Track Count

[riccol]

I have done a search but would appreciate more input.
I am running a dell computer for audio that is only used to for that purpose.

It is a 2.80 ghz pentium with a gig of ram.

Surprised lately at how few track I am able to get. On one recent project things started to go bad at only 8 tracks

Used to get many more... with Reaper and also with N-track I used for some time (of course before discovering Reaper)

The stuff I do is not really track intesive. Just Audio... Guitar, bass drums vocals. But need more that 8. However lately I added Amplitube and really like it but know as a VST plug. Used to record more miced amps and also used a J-Station... (But liking the results and flexibilty with Amplitube)
Could using it on multiple tracs be the hog and causing me the problems.
Any help and tips to get more tracks would be appreciated
Thanks

[GreyBeard]

I just switched from a 2.66 P4 to a Core2 Duo 8100 for basically the same reason. VST's especially those other than Cockos, seem to really eat up the processor. The only other thing you can do besides getting a faster computer is to start steming the tracks with the most effects to free up some processor power. (hope this helps)

[riccol]

Thanks greybeard, sorry for my ignorance but could you explain "steming"

[Sheppola]

If you press Ctrl+Alt+P on your keyboard whilst a track is playing does it give any clues to any untoward CPU usage?

Also does the box have any Wi-Fi enabled?

[bigwoody]

Strange, I have a 2.2ghz machine with 1.5 Gig of ram and routinely use 30 to 40 tracks with a mix of VST,s and MIDI (EZDrummer) without any issues at all. When you say you are having issues with more than 8 tracks, can you be more specific. Is it recording multiple tracks, or play back/mixing? What are the problems, is it choking, or do you get pops and clicks. Did the problems start when you added Amplitube? 8 tracks seem really low, so give a few more details and we can try to help.

[stratman]

Originally Posted by riccol

Thanks greybeard, sorry for my ignorance but could you explain "steming"

Download the pdf Reaper Use Guide from the link on the page below.

http://www.reaper.fm/

After you've downloaded it, enter stem in pdf 'Find' pane.

This will take you to a section that explains about Stem Rendering.

It's section 6.4 in v2.5 of the Reaper User Guide.

Pete

[riccol]

Yea it starts to choke if that is what you call it... just hangs up.. the pops and clicks... stutters.

No WiFi enabled.

But I used to get all the tracks I needed. Not sure if it happened when I added Amplitube. But that is when I started noticing the limitation.

[Sheppola]

Untick all FX and see if any of them is causing it?

[riccol]

Thanks Stem rendering very helpful..
But still feel I should be getting more tracks.

[Sheppola]

Yes you should be able to get a lot more.

I have an AMD 3800+(2.8Ghz) with winXP pro 1 gig of RAM.I've just deliberately duplicated an extra load of guitar tracks that have a couple of VSTs on them.

Track count now 18.
VST count 37
CPU usage whilst running track 50%
Audio Toneport ASIO at 24 bit.
Total system RAM in use 702 meg no swapfile used but fixed and enabled.

No glitches whilst typing this and connected to the net and track playing in the back ground.

[riccol]

Well played with the VST plugs... the real culprit is the Amplitube.

Gotta try the Toneport!

[Sheppola]

Mine is the lowest one in Line6's product e.g the GX.Now called the Studio GX,

http://line6.com/podstudiogx/

But they all come with the free to download once purchased Gearbox/Podfarm Standalone amp modelling software.
They also include a very high quality sound card and,"Tone direct" monitoring so no latency issues.

Check out the songs on my Reverbnation page or in the songs section of the Forum as all the Guitar/Bass and vocals are done through it.For the price they are a,"Give-away" IMHO.If you need more inputs/features then you go up the line and of course pay more.

[manning1]

bigwoody.
guess your still rockin with the acer.
me too mate. no complaints here.
what is highly interesting is the amd acers seem to have the TI
built in. but the intels dont. at least the ones ive seen.
i cant figure why acer did that unless they have more margin to work with
on the amd systems money wise.

riccol.
some more details on your pc would help.
by any chance are you recording to the same drive as the win OS resides on ?? what sound device are you useing ??
what bit depth n sampling rate are you recording at ??

[riccol]

Yes same drive! But had no problems in the past.

