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Subject:fx plugins help!!!!!
Posted by: raiderwrestler
Date:5/20/2003 4:51:28 PM

ok i kinda new so im an idiot. ok in acid pro 4 when i add more than 1 reverb(not to the same track, different tracks) it gets all choppy and sucky. is it the reverb plugin? its the one that came stock. or is it not enough memory? can i just add one reverb to the whole song or what. thanks

Subject:RE: fx plugins help!!!!!
Reply by: FT13
Date:5/20/2003 11:39:22 PM

it would help if you gave us the low down on your PC.

it may be your system isnt powerful enough...but without knowing your system..then i cant pinpoint the problem.

-Sin

Subject:RE: fx plugins help!!!!!
Reply by: SonicSounds
Date:5/21/2003 9:45:38 AM

In my experience with Acid over the last 3 years I can give you a couple of reasons why this is happening:

1. Your computer is too slow to handle the fx plugins (usually on a PII 233mhz and lower). This is probably the most common one.

2. You're experiencing denormalizing/normalizing. This is common in P4 setups but I've had it a lot on my older PIII. It's a "bug" so-to-speak in Intel's chip design. Certain plugins will cause spikes in your CPU's usage. One minute your song's flowing along with your CPU using 40% resources and then all of a sudden it will surge up to 100%. That's when it starts stuttering and sometimes it will lock up the computer. There's a couple of free plugins that work inline with the effect that you suspect might be causing it. I haven't really messed around with them but they're supposed to help. I don't have the link with me right now though.

I suspect your computer is to slow. If you can only load one reverb effect on a track and it starts to stutter, I think it has to be your computer. I have a 2ghz P4 and I can have 20 tracks with 3 fx-per-track going (half of those tracks being VSTi's) and the CPU will hover around 70-80%. If I add a couple of more VSTi's then it will start stuttering.

Hope this helps. If I find that link I'll post it.

Subject:RE: fx plugins help!!!!!
Reply by: dkistner
Date:5/21/2003 11:41:02 AM

And check your buffer settings, too. I was having lots of problems until I tweaked my soundcard's buffer settings. And, no, there's no magic number. You just have to play around until you get it right for your system.

I generally use reverb on an entire mix after I've got it right. Occasionally I'll use it as a track effect here and there. But I'm not doing way-out weird stuff like some people do. There was a good post in this forum (I think) a while back, by the way, on how to use reverb to create illusions of distance in a mix. Just search for reverb and it should turn up.


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