Track Limit

[bdemenil]

I've been struggling with a track limit for some time now. For some reason, when I get close to 30 audio tracks, i start getting static clicks in newly recorded tracks. I have good reason to believe this is an ntrack issue - not hardware.

The trouble is, most people using ntrack don't use that many tracks, and so never encounter this limit. So I'd like to open a discussion about this and find out if anyone out there has succesfully worked on projects of well over 30 audio tracks. It doesn't matter if most of the tracks are fragments - punch-ins - or even muted.

Those who haven't tested the limit, I urge to try this experiment. Record 20 tracks of random stuff, mute 15 of those tracks. Record another 10 tracks, and mute five of them. Now start recording additional tracks, but for each new track you record, mute the previous one. See how far you can go before you start getting crackle in your new audio tracks.


ps - I do use asio drivers, I'm not sure if the symptoms would manifest differently (such as delay) with other driver types - I suspect part of the problem may have something to do with driver buffer space being alocated to blank or muted tracks.

 

[TimOBrien]

I have one song that I did recently that went 33 tracks, so its your system and not the software. While I don't think I'd make a habit of it, it DID work and plays without hangups.

Clicks, pops and dropouts are signs that your system, for whatever reason, can't keep up with the flow of data. Try doing some mixdowns or read some of the online articles on improving your setup.

By the way, that 33 track song is running on a PII-450Mhz Gateway with (2) 20Gb drives and 384Mb Ram with no plug-ins and MME drivers.

 

[beezelbubba]

Someone please explain to me WHY THE FUCK you need that
many tracks?

 

[bdemenil]

Tim, were all your tracks audio?

I'm running win2K - maybe it is particular to that, or to the way ntrack handles asio drivers. Before I moved to win2K, I had noticed temporal delay being introduced on new tracks when I had alot of tracks going, but I never got clicks.

It is not a hardware issue-
My cpu meter stays down at about 20%, and how can it be hardware limitation if most of the tracks are muted? I'm telling you, I could have 8 tracks playing, 25 muted, and the problem would definitely occur. In the mean time I have no trouble recording when I have just 15 tracks, and none are muted. As far as hardware limitation is concerned, a muted track should be almost equivolent to no track at all.


my set up - AMD 1.2gig - 398MB ram - 2 ibm 7200s with raid 0. win 2K with delta 1010 .

also seen it happen on a p3 733.

while i feel my system should be able to handle > 30 concurrent tracks, I see no logical reason why a problem should occur if most of the tracks are muted.

 

[TimOBrien]

bdemenil

Yes, all the tracks were audio except for a 2-bar midi drumstick lead-in at the beginning of the song.

You really should drop Fabio an e-mail but I've always noticed my CPU useage going down after I've muted tracks... you should check with him to see what the code is doing. He's much more willing that most companies to actually answer a question.


beezelbubba

Yes, that is an excessive number of tracks. Once I've compiled all my takes for each section of the song, I end up with 6-12 mixdown tracks (essentially one for each instrument of my virtual "band" which is really just me soloing each instrument) to do my final mixing. Why anyone needs any more than that is beyond me, too, unless you're doing an orchestra or just don't know how to mixdown on a multi-track deck.

Just goes to show that the analog guys who worked with 16-track recorders knew what they were doing!

 

[Tom Hicks]

Ben
Go to preferences-options
Make sure"read data from tracks even if muted" option is UNCHECKED.Default is to have it checked.So that even muted,your cpu is working on the (perhaps voluminous) data from your previously recorded stuff.Try that and,continuing to mute,see if your total count doesn't go any higher.
By the way,my personal track count has never exceed the teens so I may be whistling in the dark on this.

Tom

 

[bdemenil]

Make sure"read data from tracks even if muted" option is UNCHECKED

Tom, I have tried this - it does not help. This is why I think there is something wrong with ntrack.

 

[Tom Hicks]

Ben
I have read some posts on the n-track forum discussing a thoeretical track limit in the neighborhood of 30-something.So you aren't alone in this feeling.But as processor speeds keep going up I wouldn't be surprised to see that it is the way the software relates to the hardware that is the real determiner of total track count.
I don't use ASIO drivers,but I appreciate your comment previously about buffer size.For some reason,this seems to be the biggest single problem n-track has in configuring to so many different types of systems.
I also wonder what Flavio would have to say about this?
And what the heck are you doing with so many tracks anyway,Ben?Do you have a big project or is this more on the lines of testing the limits of the system with your gear?

Tom

 

[Slackmaster2K]

Set your ASIO buffers to max, or use WDM drivers and set your record/playback buffers appropriately.

Slackmaster 2000

 

[bdemenil]

My ASIO buffers were maxed. I just switched over to WDM, so I'll see how that pans out.


The reason I use so many tracks is that when doing multiple takes of a part, I like to put each take on its own track. So if, for instance, I am doing a chorus which appears 3 times in a song, and the singer does five takes each - that's 15 tracks. I don't like to delete takes until later, when I have time edit them. I don't like recording multiple takes to the same track, because it makes it difficult to switch between them and patch them together. In the end, my songs boil down to about 10 to 12 tracks.

Ben