Card is M-Audio Delta 44
recording at 24 bit 44100

When I uncheck the Aplitube plugs dratic redubtion is CPU usage

Also use Izotope Ozone on occasion .. and it is a real CPU hog but really don't use it till after mixdown

Heard lots of good things about the Toneport ...
Just a little confused about it usage ... does it work as VST plugs?
IF not can you change the track (amp.. etc) after recording the track without using the VST Plug? (Did that make sense?)

[Sheppola]

Originally Posted by riccol

Yes same drive! But had no problems in the past.

Card is M-Audio Delta 44
recording at 24 bit 44100

When I uncheck the Aplitube plugs dratic redubtion is CPU usage

Also use Izotope Ozone on occasion .. and it is a real CPU hog but really don't use it till after mixdown

Heard lots of good things about the Toneport ...
Just a little confused about it usage ... does it work as VST plugs?
IF not can you change the track (amp.. etc) after recording the track without using the VST Plug? (Did that make sense?)

Line6 deals can be confusing.

Example:
My GX can be used to plug a Guitar/Bass/Mic in and then use all of the Amp models supplied with the free Gearbox/Podfarm software,"Live" but you can set it to record either the,"Wet" output e,g what you hear is what you get or Semi-wet e.g just the amp sounds but none of it's own built in effects like Delay/chorus etc.
Or you can set it to record just the,"Dry" input so just like any DI box.

If you want the VST version of Gearbox(Now Podfarm) you have to buy that separate unless it's included in the specific deal you buy.
I have no need of the VST version as it's not the way I work.I like the sounds as they are and can choose as above to record dry if I want and use free Amp VSTs if I choose but most times there's so many variations in the Stand-alone version I've no interest in the VST version.

[LOSER]

Could be a denormal problem: http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=14987

Just try the "normalizer" in front of all your amplitube plug-ins: http://www.digitalfishphones.com/mai...em=2&subItem=6

[stratman]

Originally Posted by riccol

...
Heard lots of good things about the Toneport ...
Just a little confused about it usage ... does it work as VST plugs?
IF not can you change the track (amp.. etc) after recording the track without using the VST Plug? (Did that make sense?)

I've got a UX1. The Toneport acts as an audio interface, which allows you to use the associated Line 6 sounds with Tone direct monitoring (i.e. no noticeable latency).

You can set things up to record with the sound you use for monitoring. Or alternatively you can hear the effects during monitoring, but record dry.

I tend to monitor using the Line 6 sounds but record dry and re-amp afterwards with a plug-in. Sometimes this is with a Line 6 plug-in and then I can which mirror the sound I used for monitoring. But sometimes I use a completely different plug-in, such as Revalver.

I had to purchase the Line 6 plug-in as a download. It didn’t come with the UX1. It used to be called Gearbox, but they’ve recently updated to Podfarm.

I'm not sure how things work now if you buy a Line 6 interface, because Line 6 have repackaged things as Podfarm.

I haven't got Amplitube, but I wonder whether there may be settings that reduce the CPU usage. For example, I've got Revalver MK3 and there are settings that can reduce CPU usage.

Pete

[manning1]

riccol
as your trak count grows , youll prolly find you have probs on a one drive system.
another little "wrinkle" is at high trak counts your
one drive prolly has a low cache level which might pose probs.
also win is useing that one drive for its swap file...
another wrinkle. in sumary the drive is being asked to do TOO MUCH.
heres why. not only is the one drive being asked to service recording duties but also the OS.
so what happens is the win OS can "interrupt" to do its thing.
i would HIGHLY RECOMMEND you run a test n try installing a seperate
hard drive (32 mb cache) to record to n see if probs disappear. they are dirt cheap n highly worth it and imho should be "de rigeur" in a modern recording daw.
proly also your one drive has become fuller over time.

as your useing a delta 44 pci sound device i also HIGHLY RECOMMEND
limiting useage of the pci bus by other pci devices.
thus allowing the 44 full rein over the pci bus.
cliks n pops n probs can occur running multiple pci devices
with a pci sound device. THINK OF RUSH HOUR TRAFFIC.
i have a toneport gx i was given. i'm happy with it.
but theres no reason your 44 shouldnt perform well.
there are tons of people happy with it.
PROVIDING you follow the pci traffic rule i outlined above.

