If You Can Answer This, Then You Are The Audio Gur, FW 101 eating up seamingly CPU Options

[red_books]

i have a dual 1.8 g5 tower with 3 gigs of ram running mac os 10.3.9. im currently recording/producing an album and a soundtrack for an indie film. i recently bought an edirol fa-101 so i'd have a high quality recording interface. everything was working pretty well for a little while. now, whenever my edirol is on it eats at my reason cpu meter. i watch the meter as im in reasons soun preferences. when i click back on my internal audio (default) as the main out put my reason cpu usage bar drops to nothing, like it always used to. right when i click my edirol back on as the main out, it jumps more then 5 bars and clocks out on songs that used to be a breeze. reasons stops and tells me i have too slow of a computer, my eye twitches and i lose more hair. also, all the files i was working on with revision cause i needed something with a video track that has rewire (dont really like logic, love ableton live) while working on soundtracks no longer play properly. everything now plays in a highter pitch, but when i close both programs and open the original reason file its all ok and plays how it should. im really trying to figure out whether its my os (which i just recently re-installed), my computer (mayber theres something bad goin on under the hood), etc. i really have no clue. all i know is that ive invested over 7 grand in a computer, sound system, etc that is just plain not working. anyone? anything?

[lancet]

use the Audio midi set up to verify that both the edirol and built in audio are default to the same bit rate /sample rate.

make sure reason is the same also..

the OS probably won't do that.
a broken computer probably won't do that either.

btw. i'm no guru..

[lepetitmartien]

Mhmmm we should look deeper to see exactly who is f…g with your available power. The only G5 with known issues have been the mono 1.8 rev B (the revA, which I have works like a good little soldier) and the Quad (early units).

Open Terminal and type

top -o cpu -R

then enter

Launch your song

Look at the COMMAND and %CPU columns, you'll see all open processes. watch as it's like and who are the offender while you're not having the interface around, then plug the interface and see what's happening. You should know exactly who is eating up CPU on the software side.

I hope this helps

(oh my, I've used the terminal!)

[arvidtp]

yeah - check the sample rate - my firebox, which also uses apple's OS firewire interface drivers, will eat my powerbook CPU for lunch if set to 88 or 96k!

Also a higher bitrate interface with more I/O should draw a little more CPU power for just its operation. But only a little.

Something that I find with my Firebox is that certain apps like MaxMSP like to be re-niced (I use process wizard) to top priority - that makes them behave better when using the firebox - less clicks and pops.

Best of luck.

[lepetitmartien]

For the innocent: re-nice is to change the priority level of a software regarding to the CPU usage. This is something you should do only if you know what you are doing, as if you do something else with the audio app running, it'll screw your available power as the OS will still allow more ressource to your audio app than the other one.

Now, if it's the thing and it does the trick

[red_books]

thanks a lot guys. i read the info you posted the other night, took the time today to tinker with my system and it was a sample rate issue. im very happy this is the case, cause now everything works flawlessly. i hope to able to post some of the work soon on the web to get some feedback. again, thanks. im very happy now that my hair is growing back and my computer is recording fine. right now i have my edirol running at 44.1khz sample rate for reason. should i make it higher? is there a diffference

[lepetitmartien]

If you really want to eat up you hard drive even more…

But for most use (that is: not commercial production, of things like voice or some acoustic instruments, symphonic orchestra) it's not that important. if you do want, try 88.2 (not 48 or 96 save if you're working for broadcast in mind especially). And see if you can hear a difference when back to 44,1. It's only by comparing you'll know if it's worth the hassle.

Now, 24 bits is really much more interesting, you lower the noise floor.

On most things electronic/noisy, it's not usually of interest to work better than 24/44.1, save on some parts you want to really be having the best transients in the world. And I'd do that only after having looked closely if my set up give something noticeably better after the part has been reduced back to 24/44.1 then 16/44.1

Also, note that asking for higher rates will eat a bit more CPU too, it can be critical in some cases (better to have the reverb than the higher rates sometimes

So in short: most people do not bother for higher than 24/44.1 and for pros it's depending on the job.

[Hugo Cole]

Hi guys

This discussion brings me back to a question I asked before. Why do I seem to have a reduced version of the Firebox Control? In my FIREBOX Control Window there is nothing under "Hardware Settings," which is where I assume I would control the sample rate - just the words "Hardware Settings" and right below that "Input Level Boost" with +12 dB checkoff boxes for Mic 1, Mic 2, Line 3 and Line 4 (which is what I assume I'm supposed to see). Can anyone help me?

[arvidtp]

yeah - the newest version of the FBox Contrl (for OS 10.3.9 and above) should also have an option to choose clock source only. The older version just the boosts. Sample rate has always been (and always will be) controlled from AudioMIDI setup in Applications/Utilities/.