Subject:"Peak Data" error

Posted by: dbasement

Date:1/15/2005 2:32:07 PM

About one out of every ten times I'm recording an overdub, I'll hit Stop, and get a dialog that says something about "peak data". There is a meter, but it stays stuck at zero. The dialog window will not allow me to kill it, and basically I have to restart ACID (4.0) every time. Thankfully, I don't lose the track I just recorded, but I do lose where it was to be inserted in the layout, which means I have to go back and insert it manually when ACID starts back up. Does anyone know what causes this?

Also sometimes I'll be recording a part and suddenly a horrendously loud noise will come from nowhere that sounds like the noise a dryer makes when your clothes are done! I have a pretty powerful computer with a gig of RAM so I don't know why this version of ACID is so unpredictable. I never had any problems like this with 3.0.

My final question. There are little clicks and buzzes oftentimes when I'm playing back a song that has more than 5 tracks at a time. Thankfully, these do not show up when I export the final song as a wav. Should I be using Vegas instead of ACID? Is Vegas more equipped to handle large, multitrack layouts, whereas ACID is just for a loop or two?

Thanks for helping a newbie...

Subject:RE: "Peak Data" error

Reply by: knowbody

Date:1/15/2005 3:40:53 PM

I can't answer your question about "peak data" or the pops buzzes and hair dryer noises but I'm sure Acid should be capable of handling more than a loop or two. Acid 5 comes with Folder tracks for grouping loops together. I think any number of tracks is theoretically OK, and practically dozens should be no problem.

What kind of soundcard do you have? I have an Audigy card and this has given me a lot of grief. I used to get clicks and pops on tracks with effects applied to them. This could happen with just one track. I did a lot of messing around reinstalling drivers and this sometimes helped for a while. In my case too the sound problems were not there after rendering the final song but they sure made it annoying and more difficult to make a song..

Hope this helps,

Chris

PS Regarding the drier noise just realised that I once got this sound - shortly before an entire hard drive died! So I would make sure you have your data backed up onto another physical drive or onto CD or DVD.

Subject:RE: "Peak Data" error

Reply by: JohnnyRoy

Date:1/15/2005 4:16:22 PM

A little more information about your equipment may help. What are you recording (vocals, guitars, etc.)? What soundcard? Are you using ASIO drivers? What is the latency set to? If the latency is too low you may be OK for a couple of tracks but get clicks and pops as you keep adding tracks because the buffers are too small. Try increasing the record or playback buffers a bit and see of that helps. ACID should be able to handle lots of tracks without a problem.

Check that you have the latest drivers for your soundcard and the latest version of ACID Pro 4.0 which is 4.0f.

~jr

Subject:RE: "Peak Data" error

Reply by: dbasement

Date:1/16/2005 11:25:39 AM

Thanks guys.

More info:
I am on a Win2000 machine, recording guitar, vocals & keyboard using the Echo Gina 24 card. I'm using ASIO drivers, and I currently have my buffer set at 256 samples. Should it be higher? What exactly does the buffer do?

I saw something else under Options: "Use slower updates to prevent playback clicks during editing". Should I check this?

Subject:RE: "Peak Data" error

Reply by: JohnnyRoy

Date:1/16/2005 11:44:20 AM

I’ve got an M-Audio Firewire 410 and my buffer is set to 256 also which gives about 5ms latency. That should be reasonable. What rate are you recording at? I use 24-bit/48KHz. A higher record rate may require a larger buffer. I would definitely check the "Use slower updates to prevent playback clicks during editing" option as a first step. If that doesn’t work, try increasing the buffer size to 512.

Perhaps someone else here has an Echo Gina 24 and can give more exact instructions?

~jr

Subject:RE: "Peak Data" error

Reply by: Iacobus

Date:1/17/2005 11:42:24 AM

Adding to what JohnnyRoy mentioned, you may be hitting a performance ceiling with your system, though 5 tracks really shouldn't be too much of a problem even with a relatively meager system.

Iacobus
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