Hey, I use calkwalk sonar to sequence all my stuff.. and I usually have around 20-30 tracks per song. My system can handle playing back and editing this many tracks, but as soon as I start running individual tracks through fx or plugins (such as compressors) my system goes crazy, I cant even have compressors running on more than one track at a time. Now, I have a p4 1.7GHZ with 1024 MB Ram,, Are there any other programs that dont strain the system asmuch? I tried Cool Edit Pro 2.0, and it stoppes normal playback with 3 fxed tracks.

how do u guys manage to run compressors and eq's to individual tracks?

I use Cubase 5.0 on an Athlon 1.4 with 512 MB RAM. I start experiencing processor overload around 34-36 audio tracks with effects (a couple of compressors, a bunch of reverbs, and various other effects as well). I don't know for sure if it's the software, but your system should definitely be able to apply effects without too much trouble. Are the tracks you're talking about audio tracks, or are they still just sequenced VSTi's? VSTi's can use up a lot of processor power. Maybe try recording them to audio before you apply the effects? You shouldn't need to though - your system should be strong enough. Maybe there's some optimization you could do to Sonar (I've never used it myself)... or do you have a lot of processes running in the background? What operating system are you using?

I have it allll the time it's sooo irritating, i use fruity loops by the way. I have an Athlon 700 with 256meg ram..

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I dont use VSTs, but I have 8 midi channels running, with 22 audio tracks using 96/24 quality.. maybe it would run smoother at 44/16.

I run winXP

First of all, check this out:
http://www.futureproducers.com/foru...&threadid=17454
That's a great forum, you'll find a lot of answers there.
How fast is your hard drive? you'll want at least 7200 rpm (firewire is even better). Especially if you're using 96/24... 22 audio tracks at 96/24 is quite a lot to handle (it would definitely be smoother at 44/16). If you don't want to sacrifice the quality, see if you can "bump" some of the tracks onto new ones. ie - if you have 5 different tracks of hats, get a good mix on just them, and then mix them down to one track. this will help you reduce the demands on your machine by reducing the number of concurrent tracks running at the same time... just make sure you save the file to a different version.

I dont know the speed of my hard drive.. but mixing the drum tracks is a good idea, I think i'll do that

I'm comin over on friday

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friday? Thats good with me!