I think I am now ready for RB to start making use of more memory! (if that is what the problem is!)

Our daughter is home from university for a short holiday and brought her friend as the two are studying for a major exam in 10 day's time (Actuarial Studies) and she sings like an angel)

I decided to did a similar recording to the Waylon Jennings "Storms Never Last" that he did with Jesse Coulter with her.

We recorded dry, couple of takes each, copied and pasted to create the perfect version for each and then I started playing to dolly up the song

I had 3 tracks that I wanted to add the Oxford Limiter and Oxford Reverb to (Both EXCELLENT plugins - but also not cheap!).

Added to the first vocal track, no problem

Added to the second track vocal track , stuttering like mad

Added to my acoustic played in solo's , RB just about stopped working and then locked and went light grey and W7 reported "Realband Stopped working"

Took off the plugins (after I got RB going again AND having to reload my ASIO drivers as well as RB lost that on the way.

I then had to devise a convoluted plan to workaround this
1. First exported my two vocal tracks and guitar solo to three separate WAV's
2. The started a new RB file, open my BIAB file , mixed generated/imported tracks to what I wanted and merge to a wave. (A)
2. Started a new RB file, import the "instrumental" WAV (A) and the first vocal
3. Apply the plug-ins to the vocal track , merge this lot to a new WAV (B)
4. Started a new RB file, imported the mixed and plugged WAV (B) and imported the next Vocal Track, mixed, plugged and merged to new WAV (C)
5. Lastly created a new RB file, imported WAV (C) and then my solo guitar WAV and completed the mix.

It was an effort but the final product was worth it.

Still do not know what the real problem is but this procedure worked (this time)

Hi.

It could be shortage of RAM, but it could also be processor overhead.

What processor do you have? The Oxford plugins are superb, but I believe they are a bit heavy on the overhead. Do you have the CPU USAGE indicator displayed on the toolbar in RB? That will tell you straight away if you're running into problems.

If that isn't the problem, at least RAM is cheap these days.

ROG.

What sound card are you using?

Adding reverb to a few tracks should NOT cause that. Especially since you are working in a very small project with only 3 audio tracks.... that should run flawlessly even on a factory card with MME drivers.

Another possible work around is to place the ONE reverb into a buss rather than two instances into the tracks.

The issue sounds like it's more sound card related than memory.

Let us know how this issue resolves.

The problem is CPU shortage. One reason for this, other then the obvious:ie a real old machine, is that RB/BIAB are designed around older legacy code. Before ASIO was developed.The program has not been recoded so using ASIO REALLY takes it's toll on the processor.In newer programs like Sonar etc. it does not.What you are doing does not require the use of ASIO so swith to WDM/MME and the issues should go away.

Without knowing computer specs it is very hard to determine the cause of these problems, Another possible cause of problems like this are the soundcard buffer settings. If set too small they can cause problems like this even with a lot of ram.

Within ASIO4ALL settings is a buffer size, for me the default
was 512. If you increase the size, I set mine about 750.
Using VSTi synth, and it cleared up the static.

As mentioned above the type of PC you have is very important.

As I asked above....

What sound card are you using? And what driver are you using with it?

There's a starting point to solving the issue.

The computer, OS, and memory would also be helpful.

Without this info, we're just guessing.

Here goes:
Acer Travelmate 7730G

Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo CPU T6570 @ 2.10Ghz 2.10 Ghz
Memory : 4.00GB (2.96 GB Usable)
32 Bit operating System

M-Audio FAst Track C600
Sample Rate 44100
Preferred Buffer Size
1024
(Admittedly it somehow reset to 256 during one of my numerous ASIO reinstalls)


strange thing, when I open the Driver Dialog inside RB it says
"Actual buffer Size in MS is 24.2"
(it changes a bit each time, i've seen it as 23.4 as well?)

Concerning the buffer size .. one is mentioned in samples and the other in milliseconds. Quite different ways to measure. Depending on the sample size (and maybe even the resolution being used) the two can correlate in very different ratios.

To solve the problem (just tips for getting on with the work and getting it done)

Try MME instead of ASIO - this can make biggest difference with least effort, regardless of 'why'. I see nothing you are doing that requires ASIO.

Instead of exporting/importing all those wave files, try highlighting the whole track and using Track - Consolidate Audio Region .. on each track you edited.
This effectively does the same thing.
You said you assembled the audio tracks from clipped bits and pieces (often done here). But now you have a track with a piece on the hard drive located at A, the next piece may be far away on the hard drive at spot B, meaning the drive has to jump all over from place to place to read the data in a stream. This jumping around can induce challenges that are removed if you consolidate the track into one contiguous chunk of data. Always save the file and reopen after doing this; it interweaves the data from all the tracks to make it all read even more smoothly. (This last part is theoretical but backed by experiences of myself and others documented here).

It may be a combination of CPU and RAM, but the above two things can be tried for no cost and have a decent chance of success.

I agree with rharv on this, when it comes time to do the mixing and mixdown, there is absolutely no advantage to be had by insisting on using ASIO drivers at that point. Might as well switch the program over to the Windows Sound drivers, which do indeed allow for a lot more overhead in the use of plugins here as well.

The ASIO drivers have the advantage when you are actually recording and monitoring. So I do switch to ASIO for that phase of the process.

But there is no difference in the audio sound quality, both drivers make pcm digital audio files of the same type and sound.


--Mac

When you open a Biab file in RB that has Real Tracks/Drums those constantly get regenerated and can really slow things down. There is no need for regeneration, either generate the tracks in Biab and then D&D them to RB or in RB click "Make BB tracks regular tracks". Then there's no need to open your song as a Biab file again.

I can't tell if this is part of the problem or not but I thought I would mention it since this quote caught my eye.

Also, you mentioned 3 tracks you wanted to apply a limiter and reverb to. For that I would create a sub mix of those 3 tracks and only apply the plugin once to all 3.

Otherwise, a core duo is an old machine and that is definitely part of the problem too. Google "geekbench" and run the test. If it's under 2,000 it will work but it's pretty weak. My machine in my sig for example tests at 5,700 and lots of folks here have machines that test in the 7-8,000 range.

Stay away from ASIO on an older PC.

Bob

The man who has been steadily using ASIO drivers since the days of runnin' an overclocked Celery on Win98 asks, WHY?

The point being that ASIO has been around a long time and can indeed run well on Core Duo once things are set up properly for the purpose.


--Mac

I have 2 DAW computers.

One is a custom built i5 Intel machine (desktop) and I run my Focusrite interface in it with firewire and ASIO.

The second machine is an old Dell Duo Core lappy running Vista as the OS. I used to run my firewire focusrite on it using ASIO because ASIO was the ONLY driver that would work. Plain and simple, nothing else would work. BB & RB would run flawlessly on this lappy with the factory card using MME.... or the focusrite with ASIO.....but not my Sonar DAW. It demanded ASIO, or no sound.


Comments above are correct in that you may not really need ASIO if it gets you sound. However, that driver need is determined by what driver runs the interface the best. MME should be OK for audio only projects. Midi will present difficulties quite often when using MME. Latency and other audio glitches are common.

I mix in Sonar so I tend to place the reverb and other polishing FX into the master fx bin so that everything in the project gets the same FX treatment. I only place things in a track if that one track is the only thing to need that particular fx. I often add busses for guitars and vocals so that I can use the same (one) reverb on them as a group.

With a simple 3 track song, put the fx (one instance) in the master fx bin and see if the project will run smooth.