which recording software is best for old PC

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supernoise

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I have an 11 year old computer. 565Mhz processor. 279MB RAM. I've tried Audacity but latency problems combined with an old computer make it impossible to overdub/multitrack. Any suggestions for music recording software for old computers.
 
That's a pretty old PC you have there. :) I'd say just get yourself a new PC. They're so cheap/reasonable these days anyways.
 
supernoise said:
I have an 11 year old computer. 565Mhz processor. 279MB RAM. I've tried Audacity but latency problems combined with an old computer make it impossible to overdub/multitrack. Any suggestions for music recording software for old computers.
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Getting a new PC is not a bad suggestion . . . worth looking into.

However, what you've got should work okay. Doing audio stuff does not demand a lot of a computer, and I started digital recording on a PC with lower specs than yours, and did so quite successfully. Recoding and playback will be fine, You may run into trouble when trying to use lots of plug-ins, and you may find editing waveforms to be slow. But it will work.

Your latency problems are not likely to be caused by the age or specs of your PC, and are more likely to be caused by the interface you are using. My guess is that you are using the PC's onboard soundcard, and this is the chief cause. If you are using a special audio recording interface, then we would need to look further afield for latency causes.

A potential setback for you, a consequence of the PC's age, could be that the motherboard has no USB functionality, which might limit your options to deal with latency.
 
gecko zzed said:
Getting a new PC is not a bad suggestion . . . worth looking into.

However, what you've got should work okay. Doing audio stuff does not demand a lot of a computer, and I started digital recording on a PC with lower specs than yours, and did so quite successfully. Recoding and playback will be fine, You may run into trouble when trying to use lots of plug-ins, and you may find editing waveforms to be slow. But it will work.

Your latency problems are not likely to be caused by the age or specs of your PC, and are more likely to be caused by the interface you are using. My guess is that you are using the PC's onboard soundcard, and this is the chief cause. If you are using a special audio recording interface, then we would need to look further afield for latency causes.

A potential setback for you, a consequence of the PC's age, could be that the motherboard has no USB functionality, which might limit your options to deal with latency.
Click to expand...

Hmmm...I've tried using the USB connection on a Digitech RP250 footpedal. I've also tried connecting my old tape-based Portastudio to the line in on the the back of my computer. Funky latency/sync problems with both.

Here's a WAV file of me playing the Star Spangled Banner recorded with Audacity:

http://tinyurl.com/lbe3cv

For that I plugged a Digitech RP250 footpedal straight into the USB port on my computer. Recording a single instrument is no problem. Trying to add instruments is where the latency problem appears.
 
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generally speaking first culprit of the type of latency you're describing is not CPU or RAM but Communication with HD

Seek time, read/write overhead (is drive operating in DMA or PIO; is system still set up for delayed write cache), etc., rather then purely RPM are limiting variables

while it is possible to multitrack on 5400 rpm drives roughly speaking I found (for IDE drives) 7200 to my comfort point and an eleven year old consumer machine might have 4800 rpm dr. as stock

but before you start buying new drives (at least 2, one system one to record two) make sure drives are defragged and operating in DMA mode

then make sure you have USB 2 (I have recorded using USB 1 but 'latency' for overdubs can be problematic

you have to decide how much your time is worth vs. shelling out for a newer system (keeping the old is made somewhat easier by the fact that Vista is a disasterous OS for audio production (having nothing to do with availability of drivers)) and many of the things you might do to make an old system functional would need to be pursued with a new system anyway

If you USB 2 while I would still recomend defragging and making sure system HD is DMA picking up an inexpensive outboard 7200 HD might be a cost effective way of achieving goals with limited expenditure
 
for now ... find out how much RAM you can add (MAX) ... could probably find it cheap or FREE

Look at REAPER. www.reaper.fm not a resourse hog like other DAW
version .999 is absolutely free
after ver 1.0 it's "never expiring" but recommend you buy, but it works 100% forever
 
I started recording with a 400mhz PII with Win98SE, 350mb of ram, an Echo Mia soundcard and 2 hard drives (a real help!)

Using a 3.x version of N-Tracks I could get 32 tracks of 16bit/44.1khz playing back with no problems.

Definitely try Reaper.... I've switched over to it and the guys on the Reaper board are even running it on low-power netbooks.

And yes your latency problem will be solved with 2 hard drives (audio streaming to the second one) and a decent ASIO 24-bit interface.
 
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