Anyone using a PC DAW that's NEVER crashed while tracking?

[lovesinger]

I wonder if from experience (not hearsay nor nanufacturer hype) anyone has recorded at least four simultaneous tracks using a PC-based software "all-in-one-der" like Cakewalk Pro Audio or Digital Performer (MAC or IBM compatible) that has NEVER crashed! With breakout box or PCI card only? With all they do on a desktop inexpensively that rivals yesterday's capabilities in some major facilities, they seem almost a 'must have' for today's project artists, even for just occasional mixing and "song tryouts" at quality sound resolution (who knows when you'll get that perfect take at the first practice?) But which setups are rock-solid? And was yours always so, or did it stabilize after some guided tweaking or hardware substitution?

[Bonafide]

Computer Based DAW or Stand Alone DAW, you are dead without backup... I know some people who don't back up thier stuff. When it crashes, and it [b]IS GOING TO[/b] crash or tweak or just plain go slightly insane for a minute, you are one sorry fool. To Answer your question.IMO, NO SUCH SYSTEM. Cheers.

[Mr Darling]

I'm still craving that perfect system. For a while my power mac runing vst was stable, but those days are gone. Me hope that when I get my new G4 and rebuild my os it should be ok. now a days I can record up to 8 tracks, run loads of traks + plugins and my mac will crash when I take my coffe break. Go figure. [img]http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/biggrin.gif[/img] ------------------ Visit http://www.DarlingNikkie.com/sounds for free MP3's

[alphajerk]

my MAC/DP has NEVER crashed while tracking. i usually run between 12-20 inputs on the live tracking. every once in a while it will hiccup in the first second but thats not a problem really [considering its a MAC9600] as i just say stop, hold on, apple+Z, 1, 3. in fact it has only crashed two times in its lifetime. once when i put one too many plugins even though i knew the cpu was in the red and once when it was just sitting there with the file open while i took a food break, i still dont knwo what caused 1 file to be made into a folder and eventually lost it... dirty HD is all i can think of. basically it was a slap on the wrist for not backing up properly.

[Randyland]

If I actually admit that it hasn't crashed, doesn't that mean it will now happen during my next session? [img]http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/wink.gif[/img]

[ustah]

Mac[dp 450] G4/logic a. for 5 months NEVER crashed,I'm using 8 inputs while tracking,and easy 40 tracks in mixing[also some plug ins]

[jackpine]

I been having great sucess with Vegas and a RME card. Not quite as perfect as alpha's track record but pretty damn stable for a PC.

[Alndln]

I've built 4 PC's that never crash unless I push them over the limit.First off you have to know your components,in other words not just any video card,audio card,chipset,ram, hard drive ect. ect. ect. Also you have to know software interaction and optomizations when it comes to PC.I couldn't possibly give a clinic on what to do in this thread because it would take too much time and space but start out with the most uncrashable chipset,either Ali or Amd 760 and avoid Via for the time being until they get their act together and either replace their faulty southbridge chips or do away with them altogether.They key is Os/Chipset/components/optomizations(memroy management ect.)Once you have that down you'll know exactly what your limits are,and with an Athlon 800-1gz it's well beyond recording 4 tracks at 24/44/48 without crashing,well well beyond.

[alphajerk]

huh, mines only a stock MAC 9600 300mhz powerpc with 128mb ram.

[gtrmac]

I have been running a PC with Windows 2000 and Nuendo ver 1.52 and it has only crashed once when my boss started messing with it. I ran it for 10 hrs. a few weeks ago during a tracking/overdubs/ruf mixing session and it didn't crash once. I built the machine and it has Win2000 Pro SP2 without any modifications. Hardware: 2X PIII 800EB 256MB PC133 SDRAM (Crucial brand) Maxtor 10 GB ATA-66 "C" drive Adaptec 19160 Ultra160 SCSI card w/ IBM 36GB 10k RPM SCSI drive RME Hammerfall 9652 Nuendo 8 I/0 A/D convertor ------------------ Mac Bowne G-Clef Acoustics Ltd. Osaka, Japan My Music: [url=http://www.javamusic.com/freedomland]www.javamusic.com/freedomland[/url]

[Phil A]

I record to tape and THEN dump it to the DAW. Though I've occassionally had tape machines crash, I find them generally more reliable and this is my insurance. We'll see what kind of trouble I get into, when the Alesis HD24 comes out (I'll probably back everything up to tape, for insurance).

