n-Track Frequently Asked Questions

FAQ Index | Show Topics Only

1. Using n-Track

• Can I import a wave file directly from a CD-Rom?
  
  No, you must first copy the wave file to an hard disk. The program needs to write the .npk file (needed for displaying the waveform) in the same location as the wav file, and that's not possible with a CD Rom. Even if it was possible, you would get horrible performance as soon as you'll add more than 1 wave file from a CD rom: the program reads small pieces of data from each wave file, jumping from one file to another, and even very fast CD-Roms are very slow at this because they have poor seek times (I think at least an order of magnitude greater than hard disks).
  
  
• Can the program be used by a visually impaired person?
  
  Yes. n-Track is compatible with the Narrator Windows XP screen reader software. To make Jaws screen reader software understand the text of the menus check the "Disable icons in menus" option: you can access the options opening the Preferences dialog box by pressing Ctrl+P, then Ctrl+TAB twice to get to the Appearance tab and then TAB until you get to the option. Matthew Bullis did an audio review of n-Track Studio for blind users at www.ACBRadio.org Go to "on demand", then "main menu", and search for "Matthew Bullis" on the page and click on the show date (22 May 2002). Use B in Winamp to skip past the other segments. To set the program to record as in the review a single stereo wave file from the soundcard input instead of the default two mono wave files: access the recording settings dialog box with the "View/Soundcard's settings/Recording format" menu command or with the Ctrl+Alt+F4 shortcut, then change from "Stereo -> two mono tracks" to just "stereo". It's a set of radio buttons, when you reach "Stereo -> two mono tracks" move the up/down arrow keys.
  
  
• Do I need a fast CPU to use effects?
  
  Most modern dual-core CPUs are workhorses and can process a vast number of effects and tracks. Faster CPUs will be able more effects and/or more tracks. If you don't need too many tracks chances are that you'll be able to use many effects even if your processor is not the faster in the market. The best thing is to try: if you can hear jumps in the playback or the system nearly freezes, then it means that it hasn't enough power to do that, and you need to freeze or bounce tracks (so that the effects are temporarily no longer computed in real-time during playback relieving the CPU).
  
  
• Does the size of the mixdown file depend on the number of tracks of the song?
  
  The size of the mixdown song depends on the length and the sampling frequency, not on the number of tracks. To calculate it: sampling_freq [samples_per_sec] * length [seconds] * 4 = size [bytes]
  
  
• How can I backup or tranfer songs or audio tracks
  
  You can save the song as a packed song file, selecting the File/Save As packed song file menu command. The .sgw file will contain both the song structure (usually saved in .sng files) and the audio tracks data (usually kept in the .wav files to which the .sng points to). You'll then be able to transfer all the song (or the selected tracks) data as a single file. The audio data in the .sgw file can be either uncompressed (for optimum sound quality) or compressed using the Ogg Vorbis format to make the .sgw file smaller and easier to transfer for example by email.
  
  
• How can I line up two tracks?
  
  You can move a track wave file’s offset simply pressing the four arrows button (or holding the CTRL key) and then dragging the waveform's rectangle sideways. Hold the shift key to move the file only vertically. When the "Grid/Snap to grid" menu command is activated the track's offset will snap to the nearest grid line.
  
  
• How can I save my project as a bundle, just one file and not one .sng file and a bunch of separate wav files?
  
  You can save the song as a packed song file, selecting the File/Save As packed song file menu command. See How can I backup or tranfer songs or audio tracks
  
  
• How many non overlapping wavs can a single track contain?
  
  The number of non overlapping files is not limited. Adding different wave files to a track is useful if for example you are recording a guitar solo track and there are two solos in the song: instead of recording the two solos together in a track, or recording them in two wave files and associating them to two different tracks, you can record both starting from there actually the solos should start and keeping the two wave files in the same track, so that volume, pan and effects settings will be the same. Just what happens with a "physical" multitrack recorder.
  
  
• I can hear jumps (click, pops or drop-outs) in the music when playing back or recording a song
  
  If, even with a small number of tracks you can hear jumps, pops or clicks ("drop-outs") in the audio being played or recorded, try increasing the playback and recording bufferring in the preferences dialog box.
  If you're using Asio drivers use your soundcard's Asio Control Panel to set the buffer size (the n-Track Settings/Buffering settigs are ignored when using Asio drivers).
  Increasing buffering will increase the time delay between any action performed on the mixer and its audible result. It will also increase the latency when playing instruments using Live input processing.
  
  If the drop-outs occur only during recording, try enabling the "Enable write buffering" option in the Settings/Buffering box.
  
  If the drop-outs seem to be independent from buffering, the problem may be related to the soundcard. Try to update the soundcard drivers downloading them from the manufacturer web site. If an update doesn't yet exist, try to reinstall the current drivers.
  
