Problems with adobe audition 1.5

[geetadave]

I posted this at the adobe website but still no reply was hoping someone here may be able to help out.. think this is a hardware or software issue so i posted in this forum..


I just purchased a new copy of adobe audition 1.5.. upgrading from cool edit 2.1, which had similar issues..

Lately, especially in large multitrack sessions where i'm using over 20-30 tracks, i am frequently losing instruments on playback, mostly the snare or kick drum, not totally gone, but a sudden dropout in volume leaving it very faintly behind the mix, when i solo the track it's fine.
This only happens in multitrack view and if i mix down the audio the wav file is fine, even if they playback in the multitrack session is bung.

I'm also getting a really audible crackle or distortion on some channels, especially distorted guitars that are very full frequency instruments, even when i solo the track.

If i save and close the session, then open it up again, it plays back fine for a bit, until i start editing the session weather it be the EQ or volume it starts to have these symptoms.. so sounds like it's a RAM issue more than anything, i tried upgrading my soundcard drivers, didn't help anything.

Could this be due to needing more RAM or can it be fixed by changing some settings? it happens in adobe audition 1.5 and also happened in cool edit 2.1 previously, the problems seem to be getting worst and i can't work efficiently, do i need to upgrade any hardware?

My basic system info

Windows XP home edition
Pentium 4, 2.4 Ghz, 512MB RAM
Soundblaster Audigiy 2 platinum pro soundcard

cheers
-Dave

dave@miscreantband.com

[jmail]

I don't have anywhere near the hardware you have, and I have an older version of Cool Edit, but had similar "happenings". What I've found to be the case is system memory (mostly). I've never tried to run that many tracks at once, but when I went from 256meg to 512 meg on my machine, I noticed a HUGE difference in the performance. Audition is basically just re-badged Cool Edit, probably some minor "improvements", and along with that, a bigger "footprint" in memory, comparitively speaking. Some folks here (and elsewhere) have mentioned turning off the "hyperthread technology" of the P4. How you accomplish that, I don't know. 'Nother thing, how many levels of "Un-do" do you have? Temp files for that, in addition to keeping track of the session you're in eat up alot of HD realestate. And of course, the usual, be sure your HDs are de-fragged, no running background processes, etc., etc., yada-yada... Sorry for that last bit.

Forgot to mention, have you tried to "Lock" the individual tracks that you've got where you want them? That will "render" the effects on them and use less resources while you're working on other tracks. I don't recall how to do it off the top of my head, but it is different from the "Lock In Time..." from the right-click.

[GZsound]

I presume you are also using two drives, one for program and one for data?

I have experienced the same difficulties with Audition if I attempt to play back too many tracks that have been recorded to my program (C) drive instead of using one of the data drives, which are all SCSI II drives.

If you are using a seperate data drive, it sounds like you are simply overtaxing your computer's ram by running too many simultaneous tracks.