Originally Posted by: RNobodyHi everyone,

I had a bit of a negative experience with recording and I'm wondering if someone could help. I spent a good, long time recording multiple tracks on the Mixcraft software, a Dell Inspiron laptop and a microphone. Everything was going fine until close to the end of the project when the tracks started sliding out of synch. I looked on the help file and, after attempting to solve the problem by downloading the newest version of my audio driver (Sigma), I discovered that apparently the problem is with my sound card. I attempted to fix the problem with their manual solution, but it was quickly becoming more trouble than it was worth and so I gave it up for a while. Does anyone have any suggestions what I can do? Should I buy a new soundcard? Should I use another program? I'm obviously quite ignorant of this subject, so please assume nearly full ignorance of all things "recording" in your answers and thank you very much in advance to anyone who can help.

Latency is your enemy and the older computer may be your culprit.

More specifically, seems to me that the weak link in the chain is when things connect (ie - the sound card). You do have an older computer and some specs are not going to be amenable to the amount of data you're trying to put in to it.

Remember that what your recording is, to the computer, data. Like any data, the computer only wants to handle 'so much' of it at a time. If it can't handle all the data in the pipeline, it buffers it until it can.

I'd guess, but I could be wrong, that some sections of the recording are more out of synch than others. If this is correct, it's your buffer 'catching' up.

So, first is having a sound card that can handle the data is key. If your Dell had the standard sound card of the day, it may not be up to the job. As said, always seems the weak link in any chain is where things connect and the sound card is that kind of link.

Resolution, without gutting out you current or getting a new computer, is to get an external device for this. Example is the M-Audio USB external. If your USB ports are 2.0, you should get really good performance since it's made to handle specifically recorded audio and has mic inputs etc. It's less than $150.

Also, your processor speed and RAM can affect too so if you have 512MB RAM, it's always going to be tough. If you have 2GB, much easier. Think of it as a pipe. The bigger the pipe, the faster stuff flows through. With recording, you need a big pipe. CD quality audio is a resource hog. A finished mixed down track can be 40MB and your system, with an unmixed track, is trying to playback much of that, capture what you're doing and make all the other 'computer decisions' at the same time. If the pipe is narrow, it's going to invoke the buffering traffic cop to help the flow of data.

Down side is that your track is gonna get messed up when the traffic cop steps in.

There's likely more to it and I only reflect what I meagerly know but a starter pack of thoughts nonetheless.