Too many regions?

[DamonD]

Hi,
I have a couple questions re: regions, performance, sound card, etc...
While clearing out junk on tracks (vocals, drums, etc...) I find a lot of regions getting created.
1) Can too many of these effect performance? Should I delete the regions that are blank space? Or doesn't it matter?

2)Also I have some WAV files to import that are ~40 minute contiguous tracks converted from tape. So multiple songs are on them. For each song I create a different EDL/Session and load the whole WAVs. Is it better (CPU/Memory/performace/or anything) to break up the WAV's also with each session?

3) The last question for now is my sound card. I currently have the Creative Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro. Anyone ahve good or bad experiences with these? I noticed that the ASIO doesn't seem to want to work anymore (it did at one point w/Creative drivers). I loaded ASIO4All, and it comes on in that mode. But after a while I notice some clipping or stuttering in MT mode (Not in Soundfile though, Hmmm.) Any clues? I didnt notice one way or the other wCreative ASIO driver.

Gigabyte GA-7VA MB
AMDXP-2800
1GB RAM
200GB Maxtor 6Y200P0 (OS & App)
250GB West Dig. WD250JB 00REA0
NVidia GeForce 6200 AGP 256mb
Creative Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro
Thanx
DamonD

[Bob L]

If you start getting into thousands of regions per track, then you may want to build some of the tracks down to a single region and replace them... but in most cases hundreds of regions scattered around have no performance problems. I generally would not concern myself... simply keep working along and when the performance starts to show signs of overload... then maybe consider consolidating a few tracks.

Blank spaces should be deleted for 2 reasons... one... it will help with overall performance of the MT because the playback loop is not having to do disk access just to playback silence on every trafck... and two... you probably don't want the silence (noise) to be part of the mix anyway... so removing those areas on the MT keeps the final mix much cleaner.

If you are experiencing stuttering in MT playback, you may need to increse the buffer size... in general... SoundBlaster cads are not known for good drivers and low latency performance... you may want to invest in more professional soundcards like the RME or Sydec... or even the M-Audio Firewire 410 as a better choice.

Bob L

[UpTilDawn]

Blank spaces should be deleted for 2 reasons... one... it will help with overall performance of the MT because the playback loop is not having to do disk access just to playback silence on every trafck... and two... you probably don't want the silence (noise) to be part of the mix anyway... so removing those areas on the MT keeps the final mix much cleaner.
Bob L

Good advice about the blank regions. I had no idea and will be doing more rebuilds of those tracks which contain a lot of blank spaces after cleaning.
DanT

[DamonD]

Hi Bob,

Thanx for quick reply. That covered all that I needed, until the next question comes up.


I'll have a look at other audio cards. I might just build another PC just for a DAW instead of dual-booting, although I can already hear my wife now.

Thanx again,
DamonD