How many tracks can YOU use?

[flamin-gitaur]

I was just wondering, on average, how many tracks all of you guys/gals use in Tracktion before your CPU meter starts wiggin' out. I know the types of plugs and the amout of processing power of your computer will have alot to do with this, but for me, it seems that once I get about 18-20 tracks going (sometimes less)I need to start freezing things .My computer is:

Pentium4
3GHz, 800FSB
1GB DDR2 SDRAM
160 GB Hard drive (7200)

[olepro]

The number of (audio)tracks is relying on a fast harddisk, not cpu.

What kind of tracks do you mean?

[flamin-gitaur]

The number of (audio)tracks is relying on a fast harddisk, not cpu.

What kind of tracks do you mean?

I was speaking of using both audio and midi tracks.

[Madness]

I was just wondering, on average, how many tracks all of you guys/gals use in Tracktion before your CPU meter starts wiggin' out. I know the types of plugs and the amout of processing power of your computer will have alot to do with this, but for me, it seems that once I get about 18-20 tracks going (sometimes less)I need to start freezing things .My computer is:

Pentium4
3GHz, 800FSB
1GB DDR2 SDRAM
160 GB Hard drive (7200)

Much the same, I havn't hit the limit on CPU's yet, but once I see the bar maxing out I try some rendering' action etc., I can work pretty comfortably with the following!! Limit is Graphically having more tracks than I can deal with psychologically after a long mixing composing session.

8 x Drum Tracks (Vst)
4 x Stereo Lead Tracks (Audio\VST)
2 x Mono Bass Tracks (audio)
2 x Stereo EFX Tracks (audio)

Plus;
upto 8 compressors inserted, 2 Reverbs, 3 delays, 6 highpass filters, 4 x Mackie EQ's, a Pitch shift plus a stereo widner!!

AMD 2400XP, 1gig Ram, 2 x 80gig HDDs

[olepro]

olepro wrote:
The number of (audio)tracks is relying on a fast harddisk, not cpu.

What kind of tracks do you mean?


I was speaking of using both audio and midi tracks.

Yes but this will tell us nothing !
Is it hardware or software miditracks?
Does your audiotracks include effects??

With the right vst instrument playing sixty notes i can kill my cpu with only one track.

You really must tell what vsti's and effects and whatever you use to give you any answer to this kind of question.

[diverdee]

Would it be possible to create a test song for tracktion, utilising only the fx, vsti etc. that come bundled with tracktion & some audio files etc?
There's a similar test song a Live user put up on the ableton forums & it allows people to benchmark the efficiency of their systems against other peoples.
It's not a pissing contest, it can be useful, for instance if two people with near identical systems have fairly divergent efficiency ratings then it may lead to comparisons of system settings etc. which may help the user of the less efficent system to track down the cause of the comparative inefficiency.

[AD80]

Would it be possible to create a test song for tracktion, utilising only the fx, vsti etc. that come bundled with tracktion & some audio files etc?

We could use the example Tracktion tracks for this. Finally they have a good use.

[Rock]

I know I've recorded 24 tracks at once.

[lharless]

i've gotten 16 at once on a P4 3.2 800fsb, 1gb ram, with the onyx 1640 f/w into tracktion and cubase le.

my hard drives were 7200rpm.

NOW i have a mac G4 1.67 2gb ram with 2 7200rpm drives, one being f/w 800 and one being usb 2.0. i have yet to try to get simultaneous tracks with the mac. ill be doing this sunday... ill let you know how it goes.

recording shouldn't be a problem. the problems come when you tryt ot use plugins. that's the really weak spot in computer recording right now. dsp.. so im getting the powercore and the wavearts version 5 plugs to combat this problem.

[bk]

Would it be possible to create a test song for tracktion, utilising only the fx, vsti etc. that come bundled with tracktion & some audio files etc?

This has been done before. I can't remember who put it together, but it was rather informative, although not strictly scientific in nature.

I remember doing the test and then proceeding further on my own to replace the plugins used with my own personal prefs. Running 25 or so instances of your favorite plug and then disabling them all at the same time will really give you an idea of where your dsp is going. That lesson has stuck with me and gets used (sometimes subconciously) everyday I use my DAW.

[grymmjack]

I was just wondering, on average, how many tracks all of you guys/gals use in Tracktion before your CPU meter starts wiggin' out. I know the types of plugs and the amout of processing power of your computer will have alot to do with this, but for me, it seems that once I get about 18-20 tracks going (sometimes less)I need to start freezing things .My computer is:

Pentium4
3GHz, 800FSB
1GB DDR2 SDRAM
160 GB Hard drive (7200)

Are these just audio tracks? I haven't had an extensive edit doing lots of tracks yet, but when I do I'd imagine my performance would be way less than yours since I Have only a P4/1.9ghz/1gB 400mhz RDRAM, and a 7200rpm USB2.0 external disk (western digital).

It's assumed that you are using ASIO driver?

[Scoops]

I was just wondering, on average, how many tracks all of you guys/gals use in Tracktion before your CPU meter starts wiggin' out. I know the types of plugs and the amout of processing power of your computer will have alot to do with this, but for me, it seems that once I get about 18-20 tracks going (sometimes less)I need to start freezing things .My computer is:

Pentium4
3GHz, 800FSB
1GB DDR2 SDRAM
160 GB Hard drive (7200)

Hey flamin-gitaur

My setup is similar to yours, with the only major difference being, I have a second hard drive.
I run alot of NI stuff, Reaktor, GR2, Absynth, GC, ect. This stuff is extremely CPU hungry. My system starts wiggin when I have 6 to 7 of these in combination. Typically, I dont freeze. I'll render the track out, import the wav back in, and mute the VST track. I can usually get into the mid 20's before I start seeing cpu issues.

Scoops

[polaris20]

A bunch of us have already done something like this:

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... davec+test

[zeoy]

you were faster polaris

[zeoy]

... but it strongly depends on the plugins being used. Put an Ambience in 100% in each track and you wont go further than 8-9 tracks in any host