Ok Im thinking of buying a powercore element, Im a cubase user with a spec 2.6 gig machine, 1 gig Ram and an Audigy 2. With anymore than 5 VSTi's running I get the usual; crackling and stuttering.

Now If I buy the Powercore Element will this help stop some of these issues? or is it a case of a new CPU and more RAM?

I Hear the plugins that come with the powercore are excellent and im quite keen on getting it... if it helps my processing.

Thanks for your help people

quote:

Originally posted by dstrukt Ok Im thinking of buying a powercore element, Im a cubase user with a spec 2.6 gig machine, 1 gig Ram and an Audigy 2. With anymore than 5 VSTi's running I get the usual; crackling and stuttering. Now If I buy the Powercore Element will this help stop some of these issues? or is it a case of a new CPU and more RAM? I Hear the plugins that come with the powercore are excellent and im quite keen on getting it... if it helps my processing. Thanks for your help people

huh. first of all, before spending a lot of cash, increase your latency, since your cpu is pretty powerful already, and you have enough memory. just yesterday i was at my friends who made one helluva goa track with 19 (!) synths (ok, most of them are low cpu-usage, like pro53 and synth1) and unknown number of plugs - the track was going full-on on an amd 2200 with 512 mb ram, and a esi waveterminal 192 soundcard. ok, latency was something like 80 ms, but who cares, the track played. and it sounds AWESOME.
ask yourself do you really need low latency all the time. powercore will not help you with that, since your cpu will still make all calculations for all vst instruments and plugs. you will just switch from vst synths and plugins to powercore ones, and then it will help. btw, powercore plugs are wicked, but first check which ones are included in your bundle, since powercore plugs cost quite a lot.
if you are really into spending money, get a rme soundcard. it will improve your latency and sound quality considerably.

edit: as far as i could see in 2 minutes on tc electronics site, there is only one synth included in element bundle, and it is a mono one, so i do not really think you will be satisfied with that. and v-station costs 300 usd, virus is 400 usd, and those are the only synths i could find supporting powercore.
basically, you would get this only if you wanted high quality plug-ins, but it will not solve your problem of cpu-hogging vst instruments.

Last edited by h.vox on Jan-26-2005 at 15:14

Hey, Im currently running at 40ms and even when increasing it to say 100 I still get the stutters. If Powercore isnt the answer here what could you recommend.

Im really wanting to sort this as im half way thru a track and cant go any further due to the procesing problems.

My current vst set up in my latest track hold 6 case's of battery, 1 embracer and 1 ravity. I produce Electro/Ambient stuff so battery is mkey in my productions.

quote:

Originally posted by dstrukt Hey, Im currently running at 40ms and even when increasing it to say 100 I still get the stutters. If Powercore isnt the answer here what could you recommend. Im really wanting to sort this as im half way thru a track and cant go any further due to the procesing problems. My current vst set up in my latest track hold 6 case's of battery, 1 embracer and 1 ravity. I produce Electro/Ambient stuff so battery is mkey in my productions.

then something is very wrong here, since ravity is basically a rompler. why 6 batteries?

advice - get a soundcard. i had audigy 1 and sold it. rme, emu, m-audio, terratec, whatever.

i just made a track with battery v2, 2xz3ta, muon tau, 2xsynth1, and 3 emv ambient synths, two ultrafunk reverbs, two tape delays, 7xnyquist eq, master limiter, and cpu usage was like 40% on athlon64 2800+, 1 gig ram and emu 1212 running on 20 msec.
maybe it would be good for you to go to www.blackviper.com and optimize your pc a little.

Hey

6 batteries as I have 3 different kicks, each with a different set of effects. 6 lots of hats, 4 different claps, and on top of that I use a couple more instances for making effects.

Checking Black Viper now

With regards to a new soundcard which would you recommend?

quote:

Originally posted by dstrukt Hey 6 batteries as I have 3 different kicks, each with a different set of effects. 6 lots of hats, 4 different claps, and on top of that I use a couple more instances for making effects. Checking Black Viper now

that is 13 samples. not even close to what one instance of battery can work with. why not using one instance of battery with multiple outputs? i use 8 stereo outputs with mine, with 7 to 20 samples per kit. you can use up to 16 stereo AND 16 mono outputs in battery, that should be more than enough.