[Alndln]

I should have added that on the Intel side an older BX chipset is still the most rock solid on that side and scssi drivers will allow a higher track count going in.Alpha,pretty cool about the under powered Mac that could but my older crappy ss7 rivals it easily.

[mixsit]

Phil wrote; I record to tape and THEN dump it to the DAW. Though I've occassionally had tape machines crash, I find them generally more reliable and this is my insurance. We'll see what kind of trouble I get into, when the Alesis HD24 comes out (I'll probably back everything up to tape, for insurance). Phil, would your tape happen to be 16 bit? I'm just in the transition from adat to 24 bit daw for tracking. I'll be backing up to cd-r when it'll fit and cheap drives when it won't. But getting rid of the 'tape' is a bit scary. I did find out though that I can split, or send the 24 bit to the adats, albeit chopped to 16, for safety. Not quite the pro' thing to do I realize, but an option. (By the way, when I did a 24 bit ad/da to adat, the noise floor whent down noticeablly in spite of the trucation, which was a nice suprise.) 333 pc, cake-8, plenty of tracks,(tracking/volume edits only-no plugins) No problems!

[Brian T]

I've been cutting tracks for over two years now, straight into my Paris/Athlon setup. Many days are 12-15 hours with 20-30 inputs. I've yet to lose a note tracking. I've had the app go wonky now and again, but it didn't crash, just started acting unhappy so I rebooted with no loss of audio or project files. That's happened exactly once on a full tracking date. On this system, a complete reboot of the PC and app is under a minute. As a matter of fact, it's so reliable, it's no longer even a topic of conversation. Early on, the players would go on about "Wow, we always have to "blah, blah, blah" about 3 times a day when we record to "_fill in the blank_" at so and so's place. Now they just expect Paris will work like an analog setup and don't even bring it up anymore. In testing, I've left 32 tracks in record mode for hours till a 60GB drive was about full. Never failed. Tonight, I had 64 tracks in simultaneous record at 24 bits checking out a new drive. No big deal. I freak when I see people with reliability issues. I wouldn't deal with it. I'd be back to tape at that point. So at now over 3000GB of hard disk space on site with 128 tracks, 80 analog ins and 72 digital I/Os, the thing works as reliably a pro console and tape deck every day. Maybe that's one reason why I'm such a proponent of the system. Regards, Brian T

[lovesinger]

Impressive track records, guys. It seems MACs are a great choice among older systems which is great for he financially challenged among us (I'm raising my hand). One MACMusic forum (i just found it) owner posted that his 9600 is "rock solid" too, [b]alpha[/b]. All my stuff to-date has been PC compat but I'm leery of multi-tracking under Windows OS's from even non-music apps crashes. (Sound Forge usually makes it behave reliably, though, for some reason.) I hear 2000 is super-stable. Several of you spec'd scsi HD's. [b]gtrmac[/b], do you use the Maxtor just for apps and the scsi drive for data? 10k rpm must be a great difference! "getting rid of the 'tape' [for tracking] is a bit scary" for me too, [b]mixsit[/b] (analog in my case - never had an annie crash), but DAWS just offer too much hosepower to keep letting 'em pass me by (i've got demos and some full apps from friends of almost all of 'em). [b]Alndln[/b], thanx for great tips. Any recommendable boards with that BX chipset? [quote]Posted by Alndln@hotmail.com:[b] I should have added that on the Intel side an older BX chipset is still the most rock solid on that side and scssi drivers will allow a higher track count going in.[/b][/quote] [b]Brian[/b] your Paris rig and performance seem awesome, but I've heard past grumblings about Paris only allowing certain file formats saved and external conversion being needed for others. True, not? An ensoniq-rep friend's tried to talk me into one for a year - this may bring me closer : From your review at http://www.greatidea.com/paris/page_2.htm [ i'm impressed ] ... [b]First and foremost, the system is totally, completely stable. Like a rock. More stable than the PIII system I've been running on...a system I've been very happy with until now. I'm afraid the Athlon has spoiled me. [/b] ... so on the PC-side is Athlon also the way to go with a BX board like Alndln suggested IYO? [i]Peace and great music to all!![/i] This message has been edited by lovesinger on 08-06-2001 at 09:12 AM

