I decided to start a Creamware thread
I realise that not many people (only 2 that I know of) use a Creamware sound card with n-Track and use this forum, but I thought I’d put this on here anyway.
I recently switched my DAW over to W2K from W98. W98 was buggy, but usable. I’ve gotten just about everything working nice and smooth on W2K except for one little problem that carried over from W98. When first loading up n-Track, one ASIO channel from n-Track to the Creamware routing starts generating random, transient-like pops. To work around this, I just declare an extra two ASIO channels and just don’t route the popping one to anything. The only major problem with this is that every time I start n-Track, the popping is on a different channel! This means that each and every time I open an existing song in n-Track, I have to re-assign channels to several tracks. This can get old pretty quick.
Anyhow, if anyone has any ideas, I’m willing to give it a shot. And if you happen to be using a Creamware card and have a different problem, by all means bounce it off of me.
-soulpole
I don’t have a solution to this one, but I had a friend that had similar problems with a MOTU card/board.
He would get random clicks, pops and distortion when using the MOTUs ADAT optical inputs for more than 16 tracks. There was an expensive way to correct this by buying an expensive clock / time code converter, but I think there is a simpler software solution in your case.
Well, that is really a no brainer, since it used to work with a different software setup 
If it is the driver that is at fault, then you should be able to fix the problem with a better driver. Better does not always equal newer, so see if anyone on the creamware board is using W2k…
Sorry I’m not much help 
Well, last I heard you couldn’t get it to work with ntrack at all (or was that ntrack under XP?), so I suppose you’ve made some progress!!
The only thing I can think of is to adjust the PCI latency using dbldawg or something similar.
Wow, I wasn’t actually expecting any responses this quickly. And you seem to have a very good memory Willy. If I remember correctly you asked me a few questions about the card a while back when you were looking to upgrade. I had tried using 2000 before, but n-Track would freeze any time I tried to open it. I’m not sure what I did differently this time, but everything went in without a hitch.
I’ve actually tried adjusting the PCI latencies using dbldawg, but all I got were Creamware “PCI traffic limit” errors. I may start looking into some sort of software clock settings. I’ve also saw on the Creamware website that it should support wmd drivers, but I have no idea how to set it up.
Anyway, thanks for the responses. If anything it’s nice to know that some people out there actually read this post.
-soulpole
Yeah, the no luck under ntrack/xp thing turned me off it. Still haven’t upgarded though…
I’ve done some tweaking and thought I’d post the results.
I can now play back 2 channels, while recording 8. This isn’t too bad. I just do a quick and dirty mix in n-track while I’m recording to get something for the cans, and I can have 8 mics in the room (plus MIDI on the Roland drums). I have the default preset in the Creamware.
When I’m doing a mixdown, I just load up another preset in the Creamware, assign the seperate tracks in ntrack to one of ten channels, and voila! I add effects in the Creamware, and set volume and pans on the outboard mixer. All changes are realtime, and I’m happy with the workflow. My PC never gets stressed.
As far as tweaking goes, I’ve found out that I really have the worst possible motherboard for the Creamware card. P3 VIA chipsets are notorious for having crappy PCI data rates. This is what is limiting my overall track count so that I basically have all in or all out. Ideally I should have gotten an Intel 815 chipset, but P3 motherboards are getting scarce, and I don’t have the money for a new PC. Also, I seem to have forgotten to reduce my colour depth from 32bit to 16bit when I reintalled 2K. After making this change, I noticed a big difference in the frequency of my PCI drop-outs.
At last, I’m happy with my DAW for the first time in probably 3 years. Now if only I could find the time to use it…
-soulpole
What’s Creamware?
Thanks. And I could have read the first post a little more carefully, since it says “sound card”. Clearly, it’s more than just that, but that’s a good start.
BTW, their home page must have been designed by “Marketing by Morons, Inc”. You have to do quite a bit of reading and a little thinking to figure out what the heck their products even ARE. Hardware? Software? A combination (actually, yes …) Well, a lot of web pages are that way. Lots of morons designing web pages. (Oh, sorry, I shouldn’t be so insulting to morons!)