Don't record to your system drive.
Don't have unnecessary junk running while recording.

There's zillions of threads on how to optimise a PC for recording, just laying around on this forum.

Get a second internal hard drive on its own cable and port to record your audio to. Alternatively you can get a USB hard drive (7200rpms) to do the same. Also change the temp folder in Sonar to the recording drive.

Continue browsing the forum to find the sticky about optimizing your PC for audio-especially turning off all networking components by disabling them.

what do you think about this setup?

Pc Intel Core 2 Duo E4300 1800mhz
mother ASUS p5vd2-x
hd maxtor 160gb sata2
2gb ram memory
sound board juli@ (egosystems)

I have always recorded in 24bits and 96k

besides getting an additional hard drive to record into, should I get a BETTER MICRO CHIP? let's say I had the budget to get a CORE 2 QUAD, would it be worth doing it WITH THIS MOTHER BOARD? I mean, would I get better results and more speed or would the motherboard just bring everything down in performance?

I use win xp, what about perhaps also adding 1gb or ram memory? (someone told me it's the maximum used by the xp)

I'm aware that this kind of question also pertains to other areas besides recording (general pc performance), but since I'm asking...

thanks!!!!!

My opinion which is not shared by all my fellow pc gear heads, is that 4 gigs is best-meaning two matched sticks of 2 gigs each. 3 gigs are recognized by the OS so maybe it's overkill, but I always use matched sticks after some less than satisfactory unmatched pairs I've had.

According to the quick specs I read, your board doesn't support quad core but you could get a faster duo core. That isn't necessary though. You have another SATA connector and two IDE connectors on that board. Get another hard drive and cable and plug it in all by itself on that channel. That will improve your performance drastically as your system cannot read and write to the same drive at the same time.

OS drive (c: usually) for OS and programs.

Secondary drive for recording destination and DAW temp files.

maybe your need to change your buffer setting to something like 256 or 512 when recording your synth????

maybe your need to change your buffer setting to something like 256 or 512 when recording your synth????

I see two things, as far as I know, related to this in the Audio options window in Sonar:

1_ mixing latency, which gives me the option of managing the "buffer size" from FAST to SAFE, should it turn it all the way down to SAFE?

and

2. probably what you mean, at the advanced audio options section, I see a tag for "file system" which has a clear option to set the [I/O Buffer Size (KB)is THAT latter which I should turn into 256 or 512? also, there's the option of enabling READ AND WRITE CHACHING, should I do sth about them too?

I'm desperate!!!!!!! I used to record in my old Athlon 2.0 with only 786mb of ram memory at immense stretches without getting a single problem!!! now with a newer computer, I can't do it!!! and I did it ON THE SAME HARD DISK!!!!

thanx!

The hard disc isn't the issue. The motherboard and other components playing nicely together is the issue. You have digital artifacts occurring so something is conflicting with the Juli@ or bottle necking the hard drive bus. Check your IRQ settings and get another hard drive.

Check these links for streamlining your pc:
http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm

http://home.comcast.net/~SupportCD/OptimizeXP.html

The first one I use and the second looked reasonable enough for me to bookmark.

http://www.sweetwater.com/sweetcare/ts/detail.php?Index=30058

http://www.sweetwater.com/sweetcare/ts/detail.php?Index=30083

It could as easily be Sonar 3 that is at fault. Have you (OP) considered this?

well, now I can officially say that it ISN'T the BUFFER SIZE, etc etc, since I increased it to 512 in sonar and still get the glitches...

you know, I forgot to mention that some times, BESIDES getting the annoying little noises in the recording, it sometimes happens that the recording STOPS and I get a message that the audio disk may be full... before you ask... OF COURSE IT'S NOT FULL!!! i still have plenty of space, and I have also tried now to free more, but it did remind me of the HARD DISK suggestions...

could it be, after all, that my hard drive (maxtor btw, which I've been told is not good at all...) ISN'T actually capable of reading and recording at the same time, or sth like that, so I should go and get a second drive??????

if that's not it, perhaps the MOTHER BOARD?

PLEASE!!!!!! my recording life depends on this!!!!!

any other ideas?

No hard drive is capable of reading and writing at the same time. You are sending more data to it than you have before and that is why it is faulting out. GET A USB HARD DRIVE.

Just for the record, 512 is not that big of a buffer in many cases. It may be big for a decent PCI bus but again, it's the fact you are overloading your IDE bus.

Your disc may not be full, but you may be out of continuous data space. Try a defrag a few times to straighten a few things out.

EDIT: But also...get an external ^

Well, instead of huntin' and peckin' maybe this will be more help to you:

search engines

So many variables, it is just to complicated to say without missing something...especially when you aren't giving as much help to those trying to help as you could ;)

Codemonkey wrote: Don't record to your system drive.
Don't have unnecessary junk running while recording.

There's zillions of threads on how to optimise a PC for recording, just laying around on this forum.

You never addressed this post and it can be one of the MAIN reasons why people get drop outs.

