Greetings all,
I mostly lurk in this forum since I haven't had extra money for new toys in a long time. But I recently started a new job and after some bills are paid, I should be able to put enough money away to update my recording software. I won't be buying a new computer soon so I will be sticking with my PIII which suits me fine....This is the point where people tell me how cheap a new computer is and that my rig is not really suited to digital audio, but this is what I have at the moment and I am not buying something else. People at all forums want to tell me to get new computer stuff but I am recording with what I have now and it is unusual for us to record more than 10 tracks anyway. Like lots of you, I started recording with a Pentium 1, then a Pentium 2 and those also worked.
Here is my big rig:
800 Mhz PIII,
512 Meg RAM
40 Gig Seagate 7200
20 Gig Western Digital 7200
Audigy 1 (SB0090)
Audigy 2 ZS (SB0350)
kX drivers
XP Pro
I have messed with the demo on and off and although, for me, it is not quite as intuitive (just my opinion) as others I have used, I hear a lot of people talking here whose names I recognize from other forums about the stability and lack of crashing of MTS.
I currently record with
Ntrack 3.3
PowerTracks ver 8 (although I have ver 10 - 8 works better on a different even older computer)
Kristal
I am considering the Pro Plus version just to have the ability to record 24 bit.
What I want to do is just record and not spend my time recovering from crashes or waiting for the umpteenth beta version to fix things.
I don't do much MIDI. I add a few effects after recording dry and that is about it. Like I said, I am not interested in buying a new computer or more RAM to make a new program work. I just want to use what I have and spend the time recording.
Will MTS work for me and make me happy and stop me from saying nasty words and help me lose 30 pounds?
PIII
You should have no problems at all with mts. The only limit on your rig will be number of channels and plugins, but you can get round that with a mixdown. I used to have a similar setup and the nice thing about a slow processor is that it doesn't get as hot as the fast ones. I used to switch off the cooling fan during takes and switch it on again to mix when the fan noise didn't bother me. I'd recommend mts pro, I've never had a crash!
Have fun.
Have fun.
No Midi, no need or use for a lot of softsynth solutions, you are fine, basically speaking.
Keep the plugin count low as you can, try not to use a lot of "rogue" plugins in realtime, using the MTS plugins wherever possible is the lowest CPU overhead in 90% of cases and you should be a happy camper.
Remember, we actually made songs and published them as CDs, etc. way back in '95 when an overclocked Celeron maxxed out at a whomping 400-500MHz under Win95 and later win98 was the machine du jour.
My old PII 333 running win98 and the PIII 400 running same are still up and working at this studio, although I use them primarily as a Mastering machine in one case and as a standalone "sampler" running soundfonts, gigasampler etc. now, latched to the big DAW whenever needed via SP/DIF. I don't have MTS installed on either of those two machines simply because I left whatever recording softwares on them that I used at the time -- older versions of Powertracks, n-tracks and Cakewalk I guess. They are handy when I have to revisit an old project.
You're fine, you're fine, just get the pro MTS and be done with it.
I finally crashed MTS for the first time the other day. After almost a year. Something I did with a rogue VSTi... And MTS came up with this screen that lets you hit a button and send a report directly to Geils -- automatically! Too cool.
Part of the problem with switching ANY recording software is getting around thinking like you did with "old reliable". In many cases, n-track is so complicated to run that people are looking too hard for controls in MTS. Your best friend is right there inside of MTS in the Help section, man. And that .pdf manual. Too simple in most cases, actually. Which is good.
--Mac
Keep the plugin count low as you can, try not to use a lot of "rogue" plugins in realtime, using the MTS plugins wherever possible is the lowest CPU overhead in 90% of cases and you should be a happy camper.
Remember, we actually made songs and published them as CDs, etc. way back in '95 when an overclocked Celeron maxxed out at a whomping 400-500MHz under Win95 and later win98 was the machine du jour.
My old PII 333 running win98 and the PIII 400 running same are still up and working at this studio, although I use them primarily as a Mastering machine in one case and as a standalone "sampler" running soundfonts, gigasampler etc. now, latched to the big DAW whenever needed via SP/DIF. I don't have MTS installed on either of those two machines simply because I left whatever recording softwares on them that I used at the time -- older versions of Powertracks, n-tracks and Cakewalk I guess. They are handy when I have to revisit an old project.
You're fine, you're fine, just get the pro MTS and be done with it.
I finally crashed MTS for the first time the other day. After almost a year. Something I did with a rogue VSTi... And MTS came up with this screen that lets you hit a button and send a report directly to Geils -- automatically! Too cool.
Part of the problem with switching ANY recording software is getting around thinking like you did with "old reliable". In many cases, n-track is so complicated to run that people are looking too hard for controls in MTS. Your best friend is right there inside of MTS in the Help section, man. And that .pdf manual. Too simple in most cases, actually. Which is good.
--Mac
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NystagmusE
My computer only has 128 MB of RAM and a 750 MHz CPU on Windows 98 SE. MultitrackStudio Pro Plus works just fine.
The VST's work fine too. There are a few VSTi's which take a longer time to load since they are so big. They still work, but I have the feeling that if I ran a bunch of them at a time maybe it would be a problem. MAYBE.
In reality, it's not a problem because I save the VSTi tracks as WAVE files and mix them that way.
My other audio program DDclip Pro could handle mixing a bunch of 24 bit files, so I don't think that MultitrackStudio will have a problem doing it either. So far I haven't had any problems.
Good luck with your system.
The VST's work fine too. There are a few VSTi's which take a longer time to load since they are so big. They still work, but I have the feeling that if I ran a bunch of them at a time maybe it would be a problem. MAYBE.
In reality, it's not a problem because I save the VSTi tracks as WAVE files and mix them that way.
My other audio program DDclip Pro could handle mixing a bunch of 24 bit files, so I don't think that MultitrackStudio will have a problem doing it either. So far I haven't had any problems.
Good luck with your system.
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mcairenius
- Posts: 44
- Joined: Wed Oct 27, 2004 5:34 pm
PIII
I switched from an amd atholon 2200 mhz 256 ram to a pentium 3
laptop at 750 mhz 128 ram too! and I am still using mts pro.
I dont have my
old audigy 2/zs or audigy 4 .. I use the built in sound card
which is a crystal sound fusion works great. It's not very
often I'll use 10 tracks but, It can use 10 midi tracks for
sure and probobley several wav tracks along with it.
I barely use more wav tracks than midi tracks anyhow..
On my computer I have saved my master tracks with 24 bit
floating point, though I dont understand the floating point stuff
but I bet If I bought a audigy 2 zs pcmcia card for my computer
I think it would not give me any problems recording true 24 bit
but for sure the more wav tracks i would have would decrease
the performence of mts under 24 bits on my system.
thanks for posting your topic.. I considered what you said
before I got my new old laptop..ehehe
Marlon
laptop at 750 mhz 128 ram too! and I am still using mts pro.
I dont have my
old audigy 2/zs or audigy 4 .. I use the built in sound card
which is a crystal sound fusion works great. It's not very
often I'll use 10 tracks but, It can use 10 midi tracks for
sure and probobley several wav tracks along with it.
I barely use more wav tracks than midi tracks anyhow..
On my computer I have saved my master tracks with 24 bit
floating point, though I dont understand the floating point stuff
but I bet If I bought a audigy 2 zs pcmcia card for my computer
I think it would not give me any problems recording true 24 bit
but for sure the more wav tracks i would have would decrease
the performence of mts under 24 bits on my system.
thanks for posting your topic.. I considered what you said
before I got my new old laptop..ehehe
Marlon