+-50 Tracks 96kHz

[jpupo74]

Hi,
Is anyone around here mixing projects which have between 50 and 64 tracks in 96kHz? If so, what computers are you using? I just sawpped to Reaper and there are lots of glitches. I cannot even hit play without one single plugin.

Intel core 2 Duo 3GB of RAM.
Also tried in a Laptop Intel core duo almost 3 GHZ, 4 RAM
MacBookPro Intel core 2 duo, 2 RAM.

Thanks,
Pupo

[Mike Brown]

I have been doing 75+ tracks as a 7.1 submix fairly regularly on a 3 year old Mac Book Pro (2.4 Ghz) with 4 gigs of ram and eSATA drives on a PTLE system....

I don't think the gig of ram would be THAT much of a difference... Where are you playing your tracks back from? I would recommend on an eSATA connection or FW800 minimum...

Any other info you can give us on your rig so we can narrow down the choke point?

[jpupo74]

Originally Posted by Mike Brown

I have been doing 75+ tracks as a 7.1 submix fairly regularly on a 3 year old Mac Book Pro (2.4 Ghz) with 4 gigs of ram and eSATA drives on a PTLE system....

I don't think the gig of ram would be THAT much of a difference... Where are you playing your tracks back from? I would recommend on an eSATA connection or FW800 minimum...

Any other info you can give us on your rig so we can narrow down the choke point?

Thanks a lot for your response Mike!
The best result Ive obtained is on a Dell with an Intel Core 2 Duo 3 RAM. Not very sure of the processor but two days ago I installed a RAID 0 made of two 500GB 7k2 drives running not with a RAID card but with the BIOS setting (software?)

I use a Mytek 8x192 via FW, mixing in the box with outaboard gear.
I tried to mix even by using 2048 as buffer size.

Ive also tried external FW Drives.
I am about to buy an SSD drive to see what happens but Im tired of not being to work normally.

Cheers,
Pupo

[psycho_monkey]

I've run 64 tracks at 96k from one fw800 drive before, but only when there's no fw400 drives on the same buss. Splitting it between an internal and external drive should get you there safely.

[jpupo74]

Originally Posted by psycho_monkey

I've run 64 tracks at 96k from one fw800 drive before, but only when there's no fw400 drives on the same buss. Splitting it between an internal and external drive should get you there safely.

Ive also been searchin on the Reaper forum. I friend of mine told me the best solution was an SSD, Ill try the external FW first since I have some. About the buss.

I have a PCM CIA FW card on my laptop. So you recommend an external drive using that crad and the Mytek connected via FW on the computer FW port?

Thanks,
Pupo

[robertshaw]

Originally Posted by jpupo74

Hi,
Is anyone around here mixing projects which have between 50 and 64 tracks in 96kHz? If so, what computers are you using? I just sawpped to Reaper and there are lots of glitches. I cannot even hit play without one single plugin.

Intel core 2 Duo 3GB of RAM.
Also tried in a Laptop Intel core duo almost 3 GHZ, 4 RAM
MacBookPro Intel core 2 duo, 2 RAM.

Thanks,
Pupo

I've done over 200 tracks at 96/24
compaq dc7900 quad core 6600
3 gig ram. The big difference is I use 15k harddisks
that is the key to large track counts

[jpupo74]

Originally Posted by robertshaw

I've done over 200 tracks at 96/24
compaq dc7900 quad core 6600
3 gig ram. The big difference is I use 15k harddisks
that is the key to large track counts

Hi robertshaw!
Thanks for your input.
Can you please specify which hard drives?
Cheers,
Pupo

[dub3000]

Originally Posted by jpupo74

Hi,
Is anyone around here mixing projects which have between 50 and 64 tracks in 96kHz? If so, what computers are you using? I just sawpped to Reaper and there are lots of glitches. I cannot even hit play without one single plugin.

Intel core 2 Duo 3GB of RAM.
Also tried in a Laptop Intel core duo almost 3 GHZ, 4 RAM
MacBookPro Intel core 2 duo, 2 RAM.

Thanks,
Pupo

have you run dpclat on your systems to make sure they don't have anything weird on there? (e.g. wireless internet, antivirus, or power saving modes will cripple your performance).

what plugins did you try? stuff like reaEq is really low on cpu even at 96khz.

you may simply need to use a larger buffer size. what's your audio buffer size? (and you're using ASIO, right?)

[dub3000]

(also... just out of interest, what do you hope to gain by working at 96khz? i only ever do that if i want to pull a decent sound out of one of a couple of old weird VSTis i have that don't internally oversample... most modern plugins already do that for you)

[ebulb]

When you go to hit play whats happening exactly ? The type of error would give some indication of where the problem is..

if its just skipping but trying to play its probably throughput speed, if its locking up altogether or if its crashing/closing the program its probably Reaper...

