Audacity Forum

Hi,

I've been using Audacity for around 6 months and generally everythings great but i keep finding that after i've layed down so many tracks (say anything from 8 plus) when adding extra the recording keeps jumping which means i can't add anything new.

It's completely random when it jumps so its not any heavy bass sections or anything like that.

I've got windows xp and have loads of extra space on my pc and have no extra programs running whilst recording. I use a novation nio 2/4 mixer with in built soundcard and a rode nt1-a compresser mic.

Pleeeeaaasseee if anyone can help me out, i'm puzzled and it's driving me crazy!!!

Thanks

Steve

<<<I've got windows xp and have loads of extra space on my pc and have no extra programs running >>>

You may just not have enough computer there to perform the work. Describe the machine. Dual Intel 2.3Gz, etc. etc. Make it sound like the ad to buy the computer. Amount of Memory?

You can get problems like this if you have a fragmented hard drive. Do you?

Start > Explore > Right-Click C: > Properties > Tools > Error Check (don't fix anything) and Defragment. If your Defrag screen lights up red, then your hard drive may be slowing you down and this may help.

Koz

hiya mate,

i've never fragmented my hard drive in the whole 18 months i've had the pc.

In regards the spec:

Compaq Presario
AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor
3200+
1.99GHz, 1.00GB of RAM
200Gb hard drive space

I'm not sure if thats what you need???

Thanks for the help!

i've de fragmented my pc and still no change, the program is jumping the same as it was?!

stevecara123 wrote:and have no extra programs running whilst recording.

Not all programs/processes will actually show themselves when running in the background. Check in the Task Manager to see exactly what is running and see if yoiu can identify everything.
It may also be worth doing a full system scan for viruses, adware, and other malware. Good free programs for this include Avast (home edition), Adaware, and Spybot S&D. (if you use these, make sure that you get the genuine versions from their respective web sites - Spybot S&D home is http://www.safer-networking.org )

yeah i have a spyware program which does weekly checks and everythings fine. I reckon it's probably going to be more about my pc spec than anything else but i'm not sure what specifically isn't good enough, fast enough etc.
If someone could shed some light on what they think i'd be a happy man! Not recordings driving me bananas!

Thanks

I don't think it's the specification of your computer - I have an old 500 MHz Pentium III that runs Audacity fine to more than 10 tracks. I do have a proper PCI sound card though - if you're using either on-board sound or USB sound then the performance may well be worse. (it is also a very clean machine - very little running in the background).

Try running the Windows task manager program (Start-button->Run, enter taskmgr.exe)
Once it opens, click the Processes tab, then click twice on the button labeled "CPU". This will sort the currently running processes by CPU usage, from highest to lowest. You can check easily to see which process or program is hogging the CPU, and how much memory that process is currently using. If you want to get even more information on running processes, do Menu->View->Select Columns. This gives you a list of 24 different counts or statistics which you can monitor.

I suggest looking at the task manager data when you have the maximum number of tracks which records cleanly, and then add the extra track and see what changes. This may give you some clues. I suspect you have some process which is taking too much of your CPU to allow Audacity to do what it needs in order to get clean recordings.