Audio out of sync in Cubase VST

[Azrael]

I'm running Cubase VST under Mac OS 9.2 and my audio gets out of sync. It doesn't always happen but it happens alot. I have an I-mac DV 400mhz with 256mb ram so that should be enough to record more than 4 tracks at once for sure(currently 5 but going to use 6). I tried disabling every effect that I had in Cubase but I still have the problem. When I record it it sounds ok through my speakers (I monitor with Cubase) but when I play it back the audio is out of sync.
Anyone else happened to have had this problem?

Thanks in advance,

Sander

[darren wilson]

It's called "lag" or "latency". Your machine is probably about as minimal as Cubase can support for more than a couple of tracks of audio. If you're recording using the analog input, there's a delay involved in digitizing that sound.

You might consider investing in a USB audio interface which would probably speed up the analog-to-digital conversion and possibly lower your latency. A dedicated 7200RPM FireWire hard drive for your audio files would also help, as would more than 256 MB of RAM.

The older iMacs are great general-purpose machines, but don't really excel at pumping a lot of data through the RAM, hard drive, etc.

[Azrael]

Ok.....thanks for all the info then. I'm getting a new secondhand windows computer soon with about 800/1000mhz(not sure what it was) so maybe I'll be able to record some more tracks then. It could indeed be that my computer is maxing out. I checked the CPU meter while recording and most of the time it is around 40% but sometimes the light next to it gets red and that's means it overloads. Just my computer then.....oh well.....I'll wait for my new one.

[darren wilson]

As i mentioned, it's not just the raw CPU speed. You need a dedicated digital interface, a fast, hard drive that's used ONLY for digital audio and loads of RAM. If you don't have either of those things in your new computer, you won't get any better results.