[Guest Room Warrior]

I've had exactly the same experience as alpha. My Mac G3 (blue & white) running Digital Performer has never crashed while tracking. I've figured out how to crash it a few times while editing, but it has never crashed during record or playback. - Jim Bordner

[miroslav]

My PC NEVER farts...but every once in awile...the cat does when it's sitting next to it! [img]http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/biggrin.gif[/img]

[Trash Monkey]

A DAW that NEVER crashes-well those of you that report no problems, heads up you WILL eventually. The more software, tracks, recording bit depth, etc you run is bound to crash eventually. Rule of thumb, if your system supports save while record and your hearing angels singing during the recording you better be hitting the save button alot.

[AmadMozart]

I am running a G4 533 Dual with DP 2.72 (patiently waiting for my free upgrade to DP 3.0). I use a first generation MOTU 2408 (the 20 bit one) with the PCI 324 card. I use a Glyph Project 30Gb FireWire drive as the recording medium. This setup has never crashed on me during tracking - but, I always mult from the patchbay to a DA88, and I back up every session to a CD-RW - and periodically back-up the entire drive to DDS3 tape because I fully expect that this system can and will crash at some point in time. I am planning on upgrading this system to 24 bit in the very near future and I will be interested to see if the Glyph FireWire drive can keep up with the extra throughput requirements - they say yes, but the proof is in what happens here. Cheers, Amad

[Dylan]

I've never crashed during tracking on any of my PC's in the last few years. Even back in the day of lowly Celeron CPU's, 64 MB of RAM, and a single 5400 RPM ATA drive I was able to track 8 tracks simultaneously without issues. The main culprit in crashes that I've found are plug-ins that are pushed too hard or are just incompatible with the software app used. The compatibility issue is uncommon, but I do see it from time to time. Often times, I don't usually bother using the CPU-intensive plug-ins (i.e., reverb) until I'm done tracking on big projects. I also experiment using new plug-ins before my sessions so I don't run into this. On small sessions (8-16) tracks I can stack up the CPU-intensive effects while tracking without problems, but since most of my plug-ins are relatively low in CPU usage I rarely have issues. Do yourself a favor and choose a software/hardware combination that is known to work under Windows 2000, since this is by far the best current Windows OS for music production. Logic is the only sequencer app that I'm aware of that still doesn't support Win 2k, but Cakewalk, Cubase VST, Nuendo, Samplitude, and Vegas to name a few all work like magic in Win 2k. -Dylan

[Hippie]

Howdy folks! I'm just back in from Sarasota, Fl. (all work, not a vacation) Sorry, no "bikini-clad tiki-bar" stories for ya, damn! [img]http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/wink.gif[/img] I can't complain about my system. (knock on wood!) I got a P3-500, Intel motherboard, BX chipset w/onboard SCSI, 2 Seagate Barracuda drives, MOTU 2408 running Cakewalk 9.03. I do my regular maintainance using Norton Pro 2001, and my system usually doesn't crash in the conventional way; (blue sreen of death or just plain frozen) -Norton usually allows the system to recover to *some degree* of safety. I know alot of people say that using Norton is hogwash and I used to be one of them. But, I believe these higher-end utility programs have come a long way in the last couple of years. For me, it is worth it to forfiet a couple of audio tracks for the piece of mind knowing all will not be lost when the damn thing dies on me. Anyway, I'll be upgrading my 'puter & interfaces soon to allow for 24-bit thru the whole chain. I'm NOT looking forward to the growing pains I'll have. I'll probably have a shit-load of questions for yous guyses. Hippie

