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Logic Pro Project File Size HUGE


Jaudio22

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I have searched many forums and have not found an answer to my issue. I had a project I was working on for a few days with only MIDI tracks (using ARTURIA synths) and LOGIC DRUMMER. File was normal size around 10 MB and then the next time I looked it was 2 GB. Every time I open and save the project it takes a long time to save and the project almost doubles in size without any new audio or edits done to the session. It is now almost 7 GB and I can't continue working on it until I resolve this issue.

 

I have cleaned up the project, consolidated it, deleted my undo steps, and deleted project alternatives. None of those have helped.

 

It seems to only be this project as none of my other projects are having this issue.

 

Any help is much appreciated

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Hey guys

Thanks for your suggestions. I am going to import as a new project as suggested in the first comment.

 

When I am saving I have audio files and alchemy audio data selected. It was a track with 8 MIDI tracks and no audio. The MIDI tracks are using ARTURIA synths in demo mode.

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I just created a new project and imported all midi and drum files and saved it with only audio files selected. The project is still 3.89 GB. It seems to be something with the MIDI files and maybe the ARTURIA synths.

 

I saved as a new project and converted all of the midi files to audio and deleted the MIDI tracks. That made the session go down to 7.5 MB. It is now manageable but I don't have control over the MIDI.

 

I have deleted undo steps and cleaned up the session.

 

Any other thoughts?

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Folder is better in my opinion, as I often have to pick, process and/or deliver certain files.

 

It also helps in finding out what specifically is bloating a project.

 

Do a right-click on the actual project file and select "Show Package Contents", then check what inside the Logic project is so big. Who knows, maybe we find a good workaround or even a solution. If you are able to tell a developer "Hey, as of version x in conjunction with software y, doing z will cause a to happen, when really b should happen.", you have a pretty good chance to have it fixed someday.

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Fuzz

When I checked the folder I wasn't able to see what it was making it so big. However I did created a new session and import the MIDI one track at a time and was able to find which tracks were making the project so big. I then converted those to audio as I liked the sounds and didn't need further MIDI tweaking.

 

It still doesn't explain why when saving the file each time I saved it would literally double in size. Just opening the project and hitting save doubled the project size.

 

I will keep trying to find the problem and the solution.

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Here's the content of a typical Logic project, 130 audio tracks, a couple of software instrument tracks, a little bit of automation, nothing fancy.

 

1094331387_Bildschirmfoto2020-07-15um22_23_22.png.ea9440a9efd6bda9a9f1270f87751f12.png

 

- Topmost in the hierarchy are Alternatives and Resources, with the latter being neglibly small.

- Inside Alternatives are, um Alternatives (in this case only one, 000)

- Inside each Alternative, there's Project File Backups. These are created with every Save command and this explains why a project doubles in size after the second Save command, as it's the entire project (ProjectData, here 5.5MB) and an accompanying plist file.

- The UndoData.nosync contains audio data if you have use the Audio File Editor, as that Editor's undo is separate from the global Undo. Otherwise it should be empty

- ProjectData is the actual last save of theProject and is usually roughly between 1MB and 100MB in size.

- The rest of the files is minuscule and not worth investigating.

 

So is it really ProjectData that is so big in your Project ?

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  • 2 months later...

I have this problem too. After suffering slowdown in Logic and very long Save times, I discovered that my ProjectData file was 12.5GB in size!!!!

 

On investigation, here's what I found…

 

The Arturia instruments' preset/patch data is becoming corrupted by Logic. I have found this with the Piano V2, Synclavier and ARP2600 instruments, but it may affect others. If you Save your instrument's edited preset/patch in the User bank and then open the file in a text editor you will see that a particular parameter ('Tags') is being repeated over and over:

 

22 serialization::archive 10 0 7 0 7 30 Synclavier Bass 4 User 15 2 MJ 3 Pad 0 0 6 0 7 Ambient 4 Dark 8 Ensemble 4 Long 4 Soft 10 Soundtrack 0 0 63 Very soft pad with some brassy quality. Mod wheel adds vibrato. 1601655645 10 2.6.1.3854 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 0 0 0 16 OriginalPackName 7 Factory 18 OriginalPresetName 12 Naked Planet 4 Tags 1572863 Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|Atmospheric|

etc. etc. etc.

