Upgrade or not?

Im a user of version 3 of the software, build 1516. I have been chugging along producing my music as I wish quite cleanly and stabley.

I have noticed some very useful features have come about in 4.0 that would speed up my production greatly.

The problem is I notice often that people complain of stability with the newer versions of n-track. This is a big problem for me.

I am a high-level functioning autist, and often when I become immersed in a task an interuption can send me into a fit. Not some crazy psycho fit, I just become very irritated and for lack of a better word, confused. I dont know how to explain it other than to say n-track crashing upsets me A LOT. Without a crash I really get going and can complete two or three really good songs in a matter of days.

I would like to increase my productivity by having these new features, but if it crashes even rarely then it becomes useless to me. One crash just seems to absolutely ruin music for me for weeks at a time.

I have tried the demo and beta. There is some crashing occasionally with things I normally would not use. I would like to know what other people feel on this subject of the stability of n-track.

For me, a software that just records and adjusts volume and pan, and is very stable is good enough, but I would like some features if I can have them.

If it is not taboo on this forum to discuss it, if there is another software that is very stable and offers a good feature set then please recommend that to me. If this is not something to be discussed here then forget I mentioned it and let’s just discuss n-track.

Thank you for your time.

Why not the best of both worlds? Do you still have the installler for your 3.x version? Upgrade to 4.1.x (current version) and if you find it unstable, switch back to 3.x. The stability issues appear to be non-universal, and depend on specific configurations and workloads - someone correct me if I’m wrong. I’ve had somewhere between no and few problems with stability, but that may just be my machine and work habits (I save frequently and in multiple song/project versions so I can step back to before a st of changes).

Hi Gents:
I haven’t had any crashes… I’m at v4.1.6 build 2065 on the DAW I call my editing machine. In the studio I use the last bata build that Flavio posted. Build 2057… These builds are compatible in … that each build recoginizes the .sng files between builds and machines… and I can import the tracks through my home network and stream all the files from any drives on any machine on the network…

I’d like to install the v4.2.0 build 2076 on one of these machines… but I hesitate for a moment … thinking that I will find myself in a bind…

My question is… What would be wrong with installing the v4.2.0 on another drive and loading/importing some files to the v4.2.0 to test it’s behaviour? Would I be playing with a bunch of unknown issues? Would I screw up the registry… or something like that on this machine?

Bill…

This may seem a little extreme but here’s what I’ve done regarding upgrading. I have two separate drives with an operating system on each one. When I upgraded from 3.3 which was rock solid stable to version 4.0.5 I put it on another drive to make absolutely sure I didn’t screw anything up on version 3.3.

Now that I’ve used 4.0.5 for a few months and found it stable I will consider installing 4.1.6 on the drive that has version 3.3. I am so completely anal that I will probably reformat this drive and reinstall the operating system before I install n-Track. I don’t get quite as freaked out by crashes as x-track but I’ve certainly had to stifle my violent tendencies when it’s happened.

I’ve found n-Track to be very stable but as you can see, I’m pretty obsessive about keeping my computer pristine for recording. I also researched the best configuration before I built my computer and I’m sure that has made a positive difference.

X-track, if you want to explore other programs one you might look at is Tracktion by Mackie. I have seen several users report that this is quite stable. In fact, I think if you search this forum you wil find a thread where an n-track user gave up in frustration and went to Tracktion because of stability issues. I got the free download when Mackie was offering it and found out that I like n-Track much better. I’m not sure if they offer a demo version. I peruse several forums and it sounds like all the major programs have their stability issues.

That “Leap-frog” idea on two drives containing operating systems is quite a neet idea.

One question I have…

Do you see any differences in preformances on either of the drives? I know that you have different versions of n-Track on each drive… but apart from that can you corrorelate what could be DAW related differences in the way n-Track behaves, in the two drives?

Bill…

I appreciate the comments for keeping my old version and moving. I sadly do not have the money to throw away on an upgrade that I may not use right now. Im on a tight budget and can only allow myself to spend an amount that will increase my results by an even ratio.

