Alesis multimix firewire 8 Pentium 4 3.4 ghz 2 gig Ram After about 6 months of searching, I've finally found something that will allow my Alesis Multimix Firewire mixer to function (somewhat properly) as a sound card, which Alesis claims its be able to do. I was getting very frequent freezing of any application (Itunes) playing mp3 files during playback. It seemed any process that occurred in the foreground or background including Itunes simply shuffling to the next song would trigger a freeze. I also had some audio dropouts as well but the freezing issue was intolerable. I've tried every driver and tweak they recommended including buying a new firewire card and nothing worked. I was ready to junk it. I finally found out that disabling Hyperthreading greatly helps (but doesn't totally eliminate) this problem. I'm wondering how disabling the Hyperthreading might affect my pc performance? I think I might be noticing some slowing in some actions but I'm not sure. Also, is this an acceptable fix given the fact that I probably paid to have a processor with Hyperthreading capabilities? Finally, if anyone has any other suggestions I'd be grateful. Thanks Mike __________________
I'm not familiar with your particular card, so can't give you anything specific about it. Have you gotten back to the manufacturer regarding your improved but imperfect stability with hyperthreading off? Do they claim their drivers do not have problems with hyperthreading? If their drivers are not written for hyperthreaded systems you will have problems. Is it possible this has nothing to do with your soundcard... some pentiums had a problem with audio because of a flaw (I don't recall the issue now -- normalization?) , some VST plugins were developed by a few folk to overcome this issue. Your pentium at 3.4ghz is probably newer than the flawed ones and wouldn't have this problem. Still can't hurt to verify that... Does your CPU 'peg out' when the 'freeze' happens with hyperthreading on? As far as turning hyperthreading off, whether that is good or bad depends on what programs you run and whether they really take advantage of hyperthreading. If this turns out to be a problem with the Alesis card, and you cannot afford to replace the card at this time, then although a PITA you can turn HT off for audio, and turn it back on for any programs that seriously take advantage of HT. My $0.02 USD, YMMV... -- Sue Morton <> wrote in message news:... > Alesis multimix firewire 8 > Pentium 4 3.4 ghz > 2 gig Ram > > > After about 6 months of searching, I've finally found something that > will allow my Alesis Multimix Firewire mixer to function (somewhat > properly) as a sound card, which Alesis claims its be able to do. > > I was getting very frequent freezing of any application (Itunes) > playing mp3 files during playback. It seemed any process that occurred > in the foreground or background including Itunes simply shuffling to > the next song would trigger a freeze. I also had some audio dropouts > as well but the freezing issue was intolerable. > > I've tried every driver and tweak they recommended including buying a > new firewire card and nothing worked. I was ready to junk it. I > finally found out that disabling Hyperthreading greatly helps (but > doesn't totally eliminate) this problem. > > I'm wondering how disabling the Hyperthreading might affect my pc > performance? I think I might be noticing some slowing in some actions > but I'm not sure. Also, is this an acceptable fix given the fact that > I probably paid to have a processor with Hyperthreading capabilities? > Finally, if anyone has any other suggestions I'd be grateful. > > Thanks > Mike > __________________ >
In news:%M7oi.3252$ the killer robot "Sue Morton" <> grabbed the controls of the spaceship cakewalk.audio and pressed these buttons... > Is it possible this has nothing to do with your soundcard... some > pentiums had a problem with audio because of a flaw (I don't recall > the issue now -- normalization?) , De-normalization when P4s were new. That problem was due to the P4 trying to do high precision floating point math as things got real quiet, like say a track with a guitar solo that only plays in the middle of the song. Any recorded parts of the track when the guitar wasn't playing could potentially put some plugins into a floating point frenzy, causing hiccups and sputtering. > some VST plugins were developed by > a few folk to overcome this issue. Your pentium at 3.4ghz is probably > newer than the flawed ones and wouldn't have this problem. Still > can't hurt to verify that... Does your CPU 'peg out' when the > 'freeze' happens with hyperthreading on? Some older plugs can't deal or don't perform well with any multi-threaded environment. I ran my P4 with hyper threading disabled for most of it's life as my DAW, and it performed silky smooth. If I enabled HT, the CPU meter would swing back and forth wildly and some songs wouldn't even play. At the end of that machine's use as my DAW, I was running it with HT enabled, and actually getting a little bit better performance out of it that way, but I had either dumped or updated virtually all my plugins by then, and I am quite sure the problem was one of, or a combination of some of the old plugins I used to use. -- Remove YourHeadFromYourAss to Reply by email ________ ____ / ____/ /__ ____ ____ / __ )____ / / __/ / _ \/ __ \/ __ \/ __ / __ \ / /_/ / / __/ / / / / / / /_/ / /_/ / \____/_/\___/_/ /_/_/ /_/_____/\____/ --------------------------------------------------------------------- Glennbo http://www.soundclick.com/glennbo Non-Linear Sound http://www.soundclick.com/jambits Hear My Music http://www.soundclick.com/ThePseudonyms
The Alesis multimix is a mixer that functions as a soundcard (actually quite well when it works). via a firewire connection. The mixer is great, I have no problems recording multiple tracks in Sonar and the only issue I have with it is the freezing of mp3s during playback.Since it is suppose to function that way,I use it as a soundcard. I'm usually listening to Itunes while sitting at my pc I have been in constant contact with tech support since December to no avail. I was about to get rid of it when someone passed on the hyperthreading tip.
wrote: > > I have been in constant contact with tech support since December to no > avail. I was about to get rid of it when someone passed on the > hyperthreading tip. > HT is not that great for working with audio. My FW410 in ASIO would run at 7ms with HT. Without it it runs at 2.9ms. HT is great for working with video.