  The video card or another device may be interfering with the soundcard. Try to update the video card's driver.
  Try using the DPC Latency Checker tool or LatencyMon to see if your computer has device drivers that are inhibiting low latency audio.
  The following is a list of possible actions to try to address DPC latency issues. These items may not apply to your specific device or operating system version
  
  • Before loading n-Track try to close any resident program such as programs running in the system tray, antiviruses, anti-spyware or other system monitoring tools.
  • Try to disable CPU power management or making it less aggressive
  • Try to disable the graphics hardware acceleration in the Control Panel/System/Performance/Graphics/ dialog box (Control Panel/Display/Settings/Advanced/Troubleshoot on Windows XP).
  • The interference may also be with the hard disk controller. Try to toggle the DMA transfers on the Hard Disk Controller: go to Start, Settings, Control Panel, System,and Device Manager. Double click on the CD-ROM drive, then go to Settings, uncheck the DMA option. Follow the same procedure, to disable the DMA options under Disk Drives, and under the Hard Disk Controllers.
  • If the computer BIOS allows it, try to increase the "PCI Latency timer" setting.
  
  
  
• What settings in the Control Panel/Sound dialog should I use for multiple cards?
  
  Don't bother with Control Panel/Multimedia settings. They are used only if you choose WAVE MAPPER as wave device. Select directly the desired device from the program preferences.
  
  
• Why do commercial CDs have higher volume than the CDs I produce with n-Track?
  
  Commercial CDs sound louder because they are heavily compressed. You can obtain a similar loudness using a compressor plug-in on the master channel, or even two chained compressors with different settings. For example you may first insert a compressor with actual (soft knee) compression settings, and then a compressor with brick-wall-like limiting settings (with the compression curve knee near 0 dB with very low attack and release times). Experiment with this settings until you obtain a good volume without (excessive) clipping.
  
  
• How can I record in mono?
  
  n-Track shows audio inputs as stereo pairs. If you want to record in mono you can just record from only one of the two stereo channels:
  
  
  • Add a blank audio track, then click on the recording source button in the left timeline vertical bar corresponding to the track you've just created, then set from the popup menu the recording source as either a left or right input channel. If no other track is armed n-Track will not record the other available input audio channels.
  • Or you can also set the recording to mono selecting the small circular red "Rec" button in the recording meter window, below the input pair, and select "Don't record from this channel" for either the left or right channel.
  
  
  
• What are the .npk files that are created each time I record or import a .wav file?
  
  The .npk files that n-Track generates are required to properly display the audio files waveforms on the screen. The files can't be played or loaded directly. The files are very small and are automatically deleted when you delete the .wav files that reference them. There is no harm in deleting .npk files but the program will automatically recreate an npk files the first time it will need to display a .wav file waveform. An npk file is generated 'on the fly' when a .wav file is recorded. When a .wav files is imported from a 3rd party program you may notice the n-Track progress bar at the bottom of the screen showing activity for a few seconds. The activity is caused by the program generating the .npk file for the .wav file being imported.
  
  
• Why n-Track shows a pair of level vu meters for each input and output channel?
  
  n-Track 6.0 and later supports the K-System for monitoring signal levels (with presets for K-12, K-14 and K-20 modes). By default the master playback meters show a pair of meters for each channel. The inner meter shows the Peak level, while the outer meter shows RMS level. You can change the vu meter setting to show only peak or RMS meters in the popup menu that appears right clicking on the vu meter window. You can find more info on the K-System clicking here.
  If you want all the technical details read Bob Katz article
  
  
• What is 64 bit mixing/processing, does it have anything to do with the 32 or 64 bit versions of n-Track?
  
  64 bit mixing means that n-Track will process the audio signals using a 64 bit representation ("double floating point"). 64 bit processing is available in both the 32 and the 64 bit versions of n-Track. 64 bit mixing/processing can be activated using the "Settings/64 bit processing" menu command. 64 bit mixing & processing allows for higher audio quality at the cost of a slight increase in CPU usage. Some but not all of the 3rd party plugins support 64 bit processing. For an optimal use of 64 bit processing all of the plugins in the signal chain should support 64 bit processing so that the audio signals would not need to be converted back and forth between a 32 and a 64 bit representation.
  
  
• What keyboard shortcuts are available in n-Track?
  
  You can find a list of available keyboard shortcuts in the User Guide
  
  
• How can I remove vocals from an existing song?
  
  Basic Vocal removal works by recognizing that on most popular music vocals are panned in the center of the mix, which means that the same vocal signal is in the left and right stereo channels. You can remove a common signal by subtracting the left channel from the right channel (or vice-versa).
  The result will be a signal made of elements that are different in the left and right channels.
  To do this with n-Track you can:
  
  • Import the song as a stereo audio file (wav, mp3 etc.)
  • split the stereo track into two separate tracks (Track/Split stereo track menu command)
  • then select the EQ button on one of the splitted mono tracks
  • activate the "phase shift" button in the upper part of the EQ box. The 'phase shift' button inverts the track audio signal (i.e. multitples it by -1)
  • you end up with the two tracks being subtracted
  
  
  Alternatively you can use a 3rd party Vocal Removal plugin such as:
  
  • Kn0ck0ut
  • Voice Trap
  • bx_solo
  • Elevayta Extra Boy
  
  
  
• Why I get the message "No audio input enabled for recording" when I press the record button?
  
  The message appears when no track is armed for recording and no audio input is set to record to a new track, so n-Track can't record anything.
  You can either set the input channel to record to a new or existing track, in the popup menu that appears clicking on the second small circular button from the left, in the bottom part of the Recording Vumeter window (if closed you can open it with the View -> "Recording vu-meter" menu command).
  
  Alternatively you can add a blank audio track (Add channel -> Add blank audio track), then click on the circular "rec-arm" button in the left part of the track, then select which input to record from in the popup menu.
  
  

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