"System Overload" on Project With Only 11 Tracks??

[Major Fuzz]

I’ve had this issue before but it’s actually affecting my work now so I gotta figure it out. I’m working on a project that currently only has 11 tracks, only 1 of which is MIDI.

I have 8 guitar tracks, which is quad tracked rhythm and 4 overdub/harmony/lead tracks. Then I have a 16x stereo MIDI track for drums, using GGD modern & massive routed to have 6 mixer channels: Kick, Snare, Toms, Hat, OH, and Room, all of which are in a Summing stack.

The ONLY processing plugins I’ve got on there are: compressor on each drum track and one on the drum summing stack/bus, UAD tape emulator on stereo output, and EQ on Tom’s and OH. And a filter on one guitar track and the drum bus for a “small radio” effect for the intro.

It said system overload 3 separate times, and it started lagging. Like when I was tracking guitar I would play the part in time but on playback it was like 1/4-1/2 a second late, it got so bad I had to walk away for the night.

I’ve got a new artist coming to record their EP with me in the coming weeks so I need to figure this out soon! This has happened in the past but usually with larger, more MIDI heavy projects with lots of plugins. This is the first time it’s happened on such a small project.

Tech Specs:

I’m on Mac Big Sur Version 11.6.8

3.1 GHz 6-core Intel Core 5

16GB 2667 MHz DDR4

Logic Pro X Version 10.7.4

[des99]

If you display your CPU/Performance meter in Logic, you can see the load you are running with the plugins you have in your project, and you can go through and disable various plugins to observe how much load each is contributing. From that, you'll get an idea of where you're pulling the load, and then you can decide how to address that from there.

Also check your audio buffer, raising it can give your computer some overhead on heavy projects.

Edited October 13, 2022 by des99