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curtizb
02-01-2007, 05:51 PM
:eek:
I have recently started really getting into the 64bit realm.
For audio and video work nothing compares.
It's sad that so many companies have been so slow to come out with 64bit programs, drivers, and plug ins. The biggest disappointment I have had so far was with the WAVS Diamond Bundle. Sonar 6 is able to use most 32bit plug-ins but WAVES does not work at all. Anyway, I don't want to get too far off track here, but if anyone knows of a fix for the WAVES bundle to work, I would love to hear it.

I am running AMDX2 4200, 2GB Dual Channel RAM, and a SATA0 RAID.
I have the M-audio Delta 192, and the Yamaha 01X.
Windows XP Pro 64Bit edition, Sonar 6, Sound Forge 8, and a variety of plug-ins.

Once I was able to get my M-audio card to work with the BETA drivers (only in WDM mode) things worked really well. It's also important to acknowledge the fact that I have tweaked XP for maximum DAW happiness. Here are some good tweak guides:

http://www.absdigital.co.uk/dloads/XPdawTweaks.htm
http://www.tweakheadz.com/tweaking_your_music_computer.html


This one is for the advanced geek, but it's worth a look at.

http://www.homerecordingconnection.com/news.php?action=view_story&id=151

The FX that come with Sonar 6 producer edition are the best yet. When you do a 64bit install some of the 32bit components are not installed by default. The plug-ins that do get installed work really well. I like the new channel strip program they have added: VC64, and the Sonitus plug-ins sound really good.
I was really impressed with the Sonitus verb, to me; it sounded better than Pantheon, and the Waves verbs. I am not sure if they are true 64bit plugins, but they sound good. They have also added "Perfect Space," a convolution reverb plug in that I have only messed with a little. It's a bit too technical for me, but here is a link to a free one and some more info on Convolution Verb in general:
http://www.studiorecordingengineer.com/ftopict-846.html

It really sounds like a neat idea, and I will have to mess with it some more later.

So after I tested a few tracks with the M-audio Delta 192, I moved on over to the sound proof room I built last summer and fired up the Yamaha 01X digiatal mixer /Control Surface/ Digital Interface / pretty green lights...

BTW I used this product called "GreenGlue" instead of high priced materials for my sound deadening. I used 5/8" dry wall then green glue, then another 1/2" of dry wall.

So, it makes this very thick sandwich of drywall. The green glue blocks very low sound waves. Check out the charts here and see how it outperforms the rest:
http://www.greengluecompany.com/a-SoundproofingTests.php

The complete room is actually a room within an existing structure, but completed detached from the outer walls. So most of the bass sounds get stopped before they can get outside. It's more for jamming than for recording really. I can crank up my 1500 watt PA and then go out through the double MDF doors and then outside, and I can barely hear a soft thud.

OK enough about my masterpiece room.

The OIX was a breeze to setup with the M-Lan 64bit drivers.
I was really surprised just how well that went.
I used the ASIO m-lan drivers with the latency set to 5ms or whatever the fastest setting is. It sets this automatically, so there was not much to tweak there.
I have been recording in 16bit depth for the most part, but the 32bit driver setup works fine too; just much larger files for me to mess with.
I would like to hear what people have to say about recording with 32bit depth BTW. Can you really hear a difference? Is there more head room?
I have tried doing vocals with 32bit depth and I really could not hear the difference...

I recorded using a dynamic mic on one input going through my Joe Meeks SixQ and I had my Rhode NTK setup in the back to capture the room sound. (not much of a room sound since most of the room is padded up)
I also ran a verb and the channel strip plugin while I recorded.
Everything worked like a charm.

I have also tested Sonar 6 with both audio interfaces by loading 42 pre-recorded tracks (some with Sonar 5) and they loaded very fast and played fine. The M-audio Beta drivers needed to be tweak just a bit to get the timing right. If you just run the wave profiler thing you should not have to mess with the latency settings.

Anyway, these are not much for tests, but I just wanted to share my experience with the 64bit stuff.

This is some very exciting stuff for home studio people.
It means we are going to be able to do things we could never do with just one machine before.

My next machine will more than likely be an Intel DUO and that should be even faster. They have the quad cores out now, but WAY too much for my broke ass.

Check out these videos and be prepared to be excited!
The top one is all about Sonar in a 64bit environment: Very Cool.


http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/64bit/videos/default.mspx


:rolleyes:

curtizb
02-03-2007, 01:43 PM
I wanted to add another note to what I have written above.
I was getting ready to upgrade my whole system to a DUO or something like that when I realized that may be overkill. Sure the DUO would be better than my AMD X2 4200, but how much would that effect Sonar?
Since I am running XP PRO 64 and the 64bit OS is able to allocate MUCH more RAM than the 32bit version of XP, I should spend money on RAM! I have already noticed that my Dual Core CPU runs much more efficiently in the 64bit environment. That is because it's doing what it was designed to do by AMD. It's a 64bit processor, so it was designed to use RAM much more efficiently. SO, I am going to try and get at least 4 gigs in this bad boy.
It's dual channel, so I have to get 4x1GB dual channel RAM. Once I am done, I will let you all know how well it performs. I noticed on the video (link above) they are using 8GB with a DUO. I have to look at those specs again. I am running a RAID 0 which does make a difference, but my goal is to limit the amount of times the CPU must send data to the page file (hdd.)
I have run into problems when trying to run pitch shifters and some other memory intensive plug ins, so maybe this will help out. It's worth a try anyway. I will keep you posted...

sabianq
02-03-2007, 04:32 PM
get Sonar 5 producer edition

passerby3141
02-04-2007, 06:02 PM
get Sonar 5 producer edition

Why? I am new to Cakewalk myself and have 6 PE also.

Can't wait to hear how it works out for your 64 bit set-up!

BTW, I love the convolution reverb, it is a bit crazy sometimes, I hit stop and there is a bit of a click. Through my headphones for a split second, it almost sounds like it's coming through speakers real loud in a room!