Playback with Beatmapped files -ACID Product Family

Subject:Playback with Beatmapped files Posted by: Lestat Date:6/17/2003 9:15:17 AM Hi all, I record bass and guitar in Acid flawlessly. But when it comes to play back it is usally a mess. Purely with samples it is a dream, even with a trizillion tracks. Can't use that much effects though...But I guess it could come from my tired old PII 450/256MB RAM...But as soon as I use Beatmapped recorded tracks... HELL rises! Stutter, cracks, pops ,gaps...Can't have more than 3 busses, limited track fx... The impression I have is that the cursor (don't remember the name) that follow the time line is NOT in sync with the music, late even. Could it be the length of the recorded files?The number of recorded files?Both? Or is this just my bloody CPU?
Subject:RE: Playback with Beatmapped files Reply by: Iacobus Date:6/17/2003 1:12:11 PM Since Beatmapped tracks playback solely from your hard drive, look into your hard drive's performance specs in addition to the rest of your system. (A PII 450 can be meager. Your operating system and audio interface can make a difference as well.) You'll want the fastest hard drive you can afford. A 7200 RPM model will help. The best option is to have a hard drive dedicated solely to audio and place it on the secondary IDE channel, separate from your main drive on the primary IDE channel. Even so, ACID was not designed to be a multitracker in the truest since like Vegas is. How many disk-based tracks you'll get away with will all depend on the performance of your system as you've possibly noticed. On a relatively good system, you might get away with 4 to 5 disk-based tracks. There are three track types in ACID: Loop, One-shot, and Beatmapped. Loops always playback from RAM. One-shots playback from RAM only if they are 3 seconds or less; any longer and they playback from your hard drive. Beatmapped tracks always playback from your hard drive. Try bouncing down disk-based tracks to about 2 or 3. (Set the Loop Region over the area you'd like to bounce, solo the tracks and use CTRL+M with the "render loop region only" option.) You can also pinpoint exactly where the performance bottleneck occurs by soloing and muting tracks as appropriate. Bounce the most troublesome tracks together into one. HTH, Iacobus
Subject:RE: Playback with Beatmapped files Reply by: Lestat Date:6/19/2003 4:28:57 AM seems you know a lot. I indded suspected my PII to be the cause.Thanks
Subject:RE: Playback with Beatmapped files Reply by: UGB Date:6/19/2003 7:24:16 AM I record guitar and bass too and I make loops. If I tried to play 3 gutiar tracks, 1 bass track, and 2 vox tracks all the way through, I'd choke the pc. Bust up your playing into loops. That's what's so cool about acid, once you get into the loop creation mind set, you can really speed up your song production. The title track of my cd, all made and mixed in acid btw, is 7:21 of the same 4 chord progression. Why play it that long, hoping to get a perfect take? Just play it 6 or 8 times, chop out the best two and loop it! You're done!

Subject:Playback with Beatmapped files

Posted by: Lestat

Date:6/17/2003 9:15:17 AM

Hi all,
I record bass and guitar in Acid flawlessly. But when it comes to play back it is usally a mess. Purely with samples it is a dream, even with a trizillion tracks. Can't use that much effects though...But I guess it could come from my tired old PII 450/256MB RAM...But as soon as I use Beatmapped recorded tracks... HELL rises! Stutter, cracks, pops ,gaps...Can't have more than 3 busses, limited track fx...
The impression I have is that the cursor (don't remember the name) that follow the time line is NOT in sync with the music, late even.
Could it be the length of the recorded files?The number of recorded files?Both? Or is this just my bloody CPU?

Subject:RE: Playback with Beatmapped files

Reply by: Iacobus

Date:6/17/2003 1:12:11 PM

Since Beatmapped tracks playback solely from your hard drive, look into your hard drive's performance specs in addition to the rest of your system. (A PII 450 can be meager. Your operating system and audio interface can make a difference as well.) You'll want the fastest hard drive you can afford. A 7200 RPM model will help.

The best option is to have a hard drive dedicated solely to audio and place it on the secondary IDE channel, separate from your main drive on the primary IDE channel.

Even so, ACID was not designed to be a multitracker in the truest since like Vegas is. How many disk-based tracks you'll get away with will all depend on the performance of your system as you've possibly noticed. On a relatively good system, you might get away with 4 to 5 disk-based tracks.

There are three track types in ACID: Loop, One-shot, and Beatmapped.

Loops always playback from RAM. One-shots playback from RAM only if they are 3 seconds or less; any longer and they playback from your hard drive. Beatmapped tracks always playback from your hard drive.

Try bouncing down disk-based tracks to about 2 or 3. (Set the Loop Region over the area you'd like to bounce, solo the tracks and use CTRL+M with the "render loop region only" option.)

You can also pinpoint exactly where the performance bottleneck occurs by soloing and muting tracks as appropriate. Bounce the most troublesome tracks together into one.

HTH,
Iacobus

Subject:RE: Playback with Beatmapped files

Reply by: Lestat

Date:6/19/2003 4:28:57 AM

seems you know a lot. I indded suspected my PII to be the cause.Thanks

Subject:RE: Playback with Beatmapped files

Reply by: UGB

Date:6/19/2003 7:24:16 AM

I record guitar and bass too and I make loops. If I tried to play 3 gutiar tracks, 1 bass track, and 2 vox tracks all the way through, I'd choke the pc. Bust up your playing into loops. That's what's so cool about acid, once you get into the loop creation mind set, you can really speed up your song production. The title track of my cd, all made and mixed in acid btw, is 7:21 of the same 4 chord progression. Why play it that long, hoping to get a perfect take? Just play it 6 or 8 times, chop out the best two and loop it! You're done!