n-Track Frequently Asked Questions
3. Soundcards, software and hardware configuration
- Does n-Track Studio support USB or Firewire audio interfaces?
Yes, n-Track Studio is fully compatible with USB and Firewire (IEEE 1394) soundcards. - I get can't use the soundcard with another program while n-Track is running
The problem shouldn't happen if you use MME drivers with both programs. When using Asio or WDM drivers n-Track claims exclusive ownership of the soundcard while the program is running. To make it temporarily close the soundcard you can open the File/Settings/Preferences dialog box. When the preferences box is open you should be able to access the soundcard with other programs. - Is there any particular setting for my soundcard?
Special settings and notes for a few soundcards are listed in the soundcards settings page. - What is the best soundcard to use with n-Track?
The choice of the soundcard (or audio interface) depends on many factors, among which recording quality, number of inputs, MIDI I/O, mic/guitar inputs (XLR etc.), external vs internal, and of course price.
n-Track is compatible with any soundcard that has standard WaveRT, WDM, MME or Asio drivers, including PCI, USB and Firewire (IEEE 1394) audio devices. Follows a list of a few soundcards that have proven to work well with n-Track Studio. Also see the soundcards settings page.
- General purpose cards
- Creative Soundblaster Audigy series: the cards works well with n-Track Studio. The old Audigy I was a 16 bit card, it didn't support 24 bit recording or playback as the specifications may seem to suggest. It has a very good MIDI hardware synth. The Audigy 2 and later models unlike the Audigy 1 finally support true 24 bit recording and playback at sampling frequencies up to 96 khz.
- Audio Recording dedicated cards
- M-Audio Delta series (44, 66, 1010)
- Emu 1820, 1820m, 1212m with built-in hardware accellerated VST plug-ins
- Emu 0404, 0202, TrackerPre USB audio interfaces
- M-Audio Quattro, Duo, Audiophile external USB & Firewire devices
- Egosys Waveterminal series (2496 & 192)
- Echo Gina, Darla, Layla, Mia
- Aardvark DirectPro
- Tascam US428 & US224 with MIDI control surface
- Edirol FA-101
- General purpose cards
- Why do I get an error when I try to adjust the soundcard's recording settings?
When you select the "Settings/Soundcard's settings/Recording mixer controls" or "Playback mixer controls" menu command (or the corresponding icon in the toolbar) you get an error message similar to "There is a problem with your sound hardware. to install mixer devices go to control panel, click printers and other hardware, and then click other hardware". The 'Recording mixer controls' command simply opens the Windows Volume Control. If you get the error message it means that your soundcard(s) settings can't be adjusted using the standard Windows Volume Control. That usually happens when the soundcard has its own proprietary control panel, which you can typically access through the Start Menu / Control Panel folder. Check with your soundcard's documentation for instructions on how to adjust its settings.
Soundcards that have their own proprietary control panel typically are advanced models whose settings go beyond the standard settings supported by the Windows Volume Control and consequently need a special software to adjust all the details of the soundcard's configuration. - Im a beginner and I have a standard desktop/laptop computer and a stock computer mic, could you please recommend what additional hardware I would need to purchase in order record guitar and vocals?
You should be able to obtain decent results with the computer's builtin soundcard and standard computer mic.
However builtin soundcards are typically designed for games or communication uses and are not usually very good at audio recording.
For better quality results you can get a soundcard specifically designed for audio recording and a good quality mic.
You can find suggestions for mics here and for soundcards here - Does n-Track have the ability to utilize quad-core or dual-core processing?
Yes, n-Track takes advantage of quad core and dual core CPUs. The gain from switching from 2 to 4 cores depends on both the structure of the song(s) and the audio buffering used.
The more channels (i.e. tracks, groups, auxs) and/or effects per channel you have, the more n-Track will be able to split the work among the available cores.
Buffering comes into play because the less buffering you have the smaller must be the chunk of work that n-Track assigns to each core, so as buffering decreases the efficiency of splitting the work decreases too and you reach a point where it's faster to just use a single core. It's kind of like dividing work between people: if you have many dishes to wash you finish quicker if you many people and assign to each a portion of the available work. But if you put 4 people to wash 1 single dish you're likely to be slower than one lone washer.
Again depending on the song and CPU type (speed, number of cores, cache, shared vs non-shared cache) the point where single core may perform better than multiple cores may be from 64 to 256 samples per buffer. You can test this by toggling the 'Multithreaded audio processing' box in Preferences/Options and then performing mixdowns of a test song and measuring the time each mixdown takes for decreasing buffering settings. Follows results mixing down a benchmark song on various systems. The benchmark song consists of the Sometimes n-Track sample song (that can be download from the download page), with an instance of the n-Track Reverb (with default preset) on each track (instead of on just a couple of tracks in the original song) to make the song more CPU heavy.
- Hardware: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 / 2.4 GHz processor, 1066 MHz FSB, 8MB L2
4 Gb RAM installed (3.25 Gb recognised by 32 bit XP) n-Track 32 bit on XP 32 Bit Service Pack 3, all meter windows closed.
Measuring the time it takes to mixdown the whole song to a 16 bit .wav file.
- 8192 x 4 (Default buffering)
No multithread: 37 sec.
Multithreaded: 15 sec. (60% speedup) - 256 x 2 buffering
No multithread: 37 sec.
Multithreaded: 22 sec. (40% speedup) - 128 x 2 buffering
No multithread: 39 sec.
Multithreaded: 29 sec. (26% speedup) - 64 x 2 buffering
No multithread: 43 sec.
Multithread: 41 sec. (5% speedup)
- 8192 x 4 (Default buffering)
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Hardware: Core 2 Duo T7300, 2.0 Ghz, 800 Mhz FSB, 4 Mb L2 Cache (shared between the 2 cores)
4 Gb RAM n-Track 32 bit on x64 Vista, all meter windows closed.
Measuring the time it takes to mixdown the whole song to a 16 bit .wav file
- 8192 x 4 (Default buffering)
No multithread: 42 sec.
Multithreaded: 27 sec. (36% speedup) - 256 x 2 buffering
No multithread: 47 sec.
Multithreaded: 33 sec. (30% speedup) - 128 x 2 buffering
No multithread: 50 sec.
Multithreaded: 39 sec. (22% speedup) - 64 x 2 buffering
No multithread: 55.4 sec.
Multithread: 51.6 sec. (7% speedup)
- 8192 x 4 (Default buffering)
The speedup from using two cores instead of one decreases as the buffer size decreases, but it remains positive even for very low buffering. Adding a 2nd reverb for each track yields for 64 samples buffering 1:12 vs 1:30, i.e. 20% speedup, which means that increasing the song CPU load the relative advantage of using multiple CPU cores increases even for very small buffering.
- Hardware: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 / 2.4 GHz processor, 1066 MHz FSB, 8MB L2
- What hardware control surface can I use with n-Track?
Support for hardware control surfaces with faders (motorized or not), knobs and buttons can be configured in the Settings/MIDI Control box. n-Track automatically detects and has pre-configured MIDI Control settings for the following devices:
- Behringer BCF2000
- Mackie Control
- Tascam US428
- Tascam US224
