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So i am using a Sony vaio laptop that works great. My interface (saffire pro 24) works great, and my monitors (Yamaha hs50's) are fine as well. Now my issue is that after having Pro Tools open for more than like 15 minutes, everything i play back has a bunch of fuzz. The vocals sounded fine one second and then after a time frame, everything is complete crap. Let me say that i know for a fact that it isn't my interface nor is it my express card(Rain computers) for a fact. Any ideas?

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TheJackAttack Wed, 10/26/2011 - 21:20

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Also, the stock hard drive for that laptop is a 5400 rpm hard drive. This is not good for audio production. It can be done for lower tracked projects but you will definitely need a second external hard drive for your audio destination folder. I recommend Glyph. You have an eSATA port so that would be the way to go for an external drive. If you had the resources I would add a second external drive for your audio cache/temp folder.

If it were me, and your mileage may vary, I would start with swapping and cloning my internal hard driver for a Seagate 7200rpm drive and purchasing a pro level external hard drive. Likely this will fix your issues.

TheJackAttack Wed, 10/26/2011 - 21:50

It really sounds like his cache file bogs after a time. He is only using a single internal 5400rpm os drive. But it could combine with a buffer error to be sure. The machine is def usable. The specs aren't that different than one of my six year old laptops and it does fine for a mobile rig. But I have externals plugged in.

TheJackAttack Thu, 10/27/2011 - 11:31

With something like this:
[[url=http://[/URL]="http://www.newmodeu…"]2nd Drive Caddy for Sony VAIO E & F Series (add 2nd HDD or SSD) [OBHD-SATA12-SATA-BU] - $44.75 : NewmodeUS, Hard Drive Caddys for Notebooks[/]="http://www.newmodeu…"]2nd Drive Caddy for Sony VAIO E & F Series (add 2nd HDD or SSD) [OBHD-SATA12-SATA-BU] - $44.75 : NewmodeUS, Hard Drive Caddys for Notebooks[/]

I'm not sure this is exactly the one for your machine. You would have to email the company for guidance. I have also added two extra hard drives via firewire or even firewire for audio external and USB for cache external. In all cases you need to use 7200RPM drives.

RemyRAD Thu, 10/27/2011 - 16:01

I purposely purchased a Hewlett-Packard DV 8339 US back in 2006. I purchased this particular model as it is one of the few that contained 2 SATA hard drives built into it. Does 2 drives were 5400 RPM and I replaced them with 2 larger drives that were both 7200 RPM. This required reloading operating system & software and such but also gives me an internal secondary drive for cache, which are faster in their data throughput than an external USB 2.0 drive. But this is only 1 of very few laptops out there that features 2 internal hard drives. But your problem sounds to me more like an operating system issue? If the data is there and not corrupted, it should at least play with some stuttering as opposed to blanket fuzz. That sounds like some kind of data header issue? And I have really no suggestions in dealing with that. Can you transfer bits or pieces of individual tracks and have them play properly? Or is it just this way across the board? We must first try to troubleshoot this in order to play back a single track as opposed to all at the same time. Because of your 5400 RPM drive, multitrack data may not be properly accessible and the onboard cache, of the hard drives may be equally insufficient? So it may just not be strictly OS issues but actual hardware limitations. Just because it's a Sony doesn't mean they don't include free baloney.

Click your heels together and just say I want a 7200, I want a 7200, I want a 7200
Mx. Remy Ann David

RemyRAD Fri, 10/28/2011 - 12:56

Well I personally hope that in the not-too-distant future, most laptops will at least have dual SSD drive capabilities. It makes total sense for so many purposes to keep the operating system/programs & storage, separate. But then cars did not start off with V-8 engines in them either. So we are still taking baby steps with our current technologies. And also because our general-purpose consumer oriented computers are still not really powerful enough nor fast enough to properly deal with multitrack DSD at 1 bit, 5.8 MHz sample rate. Most of our complaints about the sound of digital will be curtailed when the next great leap of technology is implemented. Unfortunately at this stage, not even SSD's can withstand as many read/write operations that mechanical disk drives still offer. I know this only because of all the years I have spent flying around on the Starship Enterprise since the late 1960s. I'm not sure what I'm doing in this timeline? I keep clicking my heels together and still I'm looking at my 35-year-old NEVE. WTF?

Beam me up Scotty. (I'm sorry, I forgot Scotty was dead in this timeline)
Mx. Remy Ann David
United Federation of Planets, retired.