On Fri, 27 May 2005, Peter Lutek wrote: > i'm wondering what you all would recommend as the least resource-consuming > (in terms of cpu/memory usage) method for multitrack recording. i need to > record 18 channels (each to its own file) of 44.1kHz float audio in a live > setting, while simultaneously running some looping and FX, so i'd like to > keep the recording chain as lean as possible. [...] > curiously, my tests have shown significantly lower average system load using > ardour than using ecasound. i was surprised by this, having assumed that I wouldn't be suprised if ardour performed better in your case. Especially handling lots of separate files (for example 1ch-per-file) can be a challenge to ecasound's engine... But the difference shouldn't be significant, so I'd still be interested in the exact ecasound configuration you've used in your tests (in private mail perhaps?) -- maybe it's a known performance bottleneck. Anyways, the basic operations a multitrack hd-recording app needs to do are the same for a console app as well as for a full-blown DAW: audio i/o -> ardour and ecasound both use jackd; separate disk i/o thread with lots of buffering; processing and float<->fixed conversions; etc -- some of these are by their nature quite heavy operations cpu+mem wise, so if some app provided significantly lower cpu+mem usage than for example ardour or ecasound, I'd suspect it is skipping some important steps. ;) -- http://www.eca.cx Audio software for Linux!