I would get out of crisis mode and try to relax, but that's just me ;)

Edit:
"There may be a bad setting in the AUD.INI file"
search engines

thanks space, you see, I actually paid attention to the advice on optimising the pc, did a lot of fiddling around with parameters, still get the same thing, that's why I didn't say anything...

and... I DIDN'T say I got dropouts, since I have already solved THAT problem some time ago by increasing the buffer size, as someone also suggested here, the problem is that the machine KEEPS RECORDING but when I finish a take, I see the bumps in the visual display of the take and HEAR THEM as well!!!

if you asked me, it looks as if the disk is not able to cope with the whole thing... but that's what's amazing, since I used to record with my old amd pc some years ago, using the juli@ card, and NEVER got anything like it...

the cables/audio in port of the board are also out of the question, I've already tested almost (if not) everything in relation to them

I'm going to read the sonar help link you gave me, cheers!

Just a note - you could've said you'd optimised various parts of the system. This way we know that it isn't MSN running in the background.

it surely isn't... I just don't know, I'm not even sure it's the hard drive.

I think I've mentioned that this NOT ONLY HAPPENS WHEN RECORDING, it seems to be a technical/configuration/HARDWARE problem, since I was once JUST PLAYING with the synth connected to the pc (not recording) at a relatively loud volume to check sth in the sound I was about to use, and I NOTICED A MINUSCULE, almost imperceptible STOP IN THE SOUND!!!! it was just a second, and then the audio went on playing...

the way I see it, it was the same GHOST haunting me!!!!! because that's the way this thing works: it's sporadic, not systematically happening in regular intervals or sth of the sort

that's why I keep thinking about the mother board... it's ASUS P5VD2-x, should I expect anything to go wrong with it?

The Asus P5 series in some incarnations has been used for audio for a long time. It could be the board or it could be a short in the Juli@ if it has age on it or was spiked while being handled. Additionally, if we are just talking system issues, if there is not sufficient ventilation then too much heat can cause ghosts in the machine as things begin to fry out.

well, the ventilation MIGHT be, but I'm not so sure, since I've never had any issues regarding that, I mean, any overheating or similar.

I bought the card in 2004, does it mean it's old? already??? what exactly do you mean by "spiked"?

thanks!

ferchis wrote: I bought the card in 2004, does it mean it's old? already???

Pretty much. 5 years is a lot by today's standards. For gaming, 'top of the line' video cards only last for a year or two at best. I can't imagine this would be much different.

We're always looking for ways to make things better, faster, cheaper.

Actually they last for maybe 5-10 years.
They become too slow for the current standards after about 2, but the card still works.

Codemonkey wrote: They become too slow for the current standards after about 2.

Exactly, that's what I meant. Like you can't play the newer games as they come out without upgrading to the new 'top of the line' Anyway, what am I talking about? @_@

I need to lay off the tea...

and the "spiked" thing...? do you mean damaged?

you know what...?

I THINK I MAY HAVE SOLVED THE ISSUE!!!!!!!!!

I ended up increasing the buffer size in sonar up to 1024!!!!! and so far I've tried 3 times for 4mins or so on the trot... EVERYTHING SEEMS TO BE FINE!!! NO GLITCHES, NO CLICKS, NO BUMPS!!! NOTHING SO FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!

I'm so happy... :D

you can tell, can't you? :roll:

Try 2048 if it happens again...

FWIW I've had mine at 4096 and it's because I had some configuration problems. My hardware is stupid fast.

well, boys... you know, JUST when I thought I had it, I'd made it and solved the problem of the f@!?¿ing click noise in the recording with just increasing the buffer size to its maximum (I got to 2048, that's as much as Sonar 3 will allow me to set),

I STILL HAVE THEM!!!!!!!! I tried recording for long stretches again, and what I thought was the solution was only a mirage!!!! they are back!!!!

I'm so disappointed and impotent... I just don't know... but wait: I CAN tell you that at least with the increment in buffer size they occur more sparsely, only one after some time has passed... does that mean that if I could increase it even more maybe I'd have the right solution?

do I still need an ADDITIONAL HARD DISK for recording?

thanks!

"do I still need an ADDITIONAL HARD DISK for recording?"

ZOMFGS YES YOU SHOULD HAVE TWELVE OF THESE ALREDY

Yes, you should. I have a stripped down PC on moderate hardware, and I would just about get away with 2 tracks to the OS drive. Tonight, actually, I put a 2nd drive in and that's that. No more worries unless it dies on me.

"I'm so disappointed and impotent"

Forgive my misunderstanding of this line.

If you want to record successfully many tracks at a time without artifacts you must have several things in order:

1. A computer purposed for audio and not internet-could be a tweaked pc or a mac, does not matter which.

2. A firewire or PCI/PCIe interface of good quality with stable drivers.

3. A non hacked DAW of good quality.

4. Either an external USB hard drive or for desktop computers, a secondary internal drive on it's own cable and port.

Even for two or three track recording it is best to have secondary audio only drives.

