CuBase/MOTU Problems

this could be caused by IRQ conflicts, especially considering that you're throwing a PCMCIA card into the mix.

if the computer isn't optimized for audio yet, check out http://www.musicxp.net/

aside from that, what are the specs on the laptop? how many tracks are you trying to record simultaneously....etc...

Dropouts are fractions of a second, but vary in exact length. Sometimes they are accompanied by a crackle nearby and sometimes I get a random crackle (one crackle) without any dropout around it.

IRQ's: THIS SEEMS LIKE ITS MY LAST OPTION!! There appear to be no conflicts with the irq settings according to the device manager, but the interface and cardbus are on irq #17 and share that irq # with the video and something called "Data Fax SoftModem". I would like to assign my interface its own irq to avoid any conflicts, but it appears that you cannot change the irq's in XP. Any ideas?

Computer has been optimized for audio.

Laptop Specs: HP Pavilion, 1.6Ghz AMD Sempron, 384MB RAM
***I've tried this setup on two different Dell Inspiron laptops and had the same issues.

As far as tracks. . I'm laying 8 tracks simultaneously.

anywho, if the symptoms are identical on multiple computers the culprit is most likely one of the common elements:

- motu hardware/drivers
- firewire cable
- cardbus card
- cubase sx 1.0.6

in this case i would be strongly suspicious of items 2 and 3.

I'm not sure what a "bottleneck" is and how we fix it - this is me talking again, not the guitarist. But I'll mention it to him.

My guitarist often cannot 2-track us at practice because the disk in his Mac isn't fast enough. Most laptop disks are slow, so that they don't heat up the computer unnecessarily or make loud noise. You might try daisy-chaining an external firewire disk before (or after) the MOTU, preferably a disk that runs at 10,000 RPM. Firewire is built for this kinda thing, so you wouldn't be creating any extra issues with such a setup.

One last thing to try is AudioDesk, a simple application that should come with the 896. If it can record 8 tracks OK, then Cubase is choking (which I doubt).

In fact when we opened an old project that was recorded at 88.2, we got an error message that "MFWA Keys" had to shut down, and in playback of the old files we're getting output levels in cubase but no output readings on the interface (the reverse of what happens when we try to record.) Any ideas? Thanks again for the help.

Certainly, but before spending money, make sure that the audio chain is sound. I'm starting to sound like a broken record here, but I really think that a test recording with AudioDesk is a good idea. AudioDesk (a stripped-down version of Digital Performer) comes with MOTU product, it's up-to-date, and if anything will work with MOTU hardware, AudioDesk will.

yeah i know. but when the album drops.