Newcomer's Cubase files deteriorating!

[Tim Cross]

Please somebody help!

I've nearly finished recording a 7 song demo and the files are starting to increasingly crackle and jump! Each song uses about 10 mono tracks (all audio, not midi) and I'm sampling at 96 kHz in order to keep the latency down. I'm using Cubase VST 5 on my PC which has 512 Mb RAM, a 1.8 GHz processor and an Audiophile 2496 soundcard. I've tried altering the 'Memory per channel' and 'Disk Buffer size' settings but nothing's helping! I can't afford to rerecord the drums all over again, and I'm starting to panic!!

Any suggestions would be greatfully appreciated.

Thanx

Tim

[robbyc23]

Well everything sounds like it should be OK, (although I don't really understand the 96kHz/latency relationship).

I used VST5 on a P233 and got over 10 tracks of audio out of it, so the only thing that I'm thinking is that you're using too many plugins/EQ/dynamics and that this is putting too much of a load on the CPU.

One solution would be to mix down each track(channel) with the FX and load them up into a new song. Thus, having them sounding the same without the plugins.

Even now with a more powerful Mac, I sometimes run into the same problem on SX. This doesn't degrade your recordings, it just means that the PC's just having a hard time.

Generally, I say nothing to the band. Bounce down things like drums, bass, rhythm guitar and create a simpler song file, with less plugins, to allow me to finish recording. Then I sort out the problems afterwards...

Good luck,

Robby

[lambchop]

You can also consider adding more RAM, say another 512meg, which will provide more headroom for plugins etc.

[Tim Cross]

Thanks guys! I bounced some tracks down as Robby suggested and it worked! Why won't Cubase let you bounce down at 96kHz if it'll let you work in it? I've had to create whole new songs in 44.1 (which pushes the latency to 9 ms)!

I think I will get some more RAM tho, as I've just installed NI "Elektrik Piano" and it will barely run!