xtra hardrive, slack or eddie or anybody

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gibs

gibs

New member
Thanks everybody...I was/am pretty lost about getting such few tracks....my comp is one of those discount cheapos from National Computer Clearinghouse in Austin and the only information I have on it, unless y'all tell me where to look, is on the invoice:

SYSTEM: A2-350 3D, 6.4GH/D
64MB RAM, 36XCDROM, 56K MOD
SND8MB AGP

Model # G-340-0093

That SND8MB AGP thing, is that what you were talking about, Slack?

Thanks everybody for steering me clear of the USB drive I found....

I'm gonna do what eddie said now and try to optimize also...

If I gotta get a brand new drive, I gotta, I guess...it's frustrating as hell to not be able to use all this cool stuff and I'M SICK OF BUYING CASSETTES.......thanks for the time guys....gibs
 
And Monty, it's the freakin' computer that's makin' me old......gibs :D
 
my comp is not cuttin' it for multi tracking......6.4GH/D..64MB RAM, 350hz,56KMOD blah blah....before I downloaded full fruityloops I could get 3 tracks at least...now it's hell to get 2...I've got 2.01 G free space only, and I've gotten rid of lots of temp files,etc...I suppose I've got too much software with power tracks, vegas, plus some photography stuff.....

And the question is, will getting an extra HD help or be a waste.....this is what I've found http://orders.xoom.com/bus13/rxmbus130628/

Do you guys know anything about this particular product, or if it would even work for what I need, and could an idiot like myself understand it......

Or would you suggest I start saving for another computer.....your suggestions/advice/warnings/rants are appreciated........gibs
 
Hi Gibs,
I went to the link that you posted with your qeustion. It looks like a decient piece of computer hard ware. But I am afraid that it will be too slow to do any recording. It's only a serial port that this thing connects to. Serial is way to slow for recording and play back. It's not that hard to add an internal hard drive to your computer. It only takes about a 1/2 hour. For about the same kind of money at BestBuy you can get a 20 gig drive.

I hope this helps. :cool:

GRIZ
 
Hey Gibs

It might not be your drive. If its 7200rpm and running Udma66 and its still not cuttin it,its becase youve only got 64mg of Ram and when the Operating System runs out of Ram it wants to write a bigger SWAP file to disk ...Hence the loss in drive speed,and if your running Vegas on top of the 13mg of Ram that the Operating System has left after booting Windows, its gona write a SWAP file

Tony
 
Gibs, it's most likely a combination of your hard drive not supporting DMA transfers and the fact that you're running Windows9x (you are, aren't you?).

The USB drive you mentioned will not work. As said above, it's just not fast enough. Check the maximum "data transfer rate" which is only 8MB/sec...8 times slower than the theoretical maximum transfer rate of a decent hard drive today. (in real life, an IDE 7200RPM drive on a UDMA/33 or ATA/66 controller will see up to about 27-30MB/sec sustained transfer rates)

I tried recording on an old 4GB PIO drive when I first started, I feel your pain :)

Getting a brand new 20-30GB 7200RPM drive would not be a waste at all. You will enjoy much better disk performance and have a lot more space to play around with...at a pretty low price to boot! Of course this will depend on your IDE controller, do you know what motherboard you're using? Keep in mind that a new hard drive won't be welded to your machine, you can always continue using it if you decide to upgrade other components or get a new machine later.

Your memory is also lacking, but shouldn't be the cause of your problems in Win9x if you're only running one app at a time. The reason I picked on Win9x earlier is that it degrades over time, as you add and remove applications....which you're obviously seeing first hand (as we all have I'm sure).

I prescribe a new hard drive and fresh OS install and call me in the morning. :)

Slackmaster 2000
 
and for a second opinion , i agree with slack.. a fresh o/s install would be great , and the second hard drive would really help..

my question is though , have you done anything to optimize your computer for audio recording? im guessing no..

start by going to start/run/ then type "msconfig" in the dialog box.. then choose the "startup" tab and uncheck everything that is checked except for systray and explorer.. if your keyboard also has voloume/cd controller buttons on it , youll need to leave that program checked , otherwise the buttons will stop working.. you can find that program by process of elimination..

then restart your computer.. what this does is keep all those excess programs that you dont need from loading during startup and sucking up precious resources in the background.. and yes , you will still be able to run those programs if you want to..

you said you have a 350 mhz 64 meg 6.4 gig hard drive in your computer.. you didnt say amd or pentium.. it sounds awfully like a compaq..if its a copmpaq then my little tip will do some serious helpage.. i know first hand.. i can run up to 10 tracks on my 300 cyrix 64 meg ram and 4 gig hard drive in vegas pro.. there is no reason you should only be getting 3 tracks..

be sure your computer even has empty drive bays for upgrading , mine doesnt.. go to the manufacturers site and poke around a little bit.. they should have some type of support forums or faqs to scour for answers..

