How many, what size & type are your hard drives?

Hi Folks, sorry for the delay on answers,
 
Bristol:  I am running one single internal hard drive, honestly all i know about it is what it states in the properties of my c drive. which states: ST3500630AS ATA Device. (I believe this is the correct one) (There are two usb and the DVD/CD drive also listed) (I have no external or second hard drive.
 
Right now my properties show that my hardrive is 49.4GB free of 97.7GB
 
I will try the DPCLAT test, Cactus... still haven't told me if you're in the Oakanagan... or Carbioo... lol. Should i run the test while sonar is up and playing back a song?
 
Cheers, and a million thank you's for your continued help :)
Rob.

OK, the DPCLAT test came back normal, all very good. Well below the green line, and reporting that this system should not have any drop outs.
I even ran the test during playback of a 12 track song in Sonar with fx running.
 
So is it the Hard Drive... It looks like from a lot of sig lines that most of you have large external hard drives. Could i simply not be giving the audio enough room?
Thanks
Rob.

I think it's more likely you're bottlenecking with having your OS & your audio all on the one drive.

What does this, or any other project exhibiting problems, contain?
Is it all Audio or are you running Soft Synths? How many of each?
How many tracks? 
How many Fx plugs?
Any with known latency problems?
What's your Bussing structure?

Have you cleared out your picture cache recently?

Once we know this then a Hard Drive strategy can be worked out.

Hi Bristol,

OK, excuse the poor computer skills and spelling errors... i am going to try to attempt to answer these questions the best I can,

What does this, or any other project exhibiting problems, contain?
A: The total "project" contains 13 Songs (with all thier related Cakewalk Project Files, and Audio Files) For each of the 13 songs they started with a scratch guitar track and a click (now earsed) then (in Gyln Johns Style) 4 tracks of Drums were added, then next was added tracked backing guitar tracks. (This numbered up to 4-6 depending on the intros, acoustic vs. electric tracks that the song calls for) Why so many: Each track is doubled by the gitarist and panned left right for a chorus effect unique to the players style. 

 Is it all Audio or are you running Soft Synths? How many of each?
A: It is all Audio, each track was recorded with a microphone, no synths were used, no drumagog or anything like that added, pure dry signal mic'd amps and drums straight into each track.

How many tracks?
A: 4 for drums (put into a track folder) 2 for Rythumn guitars typical for most songs (Put into a backing guitar folder). 5 or 6 have 2 added tracks for acoustic guitar, and again 2 added for some rudimentary type lead lines. In the case of two songs 2 more added for Separate acoustic intro's and Outro's. So The real answer is mainly 6, some times 8, special case 10, and very speial case 12.

 How many Fx plugs?
For all the drums through out the entire project all 13 songs, all 4 tracks, a SonitusFx Compressor First then a SonitasFX Equalizer (on one song i used a SonitusFx 1DB boost for a weak snare) in order on the main track line.

For The Electric Guitars Typically i used a SonitasFx Equalizer, and A TL64 Tube Leveler on the main track line.
For Acoustic Guitar Track  i used only an SonitasFx Equalizer.

Any with known latency problems?
a: None that i know of, the acoustic guitars seemed to be problematic, but i think it was due to the fact they were late in the recording, and there was already 6-8 tracks being played back during recording. Drums had Zero latency problems, nor did Electric Guitars. We tryed to line in an acoustic, and then an electric thats where we hit the Latency trouble. The main problem was and has always been the Drop Outs. The latency is a huge concern though as we enter the vocal recording stage of the record. We were messing with Buffersize to eliminate latency and noticed drop outs.

What's your Bussing structure?
A: My 4 drum tracks are bussed accross into a single Sonitas FX Reverb Bus, they are also Bussed into a single separate Buss with a VC-64 Vintage Compressor.
Any Electric Guitars are bussed into single a Sonitas FX Reverb bus, there is one song that utilizes a Lexicon Patheon Reveb (but only one song.)
Any acoustic guitar tracks are bussed into another single SonitasFX reverb bus.

From this point you can see how each track is bussed accross into it's reverb/compressor buss.
Next all tracks, incuding busses are sent to the Master. On the Master i have a LP64 Multiband EQ, and BuzzMaxi brick wall limiter. The Master is bussed to the Motu PCI Card.

Have you cleared out your picture cache recently?
a: I am not sure what picture cache is, and have not done so.

I Hope this helps, thank you for your support, it is very much appreciated.
Cheers,
Rob.

Ok Rob. thanks for the very detailed response.

One thing that does leap out of me is this: 'all tracks, including busses are sent to the Master'


Do you mean you have a send inserted on each track which feeds into the master or do you mean the outputs of each track?


One of the 'correct' ways to organise your tracks and busses is to route EVERY track's OUTPUT to a buss, and then route the OUTPUTS of ALL busses to your master buss. In other words the only thing feeding into your master buss are your sub-busses


Sounds like the rest of your bussing is ok with send being inserted on the relevant tracks to your Fx busses.


Nothing else about the project should be causing the symptoms you're describing and your pc spec is well up to the task.


So in my opinion, the finger is definitely pointing to the hard drive.


It's very common to have at least 2, maybe 3 hard drives but seeing as you're not running any massive sample streaming libraries, 2 should suffice.


So you have one dedicated to your Operating System & programs, and the other for all your Cakewalk projects.

But also empty your picture cache. Mine is located in C:\Cakewalk Projects\Picture Cache.


If you can't find it, do a search for *.wov files to find the folder. Delete everything in the folder

Hi again,
So the new internal hardrive has helped, almost got it solved. New material being recorded is not being affected by buffer drop outs. Oddly enough on play back i am still encountering some buffer drop outs on tracks that i recorded earlier. After some long listening, i found that the buffer drop outs were not consistent, and if i expanded the wave form on screen, they were not there (or at least did not appear as a peak or drop out) So my only assumption is that those tracks now need to be re-recorded.
 
I do have a cunning plan however, before i drag a guitarist back into the Rock Walls, i am going to take my worst case song, bundle it, and send it to a fellow that has a better PC than i, i am going to have a listen there, hopefully there wont be drop outs. If this is the case, then i will do all my final mixes and production at his studio (If he'll let me, lol)
 
So in the end i believe that the new hard drive is helping to speed up in/out process. However i am beginning to thing that my I3 540 Hyperthreading core is just to weak. Its the last item that could potentially be stalling things. I do plan to upgrade to and I5 or I7 compatible with my mobo.
 
Thanks for all your help folks.
Rob.

It's just does not seem right, you have done all the correct things. My computer is not even as powerful as yours and I only get into trouble when adding a lot of soft synths.
But sometimes they say certain system configuration just plain don't work with audio. My son bought a Dell that he had to give up on.

Just a long shot, but Video card?? I have read somewhere that after pulling hair for few months some have turned up with the video card causing the issues..don't quote me on that.

PS: I live in the mountains west of Grand Forks.