instead..
Click to expand...


Is that so? that sucks cuz I really enjoy working with ACID opposed or other sequencers. I set all of my recorded tracks to "one-shot" opposed to "loop" or "beatmap". Does that help rpocessing wise?

ambi:
I don't know what you use, but you gotta give Disney another look before you conclude;)


PROTOOLSJUNKIE:
BIg thanks, I think I will go with that route.


Polaris20:

Do you know if ACID does punch-in record? I hate recording several secs of nothing before I start playing instruments.


Thank you all

AL
 
20 waves EQ's at 96khz!!! Yeah, that might be your problem. Try increasing your buffer settings...a little more latency for a little more plugin room.

Slackmaster 2000
 
Acid is really easy to use, and it was good, but it made everything sound tinny and 2 dimensional, really shitty. It seemed to suck the stereo seperation out.

i'm using logic audio now and the two aren't even comparable, but things i could do easily in acid took weeks to figure out in logic, and there are some of the easy to do things in acid that you just can't do in logic. Also you are comparing apples to oranges here. Not only is Logic designed differently, you are comparing top of the line to low end. Not saying acid doesn't do it's job well, but Logic is one expensive mother.
 
A1A2 said:



Polaris20:

Do you know if ACID does punch-in record? I hate recording several secs of nothing before I start playing instruments.


Thank you all

AL
Click to expand...

I don't think so. I always put a 1 measure click track start. Works for me.
 
ambi said:


i'm using logic audio now and the two aren't even comparable, but things i could do easily in acid took weeks to figure out in logic, and there are some of the easy to do things in acid that you just can't do in logic. Also you are comparing apples to oranges here. Not only is Logic designed differently, you are comparing top of the line to low end. Not saying acid doesn't do it's job well, but Logic is one expensive mother.
Click to expand...



has anyone here even tried vegas? it is the easiest, most intuitive recording app i have used. i also have nuendo, and i never use it. i think people have the assumtion above about vegas too. also, the summing if vegas is far above most apps IMO. it sounds more natural and less "digital".
 
SX is Cubase Sx..i'm using it until Nuendo 2 is out..
sx and Samp 7 are the best sounding apps out.. to me acid/vegas is far to limited.. and they don't sound very good vs sx or samp7..
as for 20 waves eq's... i had 12 q10's going this morning.. over 20 true verbs, at least 14 Waves Rcomp's..a few spitfish deessers, some delays here and there,chorus effects.. ran like a champ...all 32float/96.. i did end up setting my buffers high to get smooth playback.. b/c it was jumping around some..
 
now, this is interesting. Sequencers actually "sound" different?

I thought it's the plug-ins that make the differences. Someone please enlighten me on this:confused:



AL
 
different audio engine.. compare sx and nuendo to cubase vst and you'll see sx and nuendo sound better.. samplitude 7 has one of the best sounding audio engine's to me.. its a little hard to learn coming from nuendo/sx but since i just got it i'ma learn it...

software can sound different
 
Waves plugins are major CPU hogs!! I'd try another plugin for EQ on track inserts. Keep the waves plugins for main bus and mastering. Those multiple instances are going to kill your performance.
 
Thanks, guys

I am gonna try out some demos of cubase, logic and nuendo.

About Waves' EQ plug-ins, are they as bad as their reverb plug-ins? processing wise. I used SonicFoundry's EQ's before, and realized that they weren't cutting exactly what they were supposed to after watching with a Spectrum Analyzer.....

What's a good Eq that doesn't eatup too much processing power?

Thanks

AL
 
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