- eddie -
 
hey gibs..also when you decide you want to buy a new drive let me know.. ill help you surf the web for the best deal..

what would really help is if you told us the make and model # of your computer.. try calling the manufacturer and start asking them about upgrades..

- eddie -
 
I don't know what the SND stands for, but the 8MB AGP means you have a built in AGP video "card" with 8MB of memory. That's not what I was talking about :)

What's an A2 processor anyway?

Slackmaster 2000
 
This is great....called up the website listed on the invoice... www.ncc-pc.com

they've changed names and the site is only half done also...so I have no idea what an A2 processor is or how to find out....what crap..........dammit.....gibs
 
A2 should be K2-350 AMD processor

DefragDefragDefragDefragDefragDefragDefragDefragDefragDefragDefragDefragDefragDefragDefragDefragDefragDefragDefragDefragDefragDefragDefragDefragDefragDefragDefragDefragDefragDefrag DefragDefragDefragDefragDefragDefragDefragDefrag.

If you defrag the drive properly, you should find a increase in speed.

- gaffa
 
I did what eddie suggested and then defragged like gaffa said....I had defragged about two months ago, right after I got fruityloops and it took about an hour....when I defragged this time it took a little over three hours for some reason...and it seems like everything on this comp is faster....I played along with a new loop in fruity, and it didn't stutter even once....so maybe this will get me by for now...I'll see if I can track this weekend...but in the back of my mind, I'm thinking new hd......gibs :D
 
Yeah its a K2 chip

and gibs you should defrag before recording audio

Tony
 
I don't know the technical reasons behind it like Slack or Eddie or anyone else in-the-know. But I defrag weekly and sometimes daily after long sessions or lots of editing. Defragging the hard disk has made my audio much smoother (read: less/no lockups or "cpu too slow" messages).

I read about doing this in an optimization article. Without knowing the technical details, I would recommend defragging after those long sessions or after you do a lot of editing (deleting, etc...). I usually turn the defrag on overnight after the session so I don't waste time waiting on it to finish.

Can anyone comment? confirm this suggestion?

Rev E

[This message has been edited by Rev E (edited 06-30-2000).]
 
Are you sure it's not a K6-2 ... I've never heard of a K2 either. :)

Gibs, your drive musta been hella fragmented. I'm glad it worked out for you.

Just a quick spat. If you record multiple tracks at a time, defragging the drive can worsen performance.

A faster hard drive will still make your life so much easier in the long run.

Slackmaster 2000
 
I'm sure that this has already been discussed in previous posts, but Slack2K et al, please briefly fill me in on why not defragging will result in better performance for multitracking. By not defragging, are you saying "never defrag audio-only drives" or just not "everday"? I'm thoroughly confused, because this contradicts what I've read and what I've experienced. After some of my heavy recording or editing sessions, I had gotten "lockups", but after defragging, everything ran smoothly. What's that all about?

Rev E
 
Only in situations where you're recording multiple tracks at one time.

In this situation, a block of one file is written to the disk, then a block from the next track, and so on and so-forth.

In this scenario, the tracks are "interleved" and playback performance of these tracks should be optimal. Reason being that the disk does not have to seek the entire length of one file to get to the next file, as it would if the drive was defragged.

There's some software over at SpinAudio.com that interleves files as I'm describing. Of course WHICH tracks are interleved and HOW they are interleved is quite important.

Of course the no brainer solution is to simply keep the drive defragged. You may not see optimal performance, but it'll be better than the performance on the drive if it's highly fragmented (in the "bad" way :)

I probably shouldn't have tossed this in, because it does usually throw people for a loop at first.

Slackmaster 2000
 
Thanks Slack,

In my case, I record on Echo Audio Gina. Max of 2 tracks at a time, most of the time one track at a time (Record drums in another studio). So I take it that I'm still on the right track and that I'm not defragging in the "wrong" way.

Rev E
 
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