Hi folks, just a quick question. I have a project that has 7 songs in it, and it is around 60 or so audio tracks, with lots of VST effects (no midi synths)
When I start the computer, start sonar, and load the project, it is taking 4 or 5 min to get everything together under the hood and get to the state where I can start recording. Would a SSD hard drive speed this loading time up? I have no experience with these new types of hard drives, but Ive heard stories of Windows OS on one of these drives starts within a few seconds of pressing the on button.
I know 4 or 5 min isn't a long time to wait, but when creativity hits I'd like to have a recorder that is ready to go asap. Thanks!

Hi - why do you have all of those songs pieced together into a single project?
 
That doesn't make sense to me - so if it does to you, which is fine, please explain.
 
An SSD will load the OS quicker, by seconds, and projects will generally load faster - to what degree depends on a lot of things, but in general terms it will load things faster.
 
But, I again would question having so much stuff all strung together like you are doing.
 
If it were me, I would split those into multiple projects.
 
Bob Bone
 

I have an SSD, it was hooked in as a fast data drive.  (For my boot drive I have a fast 10,000 rpm mechanical drive.)
 
If you did nothing but buy the smallest ssd you can, and had windows use it as the cache device, you'd be miles ahead.  Noticeably snappier.  Almost night and day.
 
I used to have a SSD for the boot drive and it gave all those "fast boot up" times.  Did you know that if you have an ssd for a boot drive, windows does not even use a cache because the drive is so friggen fast.
 
The only reason I gave up my ssd boot drive was it was no longer large enough.  But by making it a data drive, and specifically by putting the cache on it, I got 75% of the benefit.
 
Highly recommended.
Rick
 
My system:
i7
16 Gig ram
 

FWIW, I am hesitant to come to the SSD as a "solution" and agree with Bob. For me, all of my data files are on a 7200rpm HDD, and only the OS/X3/plug-ins are on my SSD (i.e. the engines). X3 will start fast this way, but I can literally choke it to death by piling on unnecessary things. I am also confused to opening several songs in the same project... just the overhead that implies seems unnecessary.
 
Project folders have made things simpler to find, and X3 can open multiple projects at once, so if I find the desire to move things between songs, I chose this route myself. "Lots of VST effects" can also put the chokepoint on your CPU rather than the data itself. For example, long ago I decided off the cuff to make a project with many VSTi's in it just in case I wanted to play around with them later, and when I opened that (blank project) later the load time was noticeable (and everything in that was on my SSD).
 
I would lean more to saving that project file seven times into their own project folders, then paring each down to only work with one song at a time. Of course you can open more than one at once, but then you will be driving that decision, not it being a "by default" setup.

Thank you for the replies. I will break the song up when it comes to final mixdows. However for tracking and overdubs, when all of the songs are in one project, the act of recording on an entire album becomes super fast. You just pop around from one song to another, hit record, and lay down the music. I wouldn't even have considered doing it this way until I was at River's Edge productions (where Godsmack recorded "Awake") and I watched the engineer track a band in this fashion. (almost like the project is a large reel of analog tape). It kept the music flowing and didn't kill the vibe by making the musicians wait on the DAW. I find it also keeps a good consistancy across the entire project and the album as a whole. Of course each song is going to need it's own little tweaks come mixdown, but this type of workflow works for me when a band wants to record more than a song or two.
So from what I've gathered, yes a SSD drive will speed things up for me. Excellent!
 
 
 

I can see somewhat the benefit of this arrangement, but usually
that type of thing is reserved for Mastering.
 
Songs normally reside in "individual projects" and then are mixed down indvidually
and brought into a separate project for the overall mastering of the album.

But, that's a "norm" not a "rule"....

The major downside to what you're doing is "load time", which is what you were asking
about.  With multiple songs and multiple audio files residing in a single project file, the
load time will become quite long - even with an SSD.  It will be faster, but will still be
far more then "normal".

As my system was Probably not working correctly with ssd drive for the Boot drive (in hind sight), I also notice long loading of 2 hr sessions, 16 track projects, in x2a and x3c, when they would load...So I do not think much time would be saved in doing so in that regard , unless a secondary ssd drive was holding the project and audio PERHAPS?..if any. ,, long load times seems to be linked to the "wave image drawing" of the tracks...from what I saw sonar doing when opening large projects with that ssd...again my system was not performing correctly, and or with Sonar, so take this with a grain of salt.....

Sure, I used to record the "standard" one song/one project way on a DAW for years. But then come mastering time the songs really did sound like they were recorded at seperate times/locations. Eq and overall mix levels varied enough that the tunes sounded more like a collection of songs instead of an album recorded in the same session.  Keeping everything in the same project means that things like guitar sounds, background vocal levels, snare timbre, etc.. stay consistent song to song (the entire song collection just sounds more like an "album" to me). Reverb tails, delay times, and many other things get tweaked from tune to tune, but a ton of things can stay more or less the same, if the songs are in the same genre (a well recorded drum kit, a wall of guitars, bass guitar).
Of course there is no wrong way to "get it down" as long as the music is good.
 
Now the big question....should I buy a smaller SSD now or bite the bullet and *gasp* save for larger one. I have GAS bad so saving is really tough for me :)
 

bandso
Sure, I used to record the "standard" one song/one project way on a DAW for years. But then come mastering time the songs really did sound like they were recorded at seperate times/locations. Eq and overall mix levels varied enough that the tunes sounded more like a collection of songs instead of an album recorded in the same session.  Keeping everything in the same project means that things like guitar sounds, background vocal levels, snare timbre, etc.. stay consistent song to song (the entire song collection just sounds more like an "album" to me).

SSD drive aside, that's an interesting approach. I can see where it would be great for achieving a cohesive sound.

bandso
Now the big question....should I buy a smaller SSD now or bite the bullet and *gasp* save for larger one. I have GAS bad so saving is really tough for me :)

Be sure you read up on SSDs... they have their own set of rules. Here is a nice guide on them for Win7 (I am not sure what you are running). Also, be sure you put it on a SATA III (6GB/s) connection, otherwise you will not see "great" performance from it.
 
FWIW, I installed a 240GB SSD as my OS/Program/Plug-in drive, and it still runs ~70GB free with 205 programs loaded on it (including Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 which is rather huge). I am diligent about housekeeping though (I run Iobit Advanced System Care 7 Pro for this). That will at least give you a benchmark of sorts. Most data goes on 7200rpm HDDs though... I have seen the SSD act flaky at times with massive files (so take that with a grain of salt, since mine is older).
 
BTW, I understand your point now, but not sure I agree with it