Reason 3.0

[dougmoser]

I am having problems with my Reason 3.0 running on my brand new macbook with 2gb of ram. It skips when I play any of the files. I know my macbook should be able to handle this. It also skips when I use fruity loops through parallels with plenty of ram and other settings. Is there anything I need to be tweeking?

[bartelby]

What's the cpu useage looking like in Reason?

[dougmoser]

What's the cpu useage looking like in Reason?
How do I check? Also if it helps my friend has the same exact macbook as me with reason and he has no problems at all. I went as far as to reformat and it still does it. Do I have a defective mac?

[bartelby]

How do I check? Also if it helps my friend has the same exact macbook as me with reason and he has no problems at all. I went as far as to reformat and it still does it. Do I have a defective mac?

At the bottom left of the rack or sequencer window there's a little bar scale that shows how much the cpu is being used.
If it hits the red (right hand side of scale) it'll have problems.

EDIT: I doubt you have a defective MacBook, it may just need some tweaking of the Audio/midi settings in Reason.

EDIT 2: You are using 3.0.5 aren't you?

[dougmoser]

At the bottom left of the rack or sequencer window there's a little bar scale that shows how much the cpu is being used.
If it hits the red (right hand side of scale) it'll have problems.

EDIT: I doubt you have a defective MacBook, it may just need some tweaking of the Audio/midi settings in Reason.

EDIT 2: You are using 3.0.5 aren't you?I am running 3.0 but that shouldn't be a problem because he is also. And I have the same problem with fruity loops through parallels. It has to be something configured wrong in the OS I would think.

[dougmoser]

I am running 3.0 but that shouldn't be a problem because he is also. And I have the same problem with fruity loops through parallels. It has to be something configured wrong in the OS I would think.

Also to help, I have ran it with nothing else running and still have problems.

[bartelby]

Can you take a screen shot of the Audio/Midi settings in OS X and then the Audio prefs in Reason?

[dougmoser]

Can you take a screen shot of the Audio/Midi settings in OS X and then the Audio prefs in Reason?

How do I get to the audio/midi settings in os x? Sorry about all the questions :confused:

[bartelby]

How do I get to the audio/midi settings in os x? Sorry about all the questions :confused:

No worries with all the questions.

Audio/midi should be under System Prferences

[dougmoser]

No worries with all the questions.

Audio/midi should be under System Prferences

Doy, I took the picture but have no where to paste it. Is there a mspaint like program on here?

[bartelby]

You should have a file called "picture" on the desktop (or in your Documents folder).
Use the manage attachments option under you reply post to add the image to your post.

[dougmoser]

Here are the pics. I hope I took the right ones :confused:

[dougmoser]

Oh you probably meant this

[bartelby]

The latency seems very low, try setting it a little higher.


EDIT: Audio midi has a little app in the Utilities folder I think.
I don't have my PowerBook with me at the moment, so I can't check.

[dougmoser]

The latency seems very low, try setting it a little higher.

Oops, I had accidently left it at that. I had changed it around and hadn't seen a different really. It was originally at 512 and still doing it. Any other ideas :) ?

[dougmoser]

Oops, I had accidently left it at that. I had changed it around and hadn't seen a different really. It was originally at 512 and still doing it. Any other ideas :) ?

AHH! Got it to work, I set it really high and now I am good. Thanks for your help! Good to know there are people out there that will help with macs haha.

[bartelby]

AHH! Got it to work, I set it really high and now I am good. Thanks for your help! Good to know there are people out there that will help with macs haha.

Slowly lower the latency and see how low you can get it without problems. Then leave it at that.

Have fun.

[sangamc]

you might want to invest in a USB audio interface like mbox from digi or m-audio interfaces. they take some of the load of the cpu for processing audio. IMO this type of device is almost a neccessity when using programs like reason and fruityloops

[zimv20]

you might want to invest in a USB audio interface like mbox from digi or m-audio interfaces. they take some of the load of the cpu for processing audio.

they do?

[sangamc]

yes, processing audio through your computer sound card just adds to the work that your processor has to do. using one of the usb audio interfaces and i guarantee your audio wont skip in reason.

im use the mbox and my brother has the m-audio fastrack pro, i can open up to five different reason songs and play them all at the same time without any dropout or skipping. my brother who uses fruityloops more, told me his plugin and track count increased drastically allowing him to create more complex songs.

besides the audio interfaces also provide inputs and outputs so you can record vocals, guitars and just about anything that has a 1/4inch or 1/8th inch audio plug (even rca on the fastrack pro)

[e-clipse]

Have you updated Reason 3 to the latest Universal update. If not, you are emulating Reason instead, and will see a major performance decrease, which is most likely unplayable due to skipping and CPU usage overload.

[zimv20]

yes, processing audio through your computer sound card just adds to the work that your processor has to do. using one of the usb audio interfaces and i guarantee your audio wont skip in reason.

im use the mbox and my brother has the m-audio fastrack pro, i can open up to five different reason songs and play them all at the same time without any dropout or skipping. my brother who uses fruityloops more, told me his plugin and track count increased drastically allowing him to create more complex songs.

it doesn't mean your mbox is "processing" audio. native systems, like PTLE, use the computer CPU to manage all audio tasks, like summing and plug-ins and bussing and etc....

all that mbox is doing, on playback, is converting bits to analog. it has nothing to do with track counts or plug-ins.

there are systems which offload processing. PT HD does this. those UAD cards do it. the metric halo boxes can do this. but the mbox and m-audio interfaces do not.

[psychofreak]

Doy, I took the picture but have no where to paste it. Is there a mspaint like program on here?

Off topic, but I guess you'll want it in the future...I use a mixture of Seashore (http://seashore.sourceforge.net/) and ChocoFlop (http://www.chocoflop.com/) for paint replacements :)

[sangamc]

all that mbox is doing, on playback, is converting bits to analog. it has nothing to do with track counts or plug-ins.



i shouldnt have made a broad generaliztion about audio processing, misinformation is more dangerous than no information.

Just like installing an Nvidia graphics card in your computer allows you to play your video games with full graphics, rather than choppy cpu based graphics, getting a usb audio interface has a simillar effect on audio.

USB bus is used for audio in /out instead of CPU bus to soundcard eliminating some of the choppy-ness, more robust dedicated buffers, better a/d converters, and of course multiple audio inputs.
also note asio sound device drivers provide lower latency thresholds than non-asio, (i have noticed that the core-audio drivers in os10.4 are getting pretty good too)