Running Cubase SX on a Laptop?

dgerch · Post by **dgerch** » Sun Oct 22, 2006 10:59 pm

I have a Dell Inspiron 5100 (about 4 years old) and am running a two year old version of cubase. I supposedly have more than enough Processing Power and RAM to be able to run cubase, but when I get to around 6-7 audio tracks, things start to hiccup and pop. What's up?

Any Ideas on how to get things running smoother? Is it a lost cause on a laptop and do I need to upgrade to a regular pc? Will an external harddrive solve the problem?

I'm pretty weak on computers, so any insight would be great. Thanks!

drunton · Post by **drunton** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 12:07 am

Any chance you can try a PCMCIA firewire card and hard drive? This may solve your problems. It depends on the hard drive - 4500rpm, my guess.

What are you trying to do with your 6 tracks? Just playback, should be fine, add EQ's and that might be ok. Compressors will start to push it, but anything that requires memory like delay/reverbs will really bog you down. Magneto will grind it to a halt.

3 years ago I recorded 12 tracks to the laptop harddrive on an 800MHz-ish Dell - that was the very limit. It worked best with Cubase SX1, Sonar had issues.

Hope this helps some.

dgerch · Post by **dgerch** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 2:57 am

All I'm trying to do is record tracks. No plug in's or eq's. I'm not quite sure what a firewire card is, but I will look into it. Thanks!

stevedood · Post by **stevedood** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 10:05 am

Try disabling "Scrolling (Scroll View) on Playback" - there's an icon at the top of the screen, I've found this sucks resources from the processor and you don't really need to see the waveforms when you are recording.

-Steve

drunton · Post by **drunton** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 11:14 am

Yes, I agree with the shutting off the scroll option at the top will help. Zoom way out on the timeline so it doesn't take time to draw the waveforms.

Recording 6-7 tracks on a slow hard drive is probably your issue. Especially recording onto the system drive and it being more than likely a 4500RPM laptop drive.

Get an external drive - preferably Firewire. USB does not schedule data handling as nicely and at 10 tracks with USB you may have issues. So, get a Firewire external drive (with the oxford 911/922 chipset - which is mandatory!!!!). Then connect it via a built in port - probably not there on this old machine, so use a PCMCIA firewire card to connect the firewire drive.

That ought to do it! Good luck!

dgerch · Post by **dgerch** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 5:50 pm

Thanks for all the help! I will try all this stuff and get back to you with the results.

dgerch · Post by **dgerch** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 6:54 pm

Oh yeah, do you reccomend a particular brand/make of harddrive. How many RPM's should it be?

drunton · Post by **drunton** » Mon Oct 23, 2006 9:05 pm

I personally suggest buying the case and the drive separately, that will give you the best deal. A standard hard disk will work, most 3.5" (non laptop) are 7200 rpm these days - pick your favorite, seagate, WD, Maxtor, basically whatever is on-sale.

For the case, you must get an Oxford 911/922 chipset, these are the only ones that work good for sustained throughput, like audio/video. I have had only troubles with other brands. The Mercury Elite cases from these guys work great (http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/hard-dri ... nclosures/). I have several and have never had an issue, be them for PC or Mac.

I think you will have trouble finding Oxford 911's at Best Buy, CompUSA - it get's hard to find anyone that advertises that those are in the case. I suggest $60 for the case from macsales (OWC) and your $80 300gig special at best buy - you should be happy.

wayout · Post by **wayout** » Tue Oct 24, 2006 12:14 pm

Just looked up the spec for the 5100... 2800Hhz CPU 1.2 Gig RAM.
This computer should be getting alot higher track count than 6-7 tracks.
At this track count, hard drive bandwidth is not an issue either, so IMHO a firewire hard drive is not the first place to throw $$$.

My first "DAW" was a PII 366Mhz laptop with a 24 BIT USB interface.. I got about 12 tracks worth of playback with Nuendo 1.53.
I had the computer set up to ONLY to audio tasks, and employed things that I had read online about "optimizing PC's for audio"
Now, I have a P4 2400Mhz that is set up as a dual boot, so that I can boot into a setup that is pure audio, or boot to the other side for "general computing".
My audio boot running Cubase SX2 can play back about 70-80 tracks of 24 bit 44.1 audio (no plugs). Your machine should be able to do something similar.

I am assuming that you are using the internal soundcard, and suspect that it is the biggest culpret in all of this. I would say that you need to find a USB or Firewire based soundcard that uses "ASIO" drivers.
This alone should shoot your track count through the roof compared to the internal sound card in the laptop.

The last project I did was done on my laptop, 40 tracks and plugins all over the place... Your laptop should do at least this much.

Setting up the computer to do NOTHING but Audio is really essential.
The Firewire drive thing is not a myth, but not as essential as people say in my experience. I cant say I have ever seen my laptop choke expressly for the fact that I was playing back from the system drive.

Anyway... good luck to you.

Loewenstein

drunton · Post by **drunton** » Tue Oct 24, 2006 2:22 pm

Agreeing... the OP said it was 4 years old, so I didn't check the speed, maybe we should confirm this before anything as well as the memory.

The one point is that playback is a lot less harsh than simulataneous track record. I am still convinced that 6-7 tracks without hicups on a slow drive that is also shared with the system is pretty normal.

Is there anyway you can make multiple 1-2 track recordings and then do some playback? I agree playback count should be 20+ with no effects (on an old machine).

Of course, as a Win machine, watch our for rogue drivers, spyware, virus', power control bios functions, etc all which are your evil enemy.

dgerch · Post by **dgerch** » Tue Oct 24, 2006 4:54 pm

OK, bear with me, because I'm pretty computer illiterate.

Here are the specs on my computer:

Pentium(R) 4CPU 2.66GHZ, 512 MB of RAM

I am using Almsot all the the 27.8 GB's of memory....

I don't have the laptop set up for only Audio (How do I do that?), but I also don't go online with it.

Again, thank you so much for taking time out to give me some info!

wayout · Post by **wayout** » Wed Oct 25, 2006 12:03 am

Well...
How about this...
Gotta get at least double your RAM (512 mb ) of space cleared away from your hard drive for the swap file, and then probably still need a dual boot install of windows and an upgrade on your soundcard (ASIO drivers).

THEN my friend, we probably will be capable of serious multitrack audio!
Until then, with the info you have provided... you will be stuck with about 10% of the potential of your machine.

-Loewenstein

drunton · Post by **drunton** » Wed Oct 25, 2006 12:31 am

Yeah, what wayout said - me need hard disk space.

First for the swap file, then for the music. I notice on my mac that when I get down to 10gig free (of 60gig) the track count drops from 14 to 12 - or more hiccups along the way. I read it has to do with waiting longer for the disk to turn around as you move away from the center - but I don't know for certain about that.

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Running Cubase SX on a Laptop?

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