I am using N-Track to do on location multitrack recording. Last spring I noticed that there was a small gap in the sound and wondered if there were some things one could do to maximize the buffering etc. for recording. I am using a Motu 896HD and an IBM T40 laptop with the standard disk drive. I realize that an external USB drive might be one thing to add, but I am also interested in tweaking the program for better performance. I am typically recording 4-8 tracks simutaneously at 44.1K 24 Bits. I was recording 6 tracks when I noticed the small glitch. I did not hear the glitch in my headphones during the recording. Therefore I am assuming the error occured between the Motu 896HD and the hard drive. I am not using the live processing.
I have thought about changing the priority, but I think that could cause problems with firewire and Motu 896HD.
One final comment. I typically use N-Track on a desktop system for mixing and mixdown before writing to CD.
Any thoughts?
I successfully recorded 3 long sets using the Motu 896HD and I had some problems sometimes getting nTrack to recognize it, i.e., it seemed like the FireWire connection was flakey. Make sure that you have the latest drivers. It may have had to do with your laptop not being able to keep up. I was using my DAW when I did the recording.
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| Last spring I noticed that there was a small gap in the sound and wondered if there were some things one could do to maximize the buffering etc. for recording |
Under file->settings->buffering. The max number of buffers is 64 which is divided by how many channels you have to find the max number. WDM drivers will allow you to increase the size in the ntrack control panel, but you will have to go into your ASIO control panel to set the ASIO buffer size. Usually this can be gotten to by hitting the hammer on the recording VU and hitting the ASIO control panel button.
There’s a whole lot of stuff you can do to optimise your DAW.
RTFM is a good start, and then if you google on the internet there’s a whole lot of good info.
Download ENDITALL, it shows what else is running, and gives you the ability to kill anything you don’t need.
Other progs running that you don’t need can be a big problem for smooth HD access, and that includes adware, spyware, unneeded services, etc.
And other crap running is often a cause of gaps. (But, you knew that anyway. 
)
And those things accessing the HD when it should be streaming audio are a real pain.
But not knowing what OS you have makes it difficult to give specific advice, so just search online; there’s a lot a smart guys out there giving us all the benefit of their knowledge.
Most laptop or notebook computers have a 4200 or 5400 rpm hard drive. Improved performance would be achieved with a 7200 rpm drive.
You didn’t specify whether you had a single glitch or multiple ones. Unfortunately, occasional glitches are part of life when many tracks are recorded simultaneously. It is possible to minimize them with system tweaks, but I don’t think glitches can be eliminated entirely. At least that has been my experience.
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| Unfortunately, occasional glitches are part of life when many tracks are recorded simultaneously. It is possible to minimize them with system tweaks, but I don’t think glitches can be eliminated entirely. At least that has been my experience. |
Well, the kicker is that I used to use a Guillemot ISIS to record hour long sets of 8 tracks each using MME drivers on a celeron600@900 on 768 meg to a 5400 20gig hard drive at 16/44 on an abit BX6 motherboard running 98lite - without ANY glitches. The ASIO drivers sucked and you certainly didn’t want to try the LIVE mode though. I’m struggling to get glitchless on my Herc 16/12FW, and I had some huge grief with a borrowed MOTU 828mkII. You’d think that things would be getting better, eh? Personally, I think it’s unacceptable to by a $1300 interface (what mine cost me in AU at the time) and not be able to get it working properly.
Could be drivers, could be MB chipset + soundcard combination, could be PCI latency, could be buffers, could be the cd Insert Autonotification. Could be Ntrack. MTS is the big thing over at audiominds, and Tracktion is supposed to be very stable too.
Willy.
Thanks for the ideas.
I am using Windows XP, service pack 1. Service pack 2 causes problems with fire wire devides acording to several manufactures including Motu.
The number of glitches I am seeing is typically 1 per 40 to 60 minutes of recording. Thankfully I always have a two channel backup recording since my recordings are of live concerts. So no second take.
I will look into changing the number of buffers etc in the Motu control panel. Can’t remember is Motu Firewire let’s you change that. I know the PCI324/424 do.
Anybody have any experience with a USB 2 drive connected and using it to record onto?