Exporting Audio Tracks (Stems) on Mac Studio Ultra

[CHKComposer]

I have my new Mac Studio Ultra set up and everything is working pretty well so far. I'm using mostly all native plug-ins. Sessions that were hitting the ceiling of my i7 Quad Core 4.2 Ghz iMac are playing back at about 33% CPU.

However, I have noticed that bouncing and exporting tracks is not dramatically faster. Not much faster than real time. Exporting 11 Audio tracks.  Sample libraries spread out on several SSD drives in TB3 enclosures. Lots of Kontakt libraries. Various other soft synths. Logic Project on its own SSD.  This particular project is using all native plug-ins. Nothing running in rosetta. Anyone else noticing this? Wondering if my routing or something else is slowing things down on the export process.

 

[speakerfood]

I would try to nail down. First remove all Kontakt tracks and try again. Then remove all other soft synths and try again. My guess is that it is not a processor but a disk I/O limit.

[CHKComposer]

Thanks for the reply. After experimenting a bit I've narrowed the problem down to iZotope Ozone 9. I put just a touch of mastering on each stem (10 tracks). If I take Ozone off the channel strip it takes about one min 15 sec to export 11 tracks (Stems plus Mix) that are about 2 minutes long. With Ozone on channel strip it takes about 3 min 15 sec for the same export.  (Nearly 3 times longer export time!) Ozone is Apple Silicon native, and it has always been a CPU hog. I was hoping that would change a bit with AS version. I experimented with replacing Ozone with the stock Logic plug-ins and other third party mastering plug-ins (a channel strip consisting of EQ, Comp, Exciter, Imager, and Limiter on each stem) and there wasn't sizable difference between no plug-ins on stems, and the non-ozone plug ins.

There was also a negligible difference when I swapped out softsynths that require little disk activity and Kontakt.  So it seems that Ozone is the main offender here. I do prefer the sound of Ozone over other options, so maybe that's just the trade off I have to deal with for now.

Edited May 21, 2022 by shadowboxnyc

[triplets]

Yup, Ozone always takes a bit hit at the CPU, regardless of how powerful the computer is.

[speakerfood]

Glad you found the problem. Maybe iZotope is able to optimise the plug-in for Silicon so I would definitely report it to them.