I tried tracktion, it has lots of problems :(

I keep my system very clean as well. The computer I record on is almost 4 years old and has only ever had n-track and some old vst plugins on it. Tweaked to work perfect then I let it be and got to work.

For someone having no stability issues with the newest versions can you please tell me your system specifications and setup? thank you

Hi X-track:
I have several hard drives that contain operating systems. I have two dual boot machines (One being a P-4 1.7mhz machine and the other being a P-111 800mhz machine with Xp and '98SE in both mainframes.)… in the studio…

I also have a a P-111 1.2 mhz. machine that I (EDIT) with as well as what I call my knock-around (Do-It-All) machine… These are all ASUS/Intel based boxes… I’m entranched pretty well into the Intel camp… IT would take me a mental breakdown to find myself outta that Camp… Well… :O :p

The operating systems are installed by default with no special config. as to useing these machines for DAWs or audio… They are all connected to an internal home network so the RAID drives can share their information/data…

The studio machines have Matrox Dual-head graphics cards installed in them. The P-111 1.2 mhz machine has an ATI AIW 128 graphics card installed in IT… They all have the AVG Free virus utility installed on them. They all have more than one audio card installed on them. And each machine has two DVD Burners installed on them as master and slave on the secondary IDE port… along with anywhere between four and six hard drives… in each box…

They are not without their issues… Each Operating Syatem on each machine has their operating work-arounds that needs to be addressed when working with-in them…

So… at the moment I’m maintaining five desks in three boxes… and that’s a headache…

Bill…

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For someone having no stability issues with the newest versions can you please tell me your system specifications and setup? thank you


Unfortunately my configuration has been replaced by the new AMD 64 bit stuff and I’m pretty sure the mobo is no longer available. But here it is:

AMD Athlon 2200+ processor
Asus A7N8X Deluxe motherboard. Has Nvidea Gforce chipset.
NVidea Graphics card (5200 I think)
1 Gig ram
3 hard drives. 2 SATA and 1 ATA. Plus one external hard drive hooked up to Firewire. All drives are 7200 rpm.
M-Audio Delta 1010 sound card plus Delta 66 card with Omni Box (12 channels total).
Windows XP SP2. Automatic updates on.

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Do you see any differences in preformances on either of the drives? I know that you have different versions of n-Track on each drive… but apart from that can you corrorelate what could be DAW related differences in the way n-Track behaves, in the two drives?

Hey Bill. Boy, you’ve got a bunch of drives and systems there! I can’t see any performance difference between drives - not even between ATA and SATA. One thing that has been an issue, though, is that I don’t fully understand how Windows determines that you have two boot drives when you install an operating system on both. Last time I went through this the system wouldn’t recognize both boot drives. In frustration I reinstalled the operating system on both drives and then it worked. I’m afraid that will happen again when I upgrade.

Ok. Im looking at other softwares as well now. It seems for stability the most praise is going to program called SawStudio and my older N-track version gets lots of notice I see.

Do you think it is preferred to run n-track on an AMD system? Im still trying the demo and I am now getting crashes very often.

Hi 8th_note:
I realy ment to reply to your post … earlier today… But all day today I was sending-and-replying to mail that has been comming in here regrading the passing of Buck Owens…

It’s so sad… :(

I’ve been AT-IT for close to 22 hours… The people I’ve been talking to are saying It’ll get better… We’ll see… ???

The way I get through the “Boot” proceedure with the computers I have that have two boot hard drives is…

At Post-up time… I press Delete on my keyboard… That takes me to the Computer’s BIOS… You know all of that…

But in the BIOS you can point to the hard drive you choose to Boot from…

Then… it’s a matter of letting the computer go through the BOOT Process to the desk of the operating system on that drive…

There may be other ways of doing that… but for me… that’s the quick-and-easy way I’ve found of booting your computer from and to the Desk…

Bill…