[riccol]

Hey thanks Manning

Very helpful! So I will look into second hard drive.
I try to Defrag regularly on the drive.
But Please forgive me for some "dumb" questions regarding the second drive.

Would I move Reaper itself to the new drive, or just the project files (sorry, but use computers a lot but just Word for work, and then the separate computer for hobby recording ... so not real savvy.

[shockwave199]

There's some tweaks that can be done in reaper which could help the problem. How much it would help remains to be seen. Just make note of where you start with a setting before you change it, so you can go back. And do them one at a time to see if any one particular setting helps. Don't be afraid to try it and see.

I use Nigle on a UAD-1 card and have the same problems with my 1.8 ghz pc with 2 gigs of ram. My situation is different though, because of the pci card and my pc being quite a bit behind the times, regardless of 2 gigs of ram. But I have to make special considerations when using nigel because it hogs up cpu, and it's often with low track counts too.

There's some great things you can do to work with the limitations put on your pc when using amplitube, and as you've said, MULTIPLE instances of amplitube. You can render the track with the effects when you get it where you like it, and let go of the 'live' instance- even have that original instance showing in the tracks, but muted, so you can go back and tweak the original and then re-render it again. You can also render a working mix of the tracks that will play, open that mix up in another project and work some more with amplitube, render those tracks with effects, and paste them back into the original. These work arounds seem like a lot to do, but's actually an easy process once you do it. And in this fashion, you can utilze ANY amount of amplitube instances because you render the track with the effect, thereby giving back cpu to the pc, each time. It's not gonna beat a new spankin pc or muliple drives, but it will keep you going with lots of amplitube. Good luck.

Dan

[hux]

I had exactly the same issue, Amplitube was also my culprit. A workaround is to automate bypass/enable whenever there's a quiet section. That helped my situation a lot.

I use a Line 6 UX2, which comes with POD Farm plugin..I like it a lot. More than amplitube, but requires more fiddling to get good sound. The Amplitube presets are closer to good, particularly the X-Gear/metal pack combo. I like the Amplitube bass models(Ampeg pack) MUCH more than the L6 bass models.

YMMV.

BTW - I get 20-25 tracks on my laptop with 0 optimization...none. That's with Lexmark productivity suite running in the background, MS Office quickstart, etc, etc..Dell Letitude D820, 2 gigs ram, 2Gig Centrino processor. recording at 24bit.

[LOSER]

Originally Posted by riccol

So I will look into second hard drive.

With only 8 tracks I don't think it is a disk streaming problem, but rather a CPU problem, because like you said you can run more than 8 tracks (without audio effects), right?
If you can than it is NOT a disk problem. Since FX usage doesn't add to disk usage (unless the FX is streaming sound from the HDD, e.g. VSTi).

Are you feeding a silent signal into one of the Amplitube tracks (so e.g. track 1 plays while track 2 is silent, then track 2 plays while track 1 is silent, etc...)? Because like I already posted above Bubbagump had this problem with Amplitube.

So what you can do like already suggested (maybe you have already done so, but never reported back), is to use REAPER's performance meter (View->Performance Meter) and take a look at what is using how much CPU.
I don't know Amplitube, so I can't comment on how much CPU it uses, so maybe it is normal that you can not run more than 8 tracks because it is normal that it uses THAT much CPU.

Anyway I don't think it is a HDD issue, because when you can run many tracks without effects just fine, but not with effects than the cause for trouble are the effects.

[manning1]

riccol.
to answer your question you would keep reaper exe on the current drive,
and use a new drive to record to. i suggest a 7200 rpm with at least
16mb but preferably 32 mb cache.
irrespective of whether a plug in is the issue or not i respectfully stand firm in my belief that its best to have two drives in a pc.
one to record to and one for OS.
for reasons ive mentioned before.
some people "can get away " with a one drive system, but then it comes back to bite them often when they want to do a song with lots more traks.
PARTICULARLY at high bit depths n sampling rates.
ive seen this occur many times.
ie..they are doing a session for a client who only is recording say a flute with acoustic guitar n a vocal as they test out their nice new pc system.
so they think they will be good on any session.
but then they get a full blown band in that wants to do an 80 trak song at 24/88.2 for example...oops...the drive cant handle it...either cos it has a small cache and/or its not a modern drive with hi performance features.
my main argument is adding a second drive is a no brainer , particularly as they are 80 buks or so.

