Thats what i figured, im just running out of ideas.

Im on Vista. I know the OS itself can use alot of memory but 2Gb should be enough just to use Skype?

My problem rendering MP3 continues...
 

Freebase! Arrrgggh!

I am standing here with a bloody tuft of my own hair in each hand (not really ;) ) because I now have 3.25 GB RAM (got module installed), and when I listen to a song in Sony Acid Music Studio 7.0, it *sounds* fine...but when I render the song as an MP3...SOB!...the tracks don't line up! Some tracks sound delayed relative to others. They just don't mesh anymore. It is a MESS.

I am perplexed. Computer memory shouldn't be an issue now. Rendering as an MP3 used to work fine several months ago. The MP3s *used* to sound just like the song did from within the audio recording program. I've tried putting the audio interface on different latency settings, to see if that helps. Within the audio recording program, I've tried different buffer sizes. Nothing seemed to help. And it's all very strange, because the program used to work fine (several months ago) and the MP3s rendered from songs used to sound fine.

Thoughts?

Other comment: I tried uninstalling and then reinstalling my Sony Acid Pro 7 program to ensure the copy was good, and I think the extra memory may have helped playback from within this program. But the MP3 I create from the song still has the tracks not lining up...it is as if for some the tempo has slowed down compared to other tracks. The tracks have all gone rogue and don't line up anymore within the MP3.

Also, the Acid Pro 7 program freezes up very easily. For example, if I mute a track and then unmute it...BAM!...the program may freeze and become unresponsive. It is extremely touchy and glitchy. Much worse than my older (and cheaper) Sony Acid Music Studio 7 program, where I can mute tracks and move clips around and do all sorts of things *while* a song is playing (usually) without freezing up the computer. I'll have to contact their tech services (again) to get their advice, but I thought you might have some more ideas on potential causes of my computer and software problems.

Dude, 2 gigs is like bare minimum for Vista itself. Vista is a serious resource hog. You're probably barely getting a gig of memory for other applications. Add another gig if you're running 32bit. If 64, add another 2.

Edit:
I'm not saying 100 percent that it's your whole issue, but you have to realize that not only is the OS running at all times, but a ton of other background processes are running from third party software you may have installed, like antivirus and firewall, and anything else that's currently running on your PC.
If the Skype issue isn't resolved with more RAM, you won't have had upgraded for nothing.
If it's an internet connection problem, your program shouldn't be freezing.. so I doubt it's that.

If it's only happening when you export, you should maybe look at your export settings. I don't know about Acid, but with Sonar I can change the type of export to either slow (accurate) or fast.
Also, try exporting as a WAV and see if you get the same problem. I'd use an third-party conversion program anyway, as the built in converters are notoriously bad in lower-end software. Besides, you're better off exporting a WAV copy of your song to keep for archive, as it is uncompressed and if you ever wanted to re-master it, you could do that without any problems... whereas it's a general no-no to master a compressed audio file, like MP3. Mastering houses won't even accept MP3's.

As far as Acid Pro freezing up, there could be a bug in the program itself. It's a lot harder to detect issues like that without talking to their tech support (like you say) or going to their forums and seeing if someone else has the same issues.
You can kinda narrow it down by turning off EVERYTHING you don't need at the moment, like background processes that aren't essential, Antivirus program, firewall, and anything else that may be running in your taskbar that isn't necessary. If this solves your freezing problem, then you turn each item back on one by one until it happens again. At that point, you'll know if a running program is causing conflicts.
If there's no effect when disabling all the extra stuff running, it may be time to check their forums and see if this isn't an issue for a lot of people, which would mean there's a bug.
There may be a patch available for it already if it is. Check their website and forums for any patches and install them.

ACID FX plug-ins were the culprit!
 

Thanks for all the advice, Freebase.

I pulled an all-nighter to try get to the bottom of the problem with my audio tracks playing out of sync in the mp3. After around 9 hours of trying all sorts of things (which certainly taught me a lot), like defragmenting the hard drive, turning off background processes, uninstalling and reinstalling the audio recording program (twice!) and audio interface drivers and firmware updates...I finally tried disabling all plug-in effects from the tracks within a song.