"I'm so disappointed and impotent"

Forgive my misunderstanding of this line.

jajaja, yeah, it's late in the evening and I don't even recall my name... I'm worn out, I can't believe I was actually able to write the preceeding stuff...

as regards the other things...

If you want to record successfully many tracks at a time

that's the thing!!!! I DON'T record many AT THE SAME TIME, I only record 1 (juli@ card, only 1 stereo input), but I DO PLAYBACK some tracks (maybe 5 or 6) at the same time; anyway, I get the odious glitch EVEN WHEN RECORDING 1 ONLY TRACK (let's say, an elec piano alone on 1 single track)

or PCI/PCIe interface of good quality with stable drivers

I guess the Juli@ should do... shouldn't it? It has for the last few years

A non hacked DAW of good quality

does sonar 3 suffice? should I get a newer one?

I get the hard drive part.... I think it's best and more shrewd to get an additional hard disk and use it for recording; in that case, should I reinstall sonar ON THAT DRIVE or could I leave it in C: and set the recording files to the new drive?

Let's try something...

Bounce/mixdown your 6 tracks that you'd play back, and save it to a single stereo file.

Disable all the plugins, tracks, etc. in your DAW except this newly mixeddowned (bounced...) file and try recording then.

I should really get on the ball more...

I'm just not familiar with the Juli@ cards at all. What you are describing sounds like a master clock issue which could only makes sense if the keyboard is coming in digitally.

When I talked about "spiked" earlier I was speaking of static dishcharge when handling and installing the PCI card and or motherboard/ram/etc.

Sonar 3 should suffice I would think but again that is not any of my DAW programs. Sonar is now at version 8 so perhaps it is a conflict with the modern circuitry.

For experimentation, go to this link and download Kristal.
http://www.kreatives.org/kristal/index.php?section=download

Install this and see if you get glitches. If not then perhaps Sonar 3 is just too old to cope with your new hardware for some reason.

Here is something else for you to try for diagnostic purposes. Download and install this program. Run it and expand the screen as wide as your monitor. Let it tell you about the latency inherit in your system as it sits. If you see large red spikes then your system has conflicts and/or driver issues.

http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml

OS drive (usually C: ) is for the OS and ALL programs. Secondary drive is for audio destination and storage only.

If you don't like Kristal, Reaper IS highly regarded and has a free trial period.

http://www.reaper.fm/

FWIW I'm running that latency checker on Windows 7 x64, on a totally non-optimised machine. I'm getting 150µs average.

I'll run this on my moderately capable machine on Thursday, if I remember, and report back.

I've downloaded krystal as you suggested jackattack, and STILL got minor clicks in the recording, they weren't visible though in the display, but I ALSO got audacity, and NOTHING SO FAR... no glitches at all, so maybe IT WAS sonar 3 getting a bit old...

which version would you recommend? 7 or 8? are they radically different from 3? could I still open my old sonar 3 files and use them in any of the newer versions? (I guess it should be possible, shouldn't it...?)

well, I definitely get red bard in the latency check program. it's amazing, they actually seem to pop up in similar intervals as the clicks in the audio do!!!

I try removing some devices in the manager, one by one, as suggested by the application, but still get them...

ooops, I meant "RED BARS" in the program...

Something in your computer is causing interrupts. What that is I don't know. Until you solve that you won't get any DAW to record without artifacts. That is why I almost always suggest the DPC checker for diagnosing. Unfortunately it doesn't tell you WHAT is the offending driver but knowing is half the battle.

I would start by disabling ALL networking-lan, wifi, bluetooth. Do this from the bios if possible. These are the biggest culprits. Firewalls and antivirus are also huge disruptions though once streamlined it is at least possible to use antivirus concurrently with recording. For that matter, make sure you have the latest bios from the mobo manu. Sometimes it IS the actual Basic Input Output that is the problem.

Next you need to start looking at all the peripherals you have plugged in other than the Juli@. Modem on Hold is terrible for occasional spikes as well as the Digital Line Detection. You also need to check your IRQ's and make sure that the Juli@ has no conflicts. Basic DAW tweaking in other words.

latest news:::::

I got word from the people at ESI, the official support centre; among many other things, they suggested I move the Juli@ board from one PCI slot to another and then reinstall the drivers...

you know what? I did it, and then the DPC checker shows fantastic results!!!!! NOT EVEN YELLOW PEAKS!!

I'm going to try and record sth now with sonar see if THIS is the thing....

That means you had an IRQ conflict. Glad it seems it will work out for you. Hope you still consider a secondary internal drive for the destination audio.

Check that you do not have IRQ conflict or sharaing of any kind with the audio interface. Sharing an IRQ with the USB controller, video card or controller or HD is going to almost always be an issue of some kind until it is resolved.

IRQ conflicts or sharing with anything is undesired and can cause anyting from a tick to BSOD.

Defrag your HD even if Windows reports that it is not needed.

Exit/Disable your ant-ivirus, all the non audio crap in the system tray as well as your wired AND wireless connections.