 

This file was over 400MB instead of 625k!

 

The size increases exponentially with each Save of your Logic Project. Obviously, the more Arturia instruments you use, the worse the problem.

 

I don't have a real solution but here's a rather tedious (and possibly only temporary) workaround:

 

**** FIRST BACKUP YOUR PROJECT! ****

 

Next, identify the problematic instruments by opening the ProjectData file found inside the project's 'Alternatives' folder. I only have one alternative folder ('000') so I don't know which one you should use if you have multiple alternatives. Sorry.

 

Depending on the file size, it may take a while to open in your text editor.

 

Scroll down until you see repetitions of a short sequence of characters, like this…

 

"$,09BDMNW\ilyÜèòö£§≠≤¡≈ Õœ—”‡ÈÚÙ˝˛&(12;@RUgnsuwy{ÄÇÑÜàäúß≠πªΩœ“›¶flOCuA$1ˇˇˇˇÃ∞C5∞ Inst 4)ı˜œ@ˇˇô‚‹UCuA$1,05 UCuA$1,05!UCuA$1,05"`9¥UCuA$1 y5ARP 2600 V3utrAumua3PRA◊ġty46ia<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

Controller State

MjIgc2VyaWFsaXphdGlvbjo6YXJjaGl2ZSAxMCAwIDcgMCA3IDE1IFNlYSBTZXggYW5k

IFN1biA3IEZhY3RvcnkgNSAxMiBDZWxtYXIgRW5nZWwgMyBTRlggMCAwIDIgMCA3IEFt

YmllbnQgNSBOb2lzZSAxIDAgMCAgMTUzMTczMTc1NiAxMCAzLjYuMS4zODU0IDAgMCAw

IDAgMCAwIDAgMCAgMCAwIDEgMCAwIDAgNCBUYWdzIDEwMDY2MzI5NSBTb3VuZHNjYXBl

c3xTb3VuZHNjYXBlc3xTb3VuZHNjYXBlc3xTb3VuZHNjYXBlc3xTb3VuZHNjYXBlc3xT

b3VuZHNjYXBlc3xTb3VuZHNjYXBlc3xTb3VuZHNjYXBlc3xTb3VuZHNjYXBlc3xTb3Vu

ZHNjYXBlc3xTb3VuZHNjYXBlc3xTb3VuZHNjYXBlc3xTb3VuZHNjYXBlc3xTb3VuZHNj

YXBlc3xTb3VuZHNjYXBlc3xTb3VuZHNjYXBlc3xTb3VuZHNjYXBlc3xTb3VuZHNjYXBl

c3xTb3VuZHNjYXBlc3xTb3VuZHNjYXBlc3xTb3VuZHNjYXBlc3xTb3VuZHNjYXBlc3xT

b3VuZHNjYXBlc3xTb3VuZHNjYXBlc3xTb3VuZHNjYXBlc3xTb3VuZHNjYXBlc3xTb3Vu

ZHNjYXBlc3xTb3VuZHNjYXBlc3xTb3VuZHNjYXBlc3xTb3VuZHNjYXBlc3xTb3VuZHNj

YXBlc3xTb3VuZHNjYXBlc3xTb3VuZHNjYXBlc3xTb3VuZHNjYXBlc3xTb3VuZHNjYXBl

c3xTb3VuZHNjYXBlc3xTb3VuZHNjYXBlc3xTb3VuZHNjYXBlc3xTb3VuZHNjYXBlc3xT

b3VuZHNjYXBlc3xTb3VuZHNjYXBlc3xTb3VuZHNjYXBlc3xTb3VuZHNjYXBlc3xTb3Vu

ZHNjYXBlc3xTb3VuZHNjYXBlc3xTb3VuZHNjYXBlc3xTb3VuZHNjYXBlc3xTb3VuZHNj

YXBlc3xTb3VuZHNjYXBlc3xTb3VuZHNjYXBlc3xTb3VuZHNjYXBlc3xTb3VuZHNjYXBl

c3xTb3VuZHNjYXBlc3xTb3VuZHNjYXBlc3xTb3VuZHNjYXBlc3xTb3VuZHNjYXBlc3xT

b3VuZHNjYXBlc3xTb3VuZHNjYXBlc3xTb3VuZHNjYXBlc3xTb3VuZHNjYXBlc3xTb3Vu

etc. etc. etc.