[BP3]

I track to a MX2424, then import to Nuendo or Logic. Both very stable platforms. When problems existed, I tracked it down to bad RAM. All runs great now. For me this is the most flexible setup.

[lwilliam]

G4/400 AGP running PTLE. It has crashed during tracking twice in 2 years. Both times it was using the "destructive mode" in record. It has never crashed in the normal record mode. Except when I'm goofing around trying something I know is a bit dicey, the system has crashed maybe 6 times in 2 years. I use it at least four hours a day - just about every day. ------------------ Larry W.

[Alndln]

I recommend Asus boards only for PC, although some have been reporting sucsess with Abit's newer ones, but since I haven't tested those personally I can't recomend them yet.

[Dylan]

I'll second the recommendation for Asus boards. Very solid and consistent. Although, the iWill board mentioned over at prorec.com seems to be a solid choice for Athlon systems as well. I've had some Abit boards die on me recently, although I still have one in a system that is working flawlessly. -Dylan

[Phil A]

[quote]Originally posted by mixsit: [b]Phil wrote; I record to tape and THEN dump it to the DAW. Though I've occassionally had tape machines crash, I find them generally more reliable and this is my insurance. We'll see what kind of trouble I get into, when the Alesis HD24 comes out (I'll probably back everything up to tape, for insurance). Phil, would your tape happen to be 16 bit? I'm just in the transition from adat to 24 bit daw for tracking. I'll be backing up to cd-r when it'll fit and cheap drives when it won't. But getting rid of the 'tape' is a bit scary. I did find out though that I can split, or send the 24 bit to the adats, albeit chopped to 16, for safety. Not quite the pro' thing to do I realize, but an option. (By the way, when I did a 24 bit ad/da to adat, the noise floor whent down noticeablly in spite of the trucation, which was a nice suprise.)[/b][/quote] Though the tape is occassionally 24bit DA78HR, I usually work with ADAT XT20s at 20 bit. I find that 16 bits is not a bad resolution to be recording at... Though, at 20 bits (16 times the resolution of 16 bit), I have some breathing room and plenty of recording resolution for most pop music (classical music, with its extreme dynamics, is another story). I refer to recording resolution, because the real problems of resolution occur when you start performing computations (EQ, level changes, compression, etc.) at a working bit depth that isn't as high as it can be... The truncation errors start mounting and the sound can become less than beautiful. So my working resolution is 24 bit, thru to the end of the line where, during mastering, it's UV22'd down to 16 bit for CD (while retaining 24 bit masters). So I track at 20 bit, on tape... load the tracks into the computer and do all the work at 24 bit. I find the results perfectly pleasing... the only reason for moving up to 24 bit recording, is because I can... I find it comforting to know that I have 4 more bits. When I finally get an HD24, I'll back up the recordings to 20 bit ADAT, for safety, comfortable in the knowledge that, if I need to use the safety, the results will be pleasing... Though I will probably waste a lot of time looking for those 4 missing bits ;> PS I have done a lot of very satisfying work on 16 bit ADATs... Don't discount its usefulness! It's not so much the number of bits, as what you do with them. have fun! Phil

[AEW]

I'm for the ASUS CUSL2_C MoBo and 815EP chipset. This is the most stable I have experienced on a Win PC. But mainly use a MAC G4/500 single......absolutly no crashes yet....Oh except when I turn off the Scsi burner before shuting down....DON'T DO THAT. Nick