New to the forum...quick question

Has anyone else had the problem of tracks dragging? In other words, after laying down my rhythm track (drums and bass line), my subsequent tracks all seem to start dragging out of sync after 30-40 seconds. Is this a hardware problem or is it in the program settings?

If it helps, I have an IBM eServer 205x running XP home...has P4 2.4 GHz, 1GB of ram and a Sound Blaster Audigy SE.

Thank you in advance, Greg

Could be the soundblaster soundcard...

Yeah...I agree on the BS I mean SB card.... fraudian slip... sorry...

The soundcard is really important, especially when you start using synths in midi tracks and mixing it up with audio and other synth tracks.....unfortunately, the soundblasters.....as good as they may be for other uses, are not suitable for serious audio recording applications like Cakewalk.

It may be time to consider an up grade.

No, while the Sound Blaster isn't designed specifically for recording, it's way more advanced than the RealTek. You will have a great deal of latency with the RealTek, much more than the SB, and the playback of just a few audio tracks will start dragging.
This sounds like the classic case of SB using a 48 kHz sampling rate. Check your latency slider in MC, 'Options>audio', that's where you can also see what the sampling rate of MC is. If it's set to 44.1 kHz, try changing it to 48 and see if the problem goes away with new tracks. The old tracks can't be fixed in any way if they were recorded with mismatched sampling rates.
I used a SB card for several years and didn't have this problem, once the settings for MC and the SB were correct. But it didn't support ASIO drivers, and I couldn't get the latency below 20 ms without popping noises occuring, so I upgraded.
Check the Creative site for driver updates for the Audigy.

I was just going to ask a similar question...Your answers to OtherGregs questions seem to fit (you guys ROCK) I Installed MAudio 5.1 sound card to this build:
HP Pavilion Celeron
XP Sp2
512 mb RAM
6xx mhz processor speed
When I opened a project from the other machine (which played back fine on it) it played back distorted and tempo dragged increasingly slower. I'll check sampling rates first.
Ken
PS-MC4 is currently only installed on the new machine

The new machine meets the minimum requirements for mc 4 and 5.1 but not the recommended requirements. The laptop that I used to have mc 4 on only had half the RAM (I'm at work and I don't remember the other specs on the laptop) but the program worked well. One issue worth noting is that I can't squeeze out enough uniterrupted time to work on the new computer

Me neither...oh, yes I can. Unemployment has some advantages!
My last machine with MC Pro 24 on it was a 1.1 GHz Celeron with 384MB and it did alright until the audio added up. Some tweaking may be in order for optimum performance.

That's an M-Audio product, right? Look at any post by Beagle and click the link to his site for sound card recommendations. Also, some of us have our gear listed in our signatures, so see who's got what.
M-Audio is a good company, once called MIDI Man, I believe, and their products are well-made, reliable and much better than SB for serious audio recording. Tell yourself what you are going to be doing with it; how many inputs will you need? If you're recording a full band and want all the instruments playing at the same time on different tracks, you'll need a device with lots of inputs. Oh, the MC line of sequencers only accepts 2 simultaneous inputs-2 mono tracks or 1 stereo track, so you'd need SONAR Home Studio 6 at least to get multiple inputs. If you're a 1-man-band like a lot of us, then 2 is enough. Do you have a MIDI keyboard and want to connect that? Make sure it has MIDI ins and outs. What are it's system requirements? Is it Vista compatible (if applicable)? Go to the Guitar Center and Sam Ash and Sweetwater sites and read some of the buyer's reviews. Do you have (or are considering getting) condenser microphones? You will need a device with phantom power, as required for condensers.
I think I left you with more questions than answers!
Ken, thank you for the compliment. I like it, too, but I'm biased.

Although I absolutely respect all the guys opinions on this forum I just would like to mention that I use the Realtek High def chip on my comp for my sound and have NEVER had any issues whatsoever. Conversersly I had NOTHING but issues with a soundblaster audigy card that cost my $200 and MANY MANY hours trouble shooting to no avail. Do I think a upgraded sound card is worth the money?!?!?........Absolutely....But I would still pick the realtek over the SB ANYDAY.

Edit:Also as i have siad in previous posts up til now i have worked mostly with midi and have never ran more than 8 audio tracks at once. Sound chip might be a differnt story beyond that but i don't know.

There was a time when SB cards were the only show in town. Built in chips were very dodgey at best, but some will do a decent job of replaying stuff, but they suffer during recording ands have terrible latency. Also limited options. Sound Blasters setup right can get a lot done, with that said i still prefer a good old M-Audio 24/96 solid as a rock and a ASIO beast to boot.

I remember Electrobud's SB troubles, but must say one man's trouble is another triumph! I have heard some good jobs done with an old SB, or the newer Audigys.

I think a great duo is a M-Audio for record and playback thru a good audigy with a top notch sound font GM bank as a zero latency synth

Besides there is a great difference between getting decent results with a built in chip card and getting "great results"

Kind like saying wow this Nissan Sentra flat out flys, that is until you take a spin in a Porsche