Kristal (KAE) & Audacity mixdown problem

[kellyapp]

Have been attempting to use Audacity to mix down finished project in Kristal (Kristal Audio Engine) but am getting unusual problem in that recording has skips or misses. Not sure what problem is. Have set for stereo 44100, 16bit. Doesnt sound like its clipping as actual recording is lower in volume and sounds good, more like a skipping record. Any thoughts out there from you knowlegeable pros? I like Audacity alot, seems easy to use with good interface. What am I doing wrong? Am using Audacity as an external editor for the first time. Have it set up in Kristal under preferences as the external editor. Hit play on Kristal then record button on Audacity. Seems to work well. I can manipulate the levels in Kristal, which is why I want to do it this way. Only trouble is the end product with the skips. Am using a M-Audio Delta 66 with Omni I/O interface. Output in Delta software and Kristal is set to monitor mixer and input in Audacity the same. Am trying to mixdown about 10 separate tracks to one stereo wave file. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[steve]

It could be that your computer isn't fast enough to run both Krystal and Audacity simultaneously (there's going to be some serious disk activity if you are playing multi-track audio in one program, mixing it and then writing the data to disk in another program).

The easiest option would probably be to mix it down in Krystal as a stereo wav file, then close Krystal and open the file in Audacity to edit. I can't see any disadvantages in this method.

[kellyapp]

It could be that your computer isn't fast enough to run both Krystal and Audacity simultaneously (there's going to be some serious disk activity if you are playing multi-track audio in one program, mixing it and then writing the data to disk in another program).

The easiest option would probably be to mix it down in Krystal as a stereo wav file, then close Krystal and open the file in Audacity to edit. I can't see any disadvantages in this method.

Thanks for responding. The computer is an AMD XP 3000 with about 750 MB of ram, thought it was plenty fast, but you could be right. The main disadvantage to your suggestion would be that I cant monitor & change the individual track levels like a real mixing board, which is what I want to do. Correct?

[steve]

The processor and RAM should be fine at that, but it's still a lot of disk access.

A couple of options, you can either mix down fully in KAE, or you can do your recording and VST stuff in KAE, then save the individual tracks as wav files and import them all into Audacity and do your final mix there.

[kellyapp]

I see your point. There is alot going on when mixing down and recording at the same time. Maybe too much. I tried a song with less tracks and it seemed to work OK. So maybe you are right. Will keep experimenting. One final question. Are there any settings in preferences that might enable me to do what I am attempting and make it a bit easier for the hard drive?

[alatham]

There aren't any settings in Audacity that will reduce it's need to read/write to disc all the time. I'm not sure if that's also true of Kristal (never having used it much).

Personally I would think it would be easiest to do all the mixing in Kristal. Doesn't it have volume envelopes?

Steve's alternate suggestion of moving all the individual tracks to Audacity would also work, but it would require you to learn quite a bit about Audacity to get comfortable with it.

I have a third suggestion. Try using Windows Sound Recorder to record the mixdown. That's bound to eat up fewer resources than Audacity. You'll still lose a bit of quality by passing through the DAC -> ADC process one time more than necessary, but in many cases that's going to be inaudible.

[kellyapp]

Kristal is a great little progam for beginners like me, but it has its limitations. Not sure what volume envelopes are. Mix down to wave is basically automatic, just one step with no way to tweak volume settings for individual tracks. I have found that you can cut up the tracks and lower/raise volume for one section if need be, but not as nice as being able to use it like a mixing board changing on the fly. Thanks for your suggestion.

[steve]

If KAE is too limited for your needs, try "Reaper".
http://www.cockos.com/reaper/
It's not free, but very reasonably priced.

Of course you can still use Audacity for editing

Concerning the original question, switching to Audacity 1.3.4 and increasing the Audio buffers may help.
"Edit->Preferences->Audio I/O"

[alatham]

A volume envelope is a "graph" that you can "draw" on a waveform in order to control it's volume at an arbitrary set of points. The volume between each point will smoothly fade up or down to match the level of the next point. Kristal apparently does this quite easily, check the bottom of this page:
http://www.kreatives.org/kristal/manual ... opart.html

I think you'll have quite a bit more control over your mix if you use Volume Envelopes, unless you've got a hardware mixing-console controller that Kristal can read from (I'm not sure Kristal allows for that though). It allows you to arrange a mix-down instead of perform it.

[kellyapp]

Thanks to both stevethefiddle and alatham for the suggestions and link. I will give it a shot. Much appreciated !