[manning1]

an addendum.
please allow me to explain why useing hard drives with a large cache (eg 16 or 32 mb) is desireable. cos many of my friends ask me this constantly.

its a tad difficult to explain...but i'll try.
n keep it in laymans terms instead of getting all "tecchie"..lol.

lets imagine as i'm a brit (lol.)..a line of 30 people at a bus stop.
a single decker bus (low mb cache drive..) arrives, no probs..everyone can get on the bus
and carried to the buses destination. (pc main memory.)
also in this scenario each person doesnt take two seats.
(44.1/16 ).
but now imagine the scenario with 100 people trying to get on the bus.
not only that , but each person needs more than one seat.
(88.2/32 or 64 float ). oops..our likkle bus cant handle the people traffic.
so some people have to wait at the bus stop.
dang.. we should have sent a double decker (high mb cache drive..)
so everyone could get on the bus at once.
so we dont leave some people waiting at the bus stop.
(ie..trak data that couldnt be handled.)

think of cache in a drive like a "holding area".
you wont necessarily encounter probs at low trak counts (people)..
but the probs occur as trak playback count grows...
depending on the bit depth n sampling rates of the traks being played back.

it can get even more complex/hairy if lets say one is recording several traks
at the same time while playing back lots of traks.
now add in the fact the win OS too is placeing demands on the drive also.


the reason i always suggest two drives is its a divide n conquer strategy.
nothing to do with plug ins. for plug in performance of course processor POWER
and ram play their part. memory speed of course is also important in all parts
of the equation.

[riccol]

Any suggestions as to a specific drive?
Prices sure seem right!
But Choices overwhelming!

[manning1]

riccol
before recommending it would be best to know your PERFORMANCE NEEDS.
a KEY QUESTION YOU NEED TO ANSWER.
in any song you produce WHAT ARE THE MAXIMUM NUMBER OF TRAKS
you would ever need in a song ??
at what bit depth and sampling rate ??
44.1/24 ??

seperately from the above is the fact can your current processor
handle your plug in/fx needs ??
so in addition whats the max number of plug ins you would ever use in a song ?? it can get hairy cos some plug ins can bring a processor to its knees. so it would be good to know the precise processor in your pc.
how old is this pc ??

is your pc a celeron ??
running xp ??

[riccol]

A couple of years old.
It is a Pentium 2.80
1 gig of ram.
Running xp
The hard drive is 7200 but not sure of the Cache.

The Hobby stuff I do is not real track intensive.
several guitar parts.. doubling on a few tracks. Bass. Use drums on demand loops in Acid to do drum parts.
A few vocal parts rarely over three vocal tracks

So I may get up to around a dozen tracks or so.

But I do like to play with a lot of plugs, experimenting in the mix.

[manning1]

riccol.
(ok..got my sleep..i get cranky with no sleep..lol.)
if you like to experiment with lots of plug ins,
particularly processor intensive plug ins...

then prolly your going to have to compromise if you dont want
to buy a new system. ie..use cpu intensive plug ins sparingly.
for example on my dual core i can easily do 50 traks plus
23 lean resource useage plug ins.

if you DO want to load up cpu intensive plug ins like theres no tomorrow
then your looking at a new processor/system prolly.
i went thru this a few yrs back.
projects that were going at 70 per cent resource useage on a
single cpu system dropped to 23 per cent on a new dual core i was given as a present.

sounds to me like 24 traks is plenty for your raw trak count needs.
from what youve described. your limitation however is processor power
if your useing instances of cpu intensive plug ins.

to see differences viz powerfull processors find a local friendly pc clone builder that will let you load a project of yours onto different levels of processor power pc's. eg q6600 , and the new fab i7 for example.
mebe try a quad phenom processor also.
then start running tests loading up cpu intensive plug ins.
this is the best way to get a feel for the differences tween your processor and more powerfull ones. practical tests on new processors will reveal the weaknesses of your current processor. if its a celeron processor..
to be frank its a weak processor.
the trouble is..lol..if you do this youll prolly end up lusting for a i7 processor, like the rest of us..lol.

ps..check reaperdeepers post in this thread
showing his performance on a quad processor system.
notice the plug in counts etc.
http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=32524


god bless.