Playback Engine Buffer Size

[Quinn9]

This is a two part question:

As I am recording hand claps, I have four guide tracs going (bass, kick, snare & hi hat) and open about 20 empty tracs for claps (simulating a large gospel choir). I am over dubbing one trac at a time. No effects on anything. Just listening with "Input Only Monitoring" and and I have all of the unused tracs set to inactive and saving each trac after each take. The playback engine is set as follows: Playback Buffer - Level 4, Cache Size - Large, CPU Usage Limit - 45%, Host Processors 2 and H/W Buffer Size - variable (that is, I would like it to be at 256 (to decrease latency) but when I do set it there I get the error that I should turn off effects or delete tracs.

Am I doing something incorrectly? Is there a better way to do this? I already threw away my preferences and followed the :PROTOOLS Solve the critically low memory error" suggestions.

Secondly, as I switch from one H/W Buffer Size to another, I sometimes hear a screaming hissing sound, requiring that I try another buffer size, which eliminates it. Occasionally I heard it start when I was on 256 at other times when I was at 512. Crazy huh?

This group is always great. Thank you for your help in advance.

Yes!
Quinn

[albee1952]

CPU Usage Limit - 45%, ??? Most of us set that between 85 and 99%. No where near enough info to comment on the hiss/noise.