Help needed with toshiba laptop please

[Waddycall]

Hi,
I posted a while ago about being interested in buying a tascam dp24. I've decided against that for a number of reasons and so I'm trying to get cubase to work with my zoom h4n on my toshiba laptop.
I'm having a bit of a problem with the sound. Bear with me as I'm no I.T. Expert.
My zoom h4n works as a usb audio interface and came bundled with cubase LE 6. I tried this set up a year or so ago and had latency issues so gave up. I was more interested in using the zoom for recording band rehearsals anyway.
I've been trying again this weekend and found that one or two tracks will record ok with little or no latency. When I get to around track 3 or 4 (all audio tracks) the sound starts to break up and the playback or recording pauses every now and then. Once it's started to break up it will be the same whether recording or playing back. It won't even cope with just playing the metronome. If I then open the device set up page which shows the aiso set up it clears again - I don't even need to change anything.I have also tried reaper. Whichever software I use the problem is the same although cubase has fewer pops and clicks than reaper.
The laptop is a toshiba L500 19Z. Intel Core Duo, 4 GB of RAM.
Any ideas?

Thanks,
Pete

Edited May 2, 2016 by Waddycall

[Waddycall]

Sorry, no idea why the pictures are upside down!

[HowieBass]

Have you tried installing ASIO4ALL? It's recommended by many people/companies and is supposed to help with latency/soundcard issues.

Here's the place to get it http://www.asio4all.com/

There are loads of video clips with information on how to use ASIO4ALL on YouTube.

[Waddycall]

Thanks Howiebass. Haven't heard of that before. I'll give it a go.

[Waddycall]

I should probably have said that up to now I've been using the zoom as a digital four track and bouncing four to two when I need extra tracks (sometimes 4 bounces per project) and then putting the SD card into the laptop and importing each original track into cubase for mixing. The laptop has coped fine with this as long as I let it warm up and get any routine stuff out of the way. I've been using some effects, compression, and control automation without issue. This does make me wonder if it is a asio driver/interface issue?

[Dad3353]

Good evening, Pete...

You've not mentioned which OS you're running on this laptop. If it's Windows, 32-bit, you've not actually got 4 Gb to play with. Windows will only recognise 3 Gb, and you'll find that that's very, very little for editing several tracks in a DAW. I had a similar phenomenon with my previous PC, and solved the problem by investing in a PC that could run 64-bit (now running Windows 10, 64-bit...), and which would make use of the 12 Gb I installed.
In Reaper, there's a menu entry (View, Performance Meter...) for watching the memory and cpu usage. Have a look through that to see where the resources are being eaten up..?
I don't think you're going to get very far with the current set-up. It'll work, but you'll be very limited. Assuming that you can't add memory to the laptop, or change to a 64-bit OS, I'm afraid that the real answer is to change for a more powerful machine. Not good news, maybe, but you'll be chasing chimeras otherwise.
Subject to correction, completion and/or contradiction from others; hope this helps.

Edited May 2, 2016 by Dad3353

[Waddycall]

Thanks for the info Dad. The laptop has 64 bit Windows 7. I've watched the resources monitor in reaper and cubase and it doesn't seem to be getting any where near max when things start getting bad. I've also used the Windows performance monitor thing and that seems the same.

[lowdown]

As dad said, the spec is on the low side for DAW work.
It could be that there is a lot going on in the background (services and apps running).
Wifi, Adobe updates, apple updates..etc..it all mounts up to become a hit on the CPU.

Checking the windows task manager will give you some idea what's going on in that regards.
Checking the resource manager in the DAW is good for checking on VST's etc,
but not much help with the operating and app stuff.

If you are not using the Laptop for anything else other than DAW work,
it might be worth checking out this video for getting better performance out of Windows 7.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eer3HqQtJWI

[Waddycall]

Thanks lowdown I'll check that out. Well I've tried asio4all. It doesn't have the same problem but there are now latency issues. I've only tried reaper so far. I've also now started picking up foreign radio stations!!!

[Dad3353]

OK, with a 64-bit OS you are at least accessing the full memory. Any benefit seen from upgrading to Windows 10..? Mine is very stable.
Is this laptop used for anything else (Office, Photoshop, Web...)..? As mentioned above, there may be other claims on resources; can these be reduced..?
How about the hard disk..? Plenty of space available..? Recently 'cleaned' with CCleaner or the like, to get rid of 'temp' files and such..? Reduce the size of the Trash Can, too; by default it may be 10%; reduce to 1% should suffice for most folks, I'd say. Disk de-fragmentation..? Just a few thoughts...

[RockfordStone]

sounds to me like an issue with memory and that the laptop isn't powerful enough to do what you are asking. I suspect if you push all your buffers up, the clicks will stop on playback but you will have latency when monitoring recording.

im no expert on these, but they are primarily a handheld recorder rather than an interface, so they will be a lot less forgiving towards latency etc, so if asio4all hasn't helped, unless you can give the laptop more power to make up for the zoom, you will probably need to just settle for a higher buffer size and get good playback but suffer with latency on monitoring.

i would echo what dad has said above but other options to consider are.
1 - is the laptop plugged in at the mains, by default it will revert to "power saving" mode if running of battery. when recording i always have mine plugged in and ensure the power settings are set to "performance" mode.
2 - i remember in windows 7 you can allocate some space on your harddrive to act as auxillary ram. im not sure how well this would work, but it is worth looking at if all else fails.
3 - muting tracks and their plug ins will improve the amount of memory used.

FWIW, i think spending out on a dedicated interface will give you a lot more pleasure and a lot less hassle.

i used to get lots of issues like this on slightly bigger projects, in the end i just bit the bullet and upgraded my rig to suit my needs.

Edited May 3, 2016 by RockfordStone

[Waddycall]

Well, thanks very much for all the advice. I don't really want to tinker around with the laptop too much as its my partners and she likes to have everything up to date etc. I've just spent an hour trying different asio settings in cubase and I'm getting nowhere. I started picking up foreign radio again and decided to forget about it for now. I have a very short fuse with all things I.T. related. Thankfully this iPad seems pretty stable. If my ironic funk project continues I'll have to buy the tascam!
Cheers,
Pete

[RockfordStone]

[quote name='Waddycall' timestamp='1462304982' post='3042021']
Well, thanks very much for all the advice. I don't really want to tinker around with the laptop too much as its my partners and she likes to have everything up to date etc. I've just spent an hour trying different asio settings in cubase and I'm getting nowhere. I started picking up foreign radio again and decided to forget about it for now. I have a very short fuse with all things I.T. related. Thankfully this iPad seems pretty stable. If my ironic funk project continues I'll have to buy the tascam!
Cheers,
Pete
[/quote]
just a thought, could you not buy an Ipad interface and garageband?

[Waddycall]

[quote name='RockfordStone' timestamp='1462309614' post='3042090']

just a thought, could you not buy an Ipad interface and garageband?
[/quote]

Well I have got meteor on the iPad and did use my Roland cube amp as an interface. It was ok but thin sounding. I bought an iRig stomp thinking that would be a good alternative as well as giving me iPad effects. That sounded thin too. Turns out the iPad mini has a HPF filter on the input! Aaaaaarrrrrggggghhhhhh!
I think I'll stick with what I've been doing recently- four track recording and bouncing on the zoom followed by transferring the files to the laptop and mixing in cubase. It works quite well but is a bit fiddly and easy to get lost!

Thanks for all the advice everyone.