Core #8 in maxing out

[beatntrack]

Hi, I have a 2010 2.8GHz Quadcore Mac Pro with 32GB RAM running Yosemite. Logic Pro X 10.2. I'm mixing a project containing 2-4 virtual instruments and 20-35 audio tracks, not always playing at the same time. A mixture of Native plugins and UAD2 plugins.

 

I have my buffer set to 1024 and Process buffer set to large. What I'm seeing is that in the CPU/HD display in LPX the first four "meters" are in the very comfortable range, 5-7 are not active and 8 is almost maxing out, sometimes actually maxing out and causing distortion. I have tried the audio prefs core usage set to Automatic and to 8 with no apparent change.

 

Can anyone tell me why the processing load is not being distributed somewhat evenly among the cores? Anything to try? ( I prefer not doing bounce-in place for VIs, as I tweak them often in the mixdown)

 

Thanks

[Eric Cardenas]

Read Jordi Torres's posts on this thread:

 

Fixing Crackling/Popping when using Sampled Instruments

[jtnyc]

Make sure you don't have one of those instrument tracks selected. Have an audio track selected instead. It makes a big difference. When you have an instrument track selected the resources needed for that track will not get distributed and will get directed to a single core (usually #8).

[beatntrack]

Thanks for the suggestions everyone. I tried them all, to no avail. What did greatly lower the CPU load to where the song would play correctly without distortion and pops, was totally counter-intuitive. I had my Process Buffer set to large in Prefs, thinking that was easing the load on the CPU. In desperation I set it to small and immediately the CPU meter dropped. I'd dtill like to know why one or two cores get maxed or nearly maxed while the others are idle. I thought the thread allocation was dynamic and automatic. Thanks.