I just did a project in which I had to align several kicks/snares for a layered-sample, Ed Banger Records style sound. Something that helped me tremendously was to use the Nudge left/Nudge right key commands, and then use my ears. I like to put the Set Nudge Value button and Nudge Left/Right in the tool bar (Ctrl+Click on toolbar>Customize Toolbar) so I can easily see what the Nudge value is, though I use the key commands for most of the actual nudging. Line the kicks up as best you can with the mouse, then set nudge value to ms and start adjusting. When you get super close set it to the sample for the finishing touch..

Hi Ski, Thanks. This is a helpful forum and I look forward to participating. best, PDXstudio

Nudge Left and Nudge Right will move a selected region (or regions) left or right by the nudge value. The Nudge Value can be set to bar, beat, division, tick, 5 frames, frame, SMPTE bit, 10ms, 1ms, or sample. After putting the Nudge Value and Nudge Left/Right buttons in your toolbar (via Ctrl Click on toolbar>Customize Toolbar), you can conveniently set the nudge value, select a region, and use the Nudge Left/Right buttons to fine tune the placement of your regions (in my example, drum hits). Set it to 1ms first, and if you need more precision to fine tune the placement, set it to sample (so, if your sample rate is 44.1KHz, setting nudge value to "sample" gives you precision of 1/44,100th of a second)

See if these articles help, particularly the first one. Make sure to read it carefully. I encounter the problem of a single pegged core somewhat frequently when my routing gets complex. Sometimes I can track it down, other times the core allocation still seems inconsistent with the explanation. I included the link to TS2111 because sometimes I get this error when I have a core overload. It will say "Sample rate XXXXX recognized (where XXXXX is a seemingly random number), error while trying to synchronize audio and MIDI..." I'm still unclear on the relationship between these 2 problems (sample rate issues vs. overload) but wanted to mention it in case you encounter similar issues. http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3161 http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4426 http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2111 http://support.apple.com/kb/TA24535