Subject:Skipping problem

Posted by: vilex

Date:8/21/2004 9:38:16 AM

Hey, I've been using ACID 3.0 for about four years now and I never really took the time to read on how to use it. I just started doing my own thing and I've made 40+ songs without glimpsing at a manual. I notice however, that I'm getting a lot of slowdown in some of my new songs, to the point where it's just barely chugging along and I can't lay down a vocal track because it's skipping too much. ASIO never worked better for me than the normal Classic Wave, so I never used it (I have an audigy 2 as well). I tried all the different buffer settings to no avail. Some of them crashed the program.

I'll also note that most of my songs accumulate over 100 tracks (most with effects) and I don't separate the parts from eachother. IE : Vocal track, guitar track, etc. It's just one big layout on my screen where I can mix each individual track until the song's done. That being said I also don't use additional buses.

Would anyone have any suggestions to help eliminate the skipping?

Subject:RE: Skipping problem

Reply by: FuzOnAcid

Date:8/21/2004 10:17:37 AM

Hi

I had the same problem on my PIII. Searched for days for a solution. The obvious is the fastest CPU you can get. I solved my problem cheaper than that by routing the effects through the busses instead of on individual tracks. Works great now as it was almost unusable before the change.

Subject:RE: Skipping problem

Reply by: Iacobus

Date:8/21/2004 11:06:52 AM

It sounds like you're hitting a performance ceiling with your system.

Playing multiple tracks of high-quality digital audio is no small task. Adding to that, ACID does real time timestretching for Loops and Beatmapped tracks. Add real time FX to multiple tracks and you complicate things even more.

There are several ways to circumvent the problem as FuzOnAcid mentioned by rendering FX with tracks or by routing several tracks to a bus with FX. (If you use the former, you can keep your original tracks and mute them; they won't interfere with performance if they're muted.)

Iacobus
-------
RodelWorks - Original Music for the Unafraid
mD's ACIDplanet Page
Guitars 4 Kids

Subject:RE: Skipping problem

Reply by: vilex

Date:8/21/2004 11:28:50 AM

Thanks for the replies. I'd like to note that I just bought a new computer (P4 3.0 HT w/512 DDR400 Ram) so I know it's not the system. I just tried the bus method and ended up with 4 buses, one for each, vocals, guitars, drums, bass. None of them are going to the master, but instead routed to Microsoft Sound Mapper. I noticed a slight boost in performance but it still skips like crazy. Is there something I'm doing wrong?

Subject:RE: Skipping problem

Reply by: DKeenum

Date:8/21/2004 11:49:40 AM

Why are you not sending your busses to your master?

Subject:RE: Skipping problem

Reply by: vilex

Date:8/21/2004 11:57:55 AM

I gathered that having all the buses routed to master can slow performance. I really don't know what I'm doing with this, but it seems to be going faster.

Subject:RE: Skipping problem

Reply by: DKeenum

Date:8/21/2004 12:43:07 PM

I route the busses to the master. The reason you use the busses is to cut down on the number of effects you are running. You can also rener your tracks with the effects and use the new tracks. That should free up some cpu.

Subject:RE: Skipping problem

Reply by: JohnnyRoy

Date:8/21/2004 3:18:45 PM

> The reason you use the busses is to cut down on the number of effects you are running

This is key. If you just routed everything though 4 buses you haven’t done much. Go back and remove the effects you have on the tracks and move those FX to the buses. That should take some of the load off of the processor.

~jr

Subject:RE: Skipping problem

Reply by: vilex

Date:8/21/2004 5:31:16 PM

Ah gotcha. Thanks for the advice, I'll be trying this soon.

Subject:RE: Skipping problem

Reply by: JohnnyRoy

Date:8/21/2004 6:11:52 PM

Also, if you find that the buses and effects don’t always line up (i.e., you want to use the same reverb on guitar and piano but you want them on different buses) then use an effects Send instead.

To use sends, go down to the Mixer and select Insert FX (just like you insert a Bus or SoftSynth. NOT the FX on the master bus!). Now go back to your track and change the dropdown box to the left of the volume slider from Vol to FX 1 and it will become and FX send slider. Now you can have one reverb and route the guitar and piano through it with attenuation and still have them on different buses for other FX and routings.

You have Inserts, Sends and Buses in ACID just like a read mixing desk. Use them to your advantage.

~jr