 

Note the name of the instrument from the preceding text ('ARP 2600 V3utrAumua3PRA' above). This can be a little bit cryptic!

 

Ignore repetitions of 'ÚIq ÚIq ÚIq ÚIq ÚIq ÚIq ÚIq' and similar – these are Apple's Pedalboard plugin.

 

Once you have identified the problem instruments you can fix their corruption:

 

1. Save your edited Arturia instrument preset and locate the file on your hard drive (on a Mac – Library/Arturia/Presets/[instrument name]/User/User/… )

 

2. Quit Logic WITHOUT saving your project and open the saved preset file in a text editor.

 

3. In the same way, open the Factory preset on which your edit is based (Library/Arturia/Presets/[instrument name]/Factory/Factory/… ). This will be listed at the top of the data after 'OriginalPresetName' ('Naked Planet' in the corrupt example above).

 

4. Make a note of the number after the following 'Tags' parameter. In the example above this number is 1572863. I think it represents the data size of the tag(?). For this Instrument/Preset it should actually be 11, as you will see from the Factory file for 'Naked Planet'…

 

22 serialization::archive 10 0 7 0 7 12 Naked Planet 7 Factory 15 10 Indie Moon 3 Pad 0 0 6 0 7 Ambient 4 Dark 8 Ensemble 4 Long 4 Soft 10 Soundtrack 1 0 63 Very soft pad with some brassy quality. Mod wheel adds vibrato. 1546617361 10 2.0.2.1920 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 4 Tags 11 Atmospheric

[Note that there is only ONE instance of the tags parameter ('Atmospheric')]

 

5. Delete the multiple repetitions of the corrupt parameter and alter the number to match the Factory file. Save. Close both the preset files.

 

6. Reopen your project in Logic. Go to your Arturia instrument and load your saved preset from the User Bank.

 

7. Save your project.

 

8. Repeat for all your other problematic instruments.

 

Boring, I know, but it can rescue out-of-control file sizes. Unfortunately, I haven't established whether or not the fix is permanent, so keep an eye on your ProjectData file size!

 

Hope this helps. I will be reporting my findings to both Arturia and Apple.

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  • 6 months later...

dude I have spent the last 2 hours trying to literally play my project, I have left one midi instrument un frozen and bounced in place everything but kick and bass. and i can't play past 20 seconds

 

and what do you know there are arturia software synths in this thing. the project is up to 1.08 gbs and has not gone down after all the trimming.

 

I have maxed out latency and threading for best cpu playback.

 

I am going to try this said work around suggest so thoughtfully by finaldiner because I have the exact same symptoms and condition with saved patches in an arturia instrument

 

this is really unacceptable, it has made me question this daw and this MacBook Pro, and many things like this arturia plug in as well since finding this thread

 

I can't even play this project. and I have had way more complex projects with nothing bounced in place and 128 latency with no issues and multiple plug ins at once

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I couldn't find an alternatives folder or the project data file to be able to modify the "corrupt" code and I couldn't find the arturia patch file or even a folder that would have it. after 3 hours I need a break, this really stinks, and that project import thing was convenient but I need more time with that fingers crossed this is just a bad project....though I am a little afraid because another recent project is acting up too and at 800 mb
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I found another workaround in Gearspace:

 

I have been a Logic user since version 1, so finding new tricks doesn't happen every day for me. Here is a great one. Since Logic Pro X was released I occasionally encounter what I have coined "Blooming", when you are saving projects in Folder Mode. Like many producers, every time I work on a project I duplicate the previous days' file and append a new number, ie. Project_01, Project_02, etc. I have found that many projects will begin to dramatically increase their file size, sometimes to many GB. This should not occur in Folder mode, as the audio files are not included in the file size. If your file size exceeds 1 GB you are definitely experiencing Blooming. I have seen this in multiple studios and setups.

Here is how you resolve Blooming:

 

1) Open your Bloomed File

2) Save as a Template (this should take a minute or 2)

3) Close the file

4) Select "New file from Template" and select the template you just saved from the Bloomed file

5) After it has opened "Save as" into the file's original folder under a new name.

6) Close the file, I usually save it again when prompted

7) Open your Project folder and check out your new skinny file. Congrats, you did it!

