antenora1009
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Juice Up My PC
I have a pretty standard PC right now. Just an Intel Dual Core (3ghz each), a gig of ram, and a 200 gig harddrive. It does a pretty good job for the most part running Sonar 6 Studio, but when i get up into the 20+ audio tracks with effects, i start to dropout occasionally. Any suggestions on what hardware i can add?
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Beagle
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RE: Juice Up My PC
2007/05/15 08:38:04
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There are several things you can do to help with that. first of all, I would increase latency buffers during mixing/editing. you don't need low latency during editing, only during tracking. that will help tremendously.
2nd, S6S has the freeze function available. freeze will freeze your synths/plugins and will relieve CPU strain for those tracks.
3rd - bounce synths to audio at the earliest time available, then archive the MIDI and Synth tracks. that will also free up resources.
options:
an additional hard drive used solely for recording with a speed of 7200rpm or better is recommended. after adding the drive, you simply change your settings in Sonar to use the new drive for projects. don't reinstall sonar to run from the new drive, and don't try to move the OS onto it. just use it for projects.
another gig of RAM CAN help, but maybe not that much. I didn't have any real increase in performance between 1G and 2G.
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gamblerschoice
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RE: Juice Up My PC
2007/05/15 08:40:53
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You can never have too much ram, if there is an empty slot, fill it. Plus, ram is the cheapest upgarde available. The only other suggestion would be a second hard drive. I have my program on one drive, then all of the data goes to a second drive. The key for the drive is read speed, memory is failling me, but I believe it should be over 7200, others might help on that one. At this point, though, you probably have all the hardware upgrades available to you incorporated, max ram, two drives, dual core, what else is there? There are sites that offer tweak information, which services you can shut down, optimized settings for windows, etc., but I can't think of them now. If no one else comes in with these suggestions, I will add them to this post when I get home, but a google for "optimizing windows for digital audio" might produce results. The less background services running the better, unfortunately bill gates made things redundant and dependant, so don't go shutting things down with out first backing things up. Hope I was of some help.
Later
Albert
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gamblerschoice
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RE: Juice Up My PC
2007/05/15 09:35:12
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Looks like Beagle and I were posting at the same time, you should have plenty to work with now...have fun. Also, there is another post from Gregy, look it over, more suggestions. Later Albert
post edited by gamblerschoice - 2007/05/15 09:36:17
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Robomusic
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RE: Juice Up My PC
2007/05/15 13:26:37
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If you add another HD and the setup you have is the IDE format make sure that the two HDs are on separate IDE ports on the mother board, and slave the CD rom burner to one of them rather than placing on hard drive after the other.
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libirm
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RE: Juice Up My PC
2007/05/15 17:20:46
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Pardon my intrusion on this thread but Robo & Gam, you guys know your stuff & I trust your advice:
I having similar problems, could you guys recommend a brand to buy for a recording computer?
Maybe a configurations well?
Thanks
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Robomusic
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RE: Juice Up My PC
2007/05/15 19:19:45
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Well any good desktop with a ton o' ram, and stuff will do, but really a brand is not where i would start due to all the bundled software, i would build one myself or have one build by someone with nothing but the operating system on it. (stay with XP if you can) A good dual core , with 2 gig of ram, and two hard drives will smoke for recording.
post edited by Robomusic - 2007/05/15 19:24:27
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libirm
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RE: Juice Up My PC
2007/05/15 19:42:40
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Thanks ROBO-
OS? will Music Creator work on Vista? Stick with xp?
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57Gregy
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RE: Juice Up My PC
2007/05/15 21:49:01
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OS? will Music Creator work on Vista? Stick with xp?
Vista, not yet. Stick with XP until all the bugs are worked out in Vista.
Greg
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gamblerschoice
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RE: Juice Up My PC
2007/05/15 21:58:50
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Echo robo and gregy...brand name is not important, and xp is the os for now. Vista is still a few years away from being de-bugged. Dual core, 1 or more gig of ram, 2 drives (sata), onboard pro sound card, forget word processing, money management programs, photo shop, games, concentrate the resources on digital audio. Sweetwater makes a dedicated audio platform, but the cost may be over your budget, I think the lowest price setup is around $2500, but you can build one for a lot less if you use your head. Make a list, talk to others either here or out side this forum, explain your desires, and build a system you can work with for years.
Later
Albert
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Robomusic
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RE: Juice Up My PC
2007/05/16 00:57:42
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I built mine about four years ago for under a $1,000 US and it worksgreat, i plan on a new build this year and i expect to spend around the same.
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