PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Band-in-a-Box for Windows Shuttering audio at random places of arrangement, latency? HALION SONIC!!!!!!!!!

i would like to respond re useing expensive multiple core 3ghz plus
computers and thinking that spending 2g's plus on a computer will enable
them to load endlessly with apps for a recording studio.
by way of background to my comments mes amies i spent 30 yrs in
"tech" includeing product mgt (my day gig) while also being in various
bands and recording in different studios and owning different
studios. (my "side gig".lol.)
heres the deal.
i'm still not happy with current computer architectures because i think it
will be only when we can buy cheaply new computer architectures
(ditching silicone tech, maybe quantum tech ??)
that we will all have the computing power we really need so we dont
have to worry about maxing out systems/processors etc.
the problem being us musicians are a small market for tech.

musicians are stuck today (as are other power hungry people in other
disciplines ) in what i term the 2 to 4ghz plateau "lock".
this is because of the laws of physics. viz you can only cram so many
transistors on a processor "die".
thus processors went to many cores to attempt to solve the problem.
but in reality we are still stuck in the ghz speed "lock" conundrum.

with gigabit transfer storage speeds , the storage is not a problem.
what we need is faster base motherboard architectures and processors.
(please lord gimme a 32 core processor with each core running
10 ghz. whoopee lol.)
in summary us musicians are stuck. sure you can buy a cheap 300
buk pc , but once you load it up it prolly wont meet your needs
because its ok for general tasks .
otoh if you spend 3g's on a computer it probably will become
obsolete.
so what to do ?? i personally refuse to pay lots for computers,
otoh i need power , so the only solution for me is off lease refurbs
multi cores with ssd's and warranties. thus i can save lotsa buks.
my whole family has refurbs ive carefully selected .
(nary a problem. one advantage of refurbs being that in the refurb
process lots of junk is cleaned out.ive never had one problem
with refurbs. all my refurbs boot from cold in very few secs cos i
tell the refurb people i want "fast boots".)
but also i'm prudent with the music apps i use so everything runs
smoothly with no hiccups or stuttering which are often caused by
drivers in audio interfaces, or the way the user has set up the computer.
or asking too much of an underpowered computer.
just because you throw a bunch of money at a computer doesnt necessarily
mean youll be problem free. due to many factors ive outlined.

so heres what i do (my methodology).
1. before starting the song i think of computer resource impacts.
is this song going to need lots of traks ? plug ins etc etc.
is this a complex song ? if its too complex maybe i should be thinking
more of a KISS concept with song . always in the back of my mind
is what a big time producer once told me with gold coming out his ying yangs.
ie if it needs a load of traks are you putting "lipstick on a pig" etc.
in decades past remember once world selling records were done on
studer b67's with very few traks. 3 traks if i remember.
todays pc's will do loads. some over 100 depending on pc.
ask yourself "am i over producing perhaps". ??
eurythmics once did a hit song on a tascam 8 trak recorder
if i remember correctly .
2. if i DO decide to do a very difficult song that i know will require
lots of recording time/computing resources) i lay out a plan.
(hopefully this will help people with very slow old computers etc etc )
at this point i'm soley concerned about "arrangement".
ie does the arrangement work ??
so i use midi only no exotic plug ins or real traks
and use midi to get the arrangement to my liking.
constantly refining. then maybe doing bass and drum realtraks to make
more "feel". once happy i, drop the bass and drums into reaper traks.
i'm soley concerned bout getting the "rhythm section" right .
(useing my favorites folder approach. read my earlier methodology).
i continue doing this testing other bed trak instruments in biab.
eg say i nee a "sax" i test out various saxes in biab.
choose one, then pop it over to reaper. i continue doing this one
instrument at a time. remember the old "trak sheets" that big
studios used to have for their 2 inch studers /mci's 24 trak
machines ?? i do a similar thing.
this way i can test out lots of different real traks and/or midi plug ins.
the whole deal being not to overtax a computer.
3. in reaper i do trak assembly from the biab traks, and add my own
vocs and instrumentation. for example sometimes i just cant find that perfect
lead solo in biab, so i make my own with maybe a midi trak turned
to audio via a plug in etc etc.

in summary i have no intention as a "know it all" or great musician etc
its just ive been round the "recording roundabout" more than a few times.
and i see people loading up their computers expecting they will do anything
they throw at it, and sometimes getting problems because imho the core
computer architectures still need advancing in terms of
lots of boosts in performance and power.
best regards to all.and sorry for the long post.
ps remember if you get problems.
simplify.
ps ive had no problems in 2020 biab with stuttering etc
etc.