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Subject:watered down acid?
Posted by: granny
Date:2/18/2004 4:42:09 PM

newbie has screenblast acid for drum tracking. Fine, but when adding fx mostly on reverb, cpu hits 100% and stutters. New everything- 512 ram 2 hard drives, pro card.
Question. If I upgrade to Pro 4 (or wait for 5), will I have the same problem?
Yes, I've tuned out all the graphix and background on XP (home). Am I asking too much from "watered down" acid?

Subject:RE: watered down acid?
Reply by: MyST
Date:2/18/2004 4:48:07 PM

Can you list all your hardware?
Give details of the project you're working on...how many tracks, how many FXs, etc.

M

Subject:RE: watered down acid?
Reply by: granny
Date:2/18/2004 5:57:41 PM

had problem before adding tascam us122 and western digital 120 gb E drive.
Bought emachine t2642 w/XP(home) 2.60 intel celeron 40gb for this project consisting of 9 tracks mostly from discrete drums library with EQ. Watching task manager, adding reverb shoots up cpu usage. upgrade?

Subject:RE: watered down acid?
Reply by: marcarotsky
Date:2/19/2004 10:59:37 AM

yeah, no offense...but E-machines are the "chevettes" of computers. intel celeron's do not have too much kick behind them. and just the physical way e machines are built (inferior parts, no name boards, things of that nature) do not support a music producers ideal computing power needs. even older pentium III or Athlon computers will out perform the celeron. dont just assume cuz a processor says 2 GHz its going to be fast. there are A LOT of variables which decide the speed and overall power of a computer.
processor (most importantly. use pent. IV or newer Athlons)
mother board
memory type, amount AND speed
hard drives (use 7200 rpm)
bus speed
operating system
installed software
partitions (or multiple hard drives)

i know this stuff isnt cheap, but if you are going to be serious about making music, youre going to have to suck it up and invest in some new hardware.
HTH
--marc

Subject:RE: watered down acid?
Reply by: Iacobus
Date:2/19/2004 12:01:12 PM

I highly doubt ACID Pro would help you out.

Like marc said, the Celeron is not up to the task for intensive computing, especially where audio (and video) is concerned.

Having a pro card wil also not guarantee top notch performance; the audio interface is just a part of the bigger picture.

I would suggest using RAM that has ECC for memory that's 512 MB or more; having more memory makes your system more prone to external disturbances like the solar flares we've been having. (I know that sounds so UFO-ish, but ask any scientist.)

You might also want to avoid motherboards with a VIA chipset (typically in Athlon-based systems); they've been reportedly futzy with certain DAW setups.

HTH,
Iacobus
-------
RodelWorks - Original Music for the Unafraid
mD's ACIDplanet Page

Subject:RE: watered down acid?
Reply by: granny
Date:2/20/2004 5:51:40 PM

Thanks guys. That must be it. I just wish I knew that earlier. oh well

Subject:RE: watered down acid?
Reply by: coolout
Date:2/21/2004 2:07:53 AM

actually before you upgrade your equipment try to find a old copy of acid pro 3.

i ran AP3 pretty well on a 500mhz celeron (don't laugh). when AP4 came out the system requirements seemed to at least double. even without using the new features of AP4, i could only run about half the plugins. the cpu overhead increased blatantly. check the archived forums around the time of acid pro 4's launch. many people were complaining. i broke down and bought a P4 just for audio work.

the second thing is that you may be having a denormal problem which can happen with reverbs. do a search in this forum on denormals and you'll find a fix.

Subject:RE: watered down acid?
Reply by: DKeenum
Date:2/21/2004 6:59:07 AM

Let me second that. Acid 3 was a solid version. I don't know where you could find one, but I hope you do. ebay?

Subject:RE: watered down acid?
Reply by: Iacobus
Date:2/21/2004 11:51:22 AM

Funny. People were saying the same things (buggy, not ready, etc.) when ACID Pro 3.0 was initially released.

Iacobus
-------
RodelWorks - Original Music for the Unafraid
mD's ACIDplanet Page

Subject:RE: watered down acid?
Reply by: DKeenum
Date:2/21/2004 2:23:29 PM

I don't think 4.0 is buggy at all. I was just saying that 3.0 was a stable mature program. I love both of them. I use 4.0.

Subject:RE: watered down acid?
Reply by: Iacobus
Date:2/21/2004 4:43:34 PM

I know. I made a feeble attempt at humor. (I should've added a smiley of some sort.) :o)

Seriously, there were people who were quite unhappy with ACID Pro 3.0 (for some reason or another). I distinctly remember a couple who were quite disgruntled and pretty much equated ACID Pro 3.0 with Satan.

My point was just that some people will have a smooth experience, while others will have it rough, no matter what the version. (Heaven only knows what causes their problem.)

Iacobus
-------
RodelWorks - Original Music for the Unafraid
mD's ACIDplanet Page

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