[jpupo74]

Originally Posted by dub3000

have you run dpclat on your systems to make sure they don't have anything weird on there? (e.g. wireless internet, antivirus, or power saving modes will cripple your performance).

what plugins did you try? stuff like reaEq is really low on cpu even at 96khz.

you may simply need to use a larger buffer size. what's your audio buffer size? (and you're using ASIO, right?)

Hi dub3000,
Yes I run dpclat, its all good. I mainly use reaEq, I was "trying to use" a couple Orange Eqs from Algorithmix (I know these are hard on CPU), and 2048 buffer size.

Originally Posted by dub3000

(also... just out of interest, what do you hope to gain by working at 96khz? i only ever do that if i want to pull a decent sound out of one of a couple of old weird VSTis i have that don't internally oversample... most modern plugins already do that for you)

I do heara differcne working at 96kHz. Feel sirght for me. But I think after all thses issues I will not use it again for a project where I have to do lots of processing.

Cheers,
Pupo

[jpupo74]

Originally Posted by ebulb

When you go to hit play whats happening exactly ? The type of error would give some indication of where the problem is..

if its just skipping but trying to play its probably throughput speed, if its locking up altogether or if its crashing/closing the program its probably Reaper...

Hi ebulb,
When I hit play nothing happens (I guess its buffering). After 4 seconds or so it plays and stops with lots of glitches and the transport bar starts turning red and blinking. It has only crahs once and I think because I was pissed and forced it.

Cheers,
Pupo

[norbury brook]

I've got a 52 trak project running at the moment in Reaper at 96k,at 1.5 ms latency no problems. You need good/32/64 meg buffer hard drives though, cpu isn't an issue it's what your drive can stream.


i7 920/6 gig 1600 mhz ram/gigabyte EP58-UD5/4x samsung spin point F3's



MC

[robertshaw]

Originally Posted by jpupo74

Hi robertshaw!
Thanks for your input.
Can you please specify which hard drives?
Cheers,
Pupo

Seagate Cheetah

[dub3000]

Originally Posted by jpupo74

Hi,
Is anyone around here mixing projects which have between 50 and 64 tracks in 96kHz? If so, what computers are you using? I just sawpped to Reaper and there are lots of glitches. I cannot even hit play without one single plugin.

Intel core 2 Duo 3GB of RAM.
Also tried in a Laptop Intel core duo almost 3 GHZ, 4 RAM
MacBookPro Intel core 2 duo, 2 RAM.

there might be some tweaks you can do to improve performance in that kind of situation - i remember someone posting about long delays on startup with gigantic projects. search the forums?

[DivineMusic]

currently mixing a song with 64 tracks at 24/96 in nuendo 4
no issues what so ever.
not running on 2-3 harddrives.. the session and audiofiles are all on my mail 1.5tb drive(Seagate Barracuda 7200.11)
currently have 2 1.5tb drives in my daw with 1 500gig drive as the os drive.

i7 920, gigabyte ga-x58a-ud3r, 6gig of ocz gold ram,gigabyte 5570 1gig video card, steinberg mr816csx,lucid 88192 etc

[jpupo74]

Originally Posted by DivineMusic

currently mixing a song with 64 tracks at 24/96 in nuendo 4
no issues what so ever.
not running on 2-3 harddrives.. the session and audiofiles are all on my mail 1.5tb drive(Seagate Barracuda 7200.11)
currently have 2 1.5tb drives in my daw with 1 500gig drive as the os drive.

i7 920, gigabyte ga-x58a-ud3r, 6gig of ocz gold ram,gigabyte 5570 1gig video card, steinberg mr816csx,lucid 88192 etc

Hey Divine Music,
Are you overclocking the 920?
Cheers,
Pupo

[Fuseburn]

Tried increasing the disk read buffer ? Preferences - Buffer - Advanced Options
Try just increasing the number of disk buffers from 3 to 6.
It'll take longer now until playback starts, but your glitches should be better - you need to fiddle around with it until you're fine.

Not having that kind of problems anymore since I'm back on Desktop PC with SATA-drives (no raid, just standard Samsung Spinpoint F1/F3s with 1 TB9

[kellyd]

Often mix projects @ 96K with over 60 trks sometime 80+ when there's lots of BVS.

I use Nuendo, Lynx AES16 cards and a Q6600 Quad core with SATA II drives.
No problems, plenty of horsepower.
At E.J's studio we use Nuendo, RME Madi and AMD Dual 6 cores with 16 gigs of ram. This thing's a monster.

[rogerbrain]

Mac pro dual quad 2.8 with 16gig ram (does not matter tho as I am still at 32bit on all my projects so it is acctually using 4 gig) logic 9.1 (running at 32bit still)
have WD velociraptor hard drives ..motu hd192 (two of them)

72 plus tracks with eq and comp plugs ... fast and glitch free.