8) You can now safely delete the Bloomed file and the Template you created to resolve the issue.

 

I have saved hundreds of GB using this technique. It's 100% effective, and I have been testing it for over a month. Always works. Enjoy!

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Hi Prophecy99, this turned out to be a known bug with Arturia Collection V and was fixed with an update. So, make sure your Arturia software is up to date and it should be OK. However, you may have to dump your Arturia instruments from your project and recreate them in order to get the file size down.
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I found another workaround in Gearspace:

 

I have been a Logic user since version 1, so finding new tricks doesn't happen every day for me. Here is a great one. Since Logic Pro X was released I occasionally encounter what I have coined "Blooming", when you are saving projects in Folder Mode. Like many producers, every time I work on a project I duplicate the previous days' file and append a new number, ie. Project_01, Project_02, etc. I have found that many projects will begin to dramatically increase their file size, sometimes to many GB. This should not occur in Folder mode, as the audio files are not included in the file size. If your file size exceeds 1 GB you are definitely experiencing Blooming. I have seen this in multiple studios and setups.

Here is how you resolve Blooming:

 

1) Open your Bloomed File

2) Save as a Template (this should take a minute or 2)

3) Close the file

4) Select "New file from Template" and select the template you just saved from the Bloomed file

5) After it has opened "Save as" into the file's original folder under a new name.

6) Close the file, I usually save it again when prompted

7) Open your Project folder and check out your new skinny file. Congrats, you did it!

8) You can now safely delete the Bloomed file and the Template you created to resolve the issue.

 

I have saved hundreds of GB using this technique. It's 100% effective, and I have been testing it for over a month. Always works. Enjoy!

thank you so much triplets, I am going to implement this immediately, i also haven't been saving the folder type on my projects up to this point (last night trying to diagnose this blooming project) but this save as template work around still applies in my opinion regardless of the save type.

 

Thank you a lot ! i really appreciate logicprohelp and all the help and info it provides! it has made me a happy logic user over and over.

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Hi Prophecy99, this turned out to be a known bug with Arturia Collection V and was fixed with an update. So, make sure your Arturia software is up to date and it should be OK. However, you may have to dump your Arturia instruments from your project and recreate them in order to get the file size down.

thanks a ton Finaldiner, i was thinking this too after more thought on your code corruption discovery etc. thank you ! will post updates after.

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so I updated arturia, and did the save as template and opened a fresh new file from the new template and the file size is drastically down (literally at 24mb) but I still can't even play the project....and get the same system overload...

 

I am gonna try it on another project and keep the fingers crossed, maybe its just this project...sighh

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ok, so right away I did a couple more bounce in places on the 3 of the 5 tracks with arturia instruments, and I restarted the whole computer, I actually got to play the new downsized project now (sitting at a measly 22.2MB , down from 1.07GB -1.69GB) and even dared to open up a software instrument (serum) during play back and it worked ! so it seems something did work through the course of updating the offending third party software, save as template work around, and a computer restart. sitting at 1024 latency and will try to get that back down (probably once I finish this project)

 

thank you everyone , this is a start and I will post any more updates as time goes! I am very grateful for everyones input on this, as it was literally a dead end with no play back possible, now we are back in business

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  • 1 month later...
I tried the anti-Blooming trick, but somehow it ended up adding 2.1MB to my folder!

The overall project folder for the particular song I'm working on is 44+GB. Yow.

 

Are you using Arturia plugins?

 

 

I was going to say no, but I remembered that I'm using a couple free Arturia plugs. The Juno-style chorus and a plate reverb.

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I was going to say no, but I remembered that I'm using a couple free Arturia plugs. The Juno-style chorus and a plate reverb.

 

There was an issue with Arturia Collection V, and an update apparently fixed the bloating problem.

 

I did have a lite version of the Arturia synth collection, but I don't have it loaded up, so for me, it's only the two Arturia plugs I mentioned - a plate reverb and the Juno chorus.

 

I'm still baffled by the bloating - I had one of the songs in question down to 863MB, then when I saved and closed it, it was back to 1.03GB. Almost tempted, for the sake of finishing up a particular song, to bounce the tracks into Pro Tools, but I'd still rather sort out the odd issues in Logic.

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