And presto. Disabling the ACID effects plug-ins on the tracks caused the tracks to play in sync in the rendered mp3 or wav file. If I allowed effects just on the two tracks that contain clips of the same vocals (the same recording), then those tracks played like an out-of-sync duet rather than one voice, but all the other tracks (instrumentals) played fine and in sync with each other. As a further test, I removed the effects on two songs, and both then played fine as mp3s. So, I'm confident the ACID effects are the culprit.

This leaves me with several questions:

(1) What effects Plug-ins that are downloadable (ideally for free) off the net might you recommend? I remember you said that the effects that come with Sony Acid audio recording programs are probably crap. I'd been meaning to find new ones. Now I guess I have to, unless the Sony Tech support people have a solution to my problem. In case the plug-ins provided by Sony don't work well, it would be nice to know some good options.

Side comment: do you de-essing manually by making some little volume reduction areas around the ssss sounds, rather than using a de-esser plug-in to cut the frequencies?

(2) Why did the ACID FX effects plug-ins, which came with the program, suddenly go bad after around 6 months of giving me no problems and having no impact on the speed with which tracks play? Could it have been that when I downloaded the newer, spiffier Acid Pro 7 program, the older Music Studio 7.0 program's effects plug-ins somehow got corrupted?

(3) Why does my Acid Pro 7 audio recording program crash so easily, even with the newest updates? Perhaps this is related to the effects that are being used in songs I made with Music Studio 7 but opened with Acid Pro 7? I didn't read many reports online about Acid Pro 7 freezing up, so I don't think the program is the problem (although its plug-ins may be). I'll work with Sony Tech support (hopefully) to try to figure this out, and do some more experimenting on my own.

Thanks again for your help and for answering my desperate pleas, FD! My ripped-out hair is starting to grow back.

Ah, congrats on that. I wouldn't have thought Acid FX plugs were the problem being that they're native... but certainly if you have too many plugins going, there could be issues.
Anyway, go here: KVR: Audio Plug-in Database (Search Page) - VST, Audio Units, RTAS, DirectX, LADSPA, DSSI
Down in the Advanced Search, there's a ton of stuff you can check off to narrow your results, like type of plugin/effect/whatever. Make sure to check the box that will show only free plugins.

1) You can tame plosives by reducing the volume with a volume curve where the plosives are, but de-essing techniques by cutting frequencies is more transparent for de-essing because there aren't volume dips, which can be noticeable if the clip is already at a normal volume where the s's are. There are de-esser plugs out there that can do it for you.

2) I'm not sure about the Sony plugs. I don't use any of them, but yea I guess it's possible they were corrupted. Seems like the new program should have had its own anyway though. There may have been a problem if you're using the same VST folder for both program's plugins. I'm not sure how you have your stuff set up though.

3) Do you have crashing issues with a new project in the new program?

Thanks! I downloaded 3 different de-essers to try. And, luckily, the other plug-ins that come with the Sony program appear to work okay (so far). I'll just avoid the one that mucked everything up, reason unknown.

I tested my new program today, without any audio effects, and it seems to be fine! What a relief! Not a single instance of the program freezing up in over 1 hour while recording around 10 tracks (trying to get a good one), and later editing some of them (cutting and pasting clips, and using and then deactivating effects to hear how they sound) while the song was going. So, the new program seems to be stable.

Thanks again for the help. Your suggestions and ideas gave me the motivation to learn more about how my computer works. And I'm glad it has more memory now.

My laptop turns on but doesn't go to the user menu (the bit where you would type your password.) It stays black but I can hear the fan going and such, it's done this once before and I fixed it bit I've no idea how I did it. :(:(:(:(

Try turning off the laptop again. Then take out the battery and put it back in again and switch on the laptop. It works for me most of the time.

^been done several times, I'm waiting on it running out of battery now. :( who knows how long that'll take.