Logic Performance Deteriorating

[westicle]

Hi

 

I'm running Logic Pro 9.1.8, 32-bit on my laptop (specs below) and over the last year or two it's become increasingly harder to work with and after a while it becomes unresponsive for 10-20 seconds at a time. Interface is a Phonic Firefly 808 and I've always used that with it.

 

My current project involves recording 2 tracks at the same time while using a software instrument channel as a click and monitoring another pre-recorded audio channel. I'm working quickly - record a few seconds, if I mess up then stop, delete, rewind and go again. That can happen 10+ times in a row before I get a take I'm happy with and this happens super quick. After doing that for a while the fan on my laptop goes crazy which is getting into my mics and then after an hour or more I have to restart my laptop because Logic has stopped working.

 

My Logic folder is in Dropbox so it's always backed up. Would this be the problem?

 

The project is around 2 hours 45 minutes long at the moment - 21 acoustic tracks lined up one after another with gaps in between.

 

I've never reinstalled the OS since I first got the laptop.

 

Any ideas? Currently saving for a new laptop.

 

Laptop spec:

OS X Yosemite 10.10.5

Model Name: MacBook Pro

Model Identifier: MacBookPro6,1

Processor Name: Intel Core i7

Processor Speed: 2.8 GHz

Number of Processors: 1

Total Number of Cores: 2

L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB

L3 Cache: 4 MB

Memory: 8 GB

Hard drive is 500gb 7200rpm.

[Eric Cardenas]

Hi westicle

 

Thanks for providing your system specs.

Click this link to your signature and add that to your signature so that we are able to see this on every post instead of scrolling up to the top.

 

Fans spinning is either the mostly caused by CPU or GPU activity.

Open Activity Monitor and see which application is consuming most energy or using most CPU.

[Glenn L.]

This is my experience with my mac-mini. It may or may not apply to you, but there was definitely a correlation between OS upgrades and performance.

 

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=121007

[jasonwagner]

"My Logic folder is in Dropbox so it's always backed up. Would this be the problem?"

 

Are you saying you are recoding and working from a project running on dropbox, as opposed to your internal drive or more preferred an external audio drive?

 

If so that would definitely be a problem.

 

If you are recording to your internal drive that the OS and programs are on that could be a problem as well.

[Eric Cardenas]

Although Dropbox has other implications it's still running on the local drive.

[jasonwagner]

Although Dropbox has other implications it's still running on the local drive.

 

That's good. So it sounds like he is running off the system drive. Which being on 500g might be filling up fast, especially with a project 2 hours and 45 mins long.

 

Wes, do you have an external drive you could move your project to and try it then?

[Eric Cardenas]

It could be the local drive, and probably is, but you can set Dropbox up to a different location than the internal.

We need more info from the OP on how his system is setup.

[westicle]

HI guys, thanks for chipping in.

 

Yep, I've only ever used the internal drive for everything and I've had it for 5.5 years now. I don't record all the time on it but it's been used a lot for recording over that time.

 

I can't think when I started putting everything in Dropbox but it was probably a couple of years ago. So yeah, I record a take and as soon as its done Dropbox is syncing the files.

 

I kept an eye on the Activity Monitor today as I was recording a lot and the highest CPU use flicked between Logic and Dropbox and then as everything started to slow down something called WindowsServer popped it's head up and was frequently the highest CPU use.

 

There's over 80gb free on the drive.

[jasonwagner]

I'd try an external drive.

[Eric Cardenas]

I would try moving your recording out of Dropbox first to see if it is the constant syncing that is causing the unnatural fan activity.

[SonicDrift]

Just checking that you had Activity Monitor set to : All active processes" not just user processes?

 

And how much % was Logic or Windowserver chewing up? Generally requires a big spike to set the fans running, or some process just latching on and not progressing

 

Also have a look for "Window server + Activity Monitor" in more general Apple forums, causing quite a few issues it seems, especially with busy desktops!

 

Haven't used dropbox in this way myself but i'd say the guys are on the money, isolate it first and see what happens.

 

I wonder if this is causing spotlight indexing to rear its ugly head too? That can chew up CPU at the worst times.

[westicle]

Yeah set to all processes.

 

So the interesting thing is that by the time the laptop had started to really slow down and Logic became slow to respond the CPU wasn't maxed out at all. Logic, WindowServer and Dropbox would occasionally spike or hit 30%-40% but generally it was low.

 

I'm just saving the project outside of Dropbox to try that.

 

Looks like I've got 6.4gb of stuff on the desktop. Oh wait, it would have been 3.7 before I copied the Logic project there just now.

 

I also didn't have Logic as unresponsive as it has been before yesterday. I was playing better than usual so didn't do so many takes! It was still slow enough for me to have to restart or leave it alone for 10 minutes for it to become usable again.