Drums bogging down firepod

[alucidreality]

Hi all,
I have just started a home recording project and am having problems with dropouts while I record drums. My setup is a firepod with six mic inputs active to my HP dv6448se (which I bought not knowing to look at the brand of firewire). As I record in Sonar 6 the recording freezes after about 1+ minute or stops if I click the mouse or even do nothing. I'd like to find a software that uses up less cpu at least just for recording, or any other tips you guys have. Thanks!

 

[Snarf]

Could be a lot of things. Post the specs of your computer, that will help.

 

[alucidreality]

2 gig memory, 160 gb hard drive, amd turion 64x2 tl-56 processor (1.81ghz)

 

[meev992]

2 gig memory, 160 gb hard drive, amd turion 64x2 tl-56 processor (1.81ghz)

This makes my laptop feel impotent.

 

[hunta]

It's because that laptop uses Ricoh firewire. There really isn't anything you can do short of buying another computer or using a USB interface. It has nothing to do with CPU utilization

 

[stranger0]

Tried a reboot?

honestly, while I've been a PC man most of my life, my macbook is what I use to record.

 

[alucidreality]

I'm guessing there's no way to just replace my firewire card. arg.

 

[chrisp2u]

If you're recording to your internal drive, it's also quite possible that the drive is unable to keep up with recording that many tracks at the same time (though 6 tracks probably shouldn't be too much). The slower (5400RPM) speed of notebook drives can limit performance. If you have one or know somebody with an external (7200RPM+) that you can use, I'd give that a try too. External drives with the Oxford 911/922 FW chip set seem to have the most reliable performance from my experience.
---
c

 

[alucidreality]

I'm now recording just fine using Reaper. Joy

 

[benjo09]

So you've managed to get the Firepod to work with a Ricoh? Anything special have to be done?

Promising news

 

[hunta]

So you've managed to get the Firepod to work with a Ricoh? Anything special have to be done?

Promising news

Check your latency at 64 samples as well. You should get around 5ms. Record 8 tracks at 24 bit 44.1k and see if you get any pops or other issues.

 

[alucidreality]

the only special thing i did was install the asio4all driver, installed reaper, and seem to be recording fine. I will update this as the recording process goes along so maybe I can help fellow victims of the ricoh chipset

 

[RevGroove]

The band I just left had the bright idea of using V-Drums to trigger Reason and other midi software...less resources, excellent sound...may be something to consider...

 

[hunta]

the only special thing i did was install the asio4all driver, installed reaper, and seem to be recording fine. I will update this as the recording process goes along so maybe I can help fellow victims of the ricoh chipset

ASIO4All is only emulating ASIO, so this isn't a total fix.. But if it's working well enough for you then groovy.

 

[hunta]

The band I just left had the bright idea of using V-Drums to trigger Reason and other midi software...less resources, excellent sound...may be something to consider...

You'd run into the same kind of problems with this setup. V-Drums and a software drum sampler works great, but not if you have a ton of latency. You also can run into problems with MIDI notes getting stuck and making all kinds of ugly noises.