Spiking on playback when layering

  • Thread starter Thread starter Cornishman
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Cornishman

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Hello again boffins...I use a A&H ZED 16 firewire into a Mac dont know the size but pretty big. Using Cubase 5. If I layer say 5 tracks of instruments and vocals all is fine - as soon as I start adding three or four more tracks then a spiking starts to occur on play back and screws everything up.....is it 'not enough power in the computer' > Help please - do I need to get another computer?
Thanks
 
What do you have for a computer, and what exactly do you mean by 'spiking' - CPU usage going way up?
 
I Have a power mac G5, OSX 10.58 - Dual processor 1.8GHz - 5 GB Memory DDR SDRAM, 2 CPUs - and a bus speed of 900 MHz. really dont know what that all means...what I meean by spiking i: when I lay i say 5 or 6 tracks of miked instruments and a vocal all is fine - play bacvk as clean as a whistle. BUT I added more tracks - four vocal and on the playback there is a crackling sound - just like playing a vinyl recoprd - it drives me loopy - this crackle appers on the added tracks - not the previously recorded ones.....?? H-E-L-P...please.
 
Sounds like a CPU usage problem - lots of memory, but the CPU speed is a little slow. Do you have plug-ins on the already-recorded instruments?
 
Thanks Mike..I guessed it would be that...so Im gonna get me an all singing all dancing PC..been looking at one with 8GB memory and 3.3 ghz dual pro...the only prob is that Im gonna have to reinstall and set it all up again...unless of course I can up the CPU in the G5...thinking about it the mac has crashed on a few occassions.....RIGHT IN THR MIDDLE of something!! (always the same)

MANY THANKS

Jim
 
That might be an overreaction unless you were planning on doing it anyway. I run a clunky i3 laptop and have heaps more tracks than that without the slightest problem. I don't really know how Macs work but you should check for resource contention... stop it doing things that it doesn't need to do right now...
 
Yes true - but it is SUCH a wind up when you have spent hours writing a new project only to start listening to the vinyl record syndrome when you get beyond 4 or 5 tracks - not even started adding effects! I would rather not have to get a new computer and have to re-install then sort out all the vst connection stuff ! I remember the work that had to be done on the first install.....so what do you think is causing this cracling after so many tracks have been laid down....?
Jim
 
If you're hitting a wall at four or five tracks, something is very, very wrong. I used to do eight tracks at once on a dual 2 GHz G5, stacking up twenty or thirty tracks at a time, without any problems. It takes a tiny fraction of those CPUs' horsepower to handle audio recording (unless you're also stacking up lots of CPU-intensive effects like convolution reverb).

If you're using an external hard drive for recording, stop right now and add another internal SATA drive for recording. I've seen some badly written audio apps that misbehave horribly when used with external hard drives (even FireWire) because they don't ask for data to be read from disk early enough to have the data ready when it is needed. If Cubase has an option to adjust its disk cache size, try cranking it up.

Second, that particular audio interface is DICE-based, which IIRC were notorious for these sorts of problems at first. Make sure you're using the latest version of the manufacturer's drivers.

If none of those things help, part of the problem may be Cubase. Try switching to Garage Band and see if the problem goes away. If so, buy yourself a copy of Digital Performer (current version) or an older, G5-compatible version of Logic.
 
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