I really think the hard drives help ..seperate for files and programs

[jpupo74]

Originally Posted by rogerbrain

Mac pro dual quad 2.8 with 16gig ram (does not matter tho as I am still at 32bit on all my projects so it is acctually using 4 gig) logic 9.1 (running at 32bit still)
have WD velociraptor hard drives ..motu hd192 (two of them)

72 plus tracks with eq and comp plugs ... fast and glitch free.

I really think the hard drives help ..seperate for files and programs

Yeah, th ethink is that Ive tried everything except tqeaking more my PC BIOS and config, I am searching for more stuff ti see what should I disable cause I think Im missing something. I am about to lace an order on a new system though, an overclocked 920 witha Gigabyte mobo, 2 SSD's one for OS one for mixing, a raid to record, a raid to backup and 6 of RAM, should be way more than I need but I wanna play it safe.

I havent been in the studio for a week now, doing paperwork and planning some recording. Ill try again todat and see what happens.

Cheers and thanks!
Pupo

[mroekalea]

If the problem is diskperformance (which i'm thinking) you can try this scenario:

1] Remove or move not used content from the disk to backupmedia (usb harddrive or similar).

2] Also move the project directory to another location (physical harddrive).

3] Make sure you have a minimal of 70% free space available.

4] Now defragment the drive.

5] Copy the project directory back to the defragmented drive.


Disk performance on fast disk will suffer if the total use comes above 85% depending on the fragmentationlevel. Using the series of instruction above you can improve your disk troughput as the audio project files are copied back to a not defragged drive and thus are copied contigues to de harddrive which gives less seektimes.

This is not a permanent solution as it is labour intensive, but still a workable work-a-round.

Let us (me) know if you consider this.

Menoj

[jpupo74]

Originally Posted by mroekalea

If the problem is diskperformance (which i'm thinking) you can try this scenario:

1] Remove or move not used content from the disk to backupmedia (usb harddrive or similar).

2] Also move the project directory to another location (physical harddrive).

3] Make sure you have a minimal of 70% free space available.

4] Now defragment the drive.

5] Copy the project directory back to the defragmented drive.


Disk performance on fast disk will suffer if the total use comes above 85% depending on the fragmentationlevel. Using the series of instruction above you can improve your disk troughput as the audio project files are copied back to a not defragged drive and thus are copied contigues to de harddrive which gives less seektimes.

This is not a permanent solution as it is labour intensive, but still a workable work-a-round.

Let us (me) know if you consider this.

Menoj

Hi Menoj,
I already formated the drive , 500Gb Seagate Barracuda (might be the problem) and didnt work. There was plenty of space in the drive!
Thanks,
Pupo

[jpupo74]

Originally Posted by Fuseburn

Tried increasing the disk read buffer ? Preferences - Buffer - Advanced Options
Try just increasing the number of disk buffers from 3 to 6.
It'll take longer now until playback starts, but your glitches should be better - you need to fiddle around with it until you're fine.

Not having that kind of problems anymore since I'm back on Desktop PC with SATA-drives (no raid, just standard Samsung Spinpoint F1/F3s with 1 TB9

Yeah, didn't work man...
Thanks,
Pupo

[jpupo74]

Dudes,
I still don't understand.
I just bought the SoundToys bundle and as soon as I open a Decapitator and a Echoboy the glitches start in a 22 audio track 44.1 kHz session!!!!
How the *$&/ is this related to disk read speed?
This is getting very confusing.
Do you think it could be the fact that I'm using a Mytek 8x192 via FireWire?
Thanks,
Pupo

[submarin]

Originally Posted by jpupo74

Dudes,
I still don't understand.
I just bought the SoundToys bundle and as soon as I open a Decapitator and a Echoboy the glitches start in a 22 audio track 44.1 kHz session!!!!
How the *$&/ is this related to disk read speed?
This is getting very confusing.
Do you think it could be the fact that I'm using a Mytek 8x192 via FireWire?
Thanks,
Pupo

Reaper needs some adjusting with the playback buffers, browse the reaper forum for this, then it will run great.

Also when you´re on W7, you have to disable Coreparking, this info you´ll find in the Sonar forum..

good luck..

[jcschild]

Originally Posted by jpupo74

Dudes,
I still don't understand.
I just bought the SoundToys bundle and as soon as I open a Decapitator and a Echoboy the glitches start in a 22 audio track 44.1 kHz session!!!!
How the *$&/ is this related to disk read speed?
This is getting very confusing.
Do you think it could be the fact that I'm using a Mytek 8x192 via FireWire?
Thanks,
Pupo

hae you bothered to run a benchmark on the drives?
sisoft sandra or HDtach.
sound like you may have a bad drive if it would not format...

Scott
ADK