Problem live recording-> tracks are different lengths

[fsnel]

I'm a live sound engineer. And I wanted a hobby so I bought 896's for recording. So I'm fairly new.

When I record for about 30 minutes the track lengths are different and the audio doesn't match either in the end. No two tracks are the same and the max different is about 10 seconds. When I stop cubase the tracks suddenly shorten to different lenghs and none stay at the point where I stopped them. What am I doing wrong?

Also It sometimes takes forever bevore my 896's are synced, not too big a problem because of when they are synced they stay synced, but if there is a simple solution please tell me.

Greetz Frank

Setup:
3 896's
Cubase SX3
Dual core 1.66 Ghz
1 gig int.
Service Pack 3

[fsnel]

Oops I did my post a bit to soon...

I miss some parts in every track. at about 6 minutes there's a missing about a second in each track... every track's a bit different. a bit later on the same happens and so on....

Now my question is: what's the weak part that's causing this?

HDD (I used the internal), processing, firewire connects? any ideas?

[PedroCruz]

Man, this is something i would pay to see, but would pay to not happen to my system...
I have no ideia what is wrong there...
Maybe you could connect each 896 one at a time and record 8 tracks +/- 10m to see if this is a failure that happens with every 896, if this doenst happen with single 896 connected so is something related to Firewire or drivers or cubase.
Imagine this can be one faulty 896 that is ruining the system's clock or something like that and kill the recording.
Try one 896 at a time.
Maybe you have to get a dedicated Firewire PCI Card in order to get diferent IRQs for each Firewire channel.
If you have firewire ports sharing the same IRQ there will be a decrease in bandwith causing errors in comunication between computer-896s Hardware.
Yeah, maybe your problem is in firewire ports...
Let us know what you are using...
Try to get the IRQ channels for that firewire used ports.

By the way, are you chaining Firewire? ex. PC firewire cable to 896-1, 896-1 firewire cable from out to firewire in on 896-2 and so on?
Maybe this is not such a good idea...
I cant tell iff chaining works fine in this case cause i have pci card running motu audiowire protocol.

Let us know...
Best Regards
Pedro Cruz

[daniel.sneed]

You did not explain your clock setting.
Did you try to sync all your 896s to a single external clock ?

You'll find on this bord many reports about bad sync.
Specially about 896s, if I remember correctly

[jrdmcdnld]

I like big buffers and I cannot lie.

What is the buffer set to. At least 1024 I would say.

What sneed said - is one unit clocked off of the other?

[arth]

If you're missing as much as a second, the failure is likely at a high level, and not just synchronization issues.

First of all, make sure you're not running Norton Antivirus / Internet Security / Systemworks or McAfee VirusScan. I'm not kidding -- these steaming piles of technology will cause inconvenient periodic slowdowns on even the fastest machines. Just stopping them when recording won't help, as they don't really stop -- the apps just disable some of the functionality, but keeps the engine and drivers loaded. Uninstall is what's needed.
See this web page for some more details on resource use and slowdowns with some of these apps.

Secondly, make sure that the Windows firewire networking is turned off. The main symptom of this running is odd spikes in resource use of a second or two, when the system periodically probes for network aware devices.
Right-click "My Network Places", choose "Properties", then right-click "1394 Connection" and choose "Disable". Repeat for "1394 Connection 2" (and 3 and 4...) if you have multiple Firewire controllers.

Last, make sure the firewire controllers are dedicated for the MOTUs. Whatever you do, don't daisy-chain hard drives into them. If you absolutely have to hook up a firewire hard drive and keep it connected while you record, get another firewire card.

[hswin]

Since I am running WinXP, I have a second login which has limited program loading. I have selected only programs that work in conjunction with the recording process. I have also re-worked "msconfig" to not include any programs with a "schedule" in them.

I have been using external FW drives in series with my 3 MOTU units for years now with great success. The drives are 7200 rpm and are the first device in the drive chain for my setup. I guess for complete reliability, I should connect the drives only to my PCMCIA FW card.

I also use a UPS (Uninterruptable Power Source) in conjunction with my portable recording. You never know when some fool is gonna unplug your gear!!! Mine is an APC 650 and it runs all my recording stuff including the laptop for 11.5 minutes before it cuts out!! Not too bad.


hp laptop ZD7000 2.8 Gb 1 Gb RAM
3 MOTU 896HD's
1 MOTU Ultralite
several external hard drives
Several studio microphones