Symphonichrome Posted February 12 Share Posted February 12 (edited) I have Logic Pro 10.7.7 running on a MBP 16" M1 Max; 64GB RAM; 4TB I just opened a new project, put one instance of Kontakt 7 thereon and played some chords on a loop When I switch presets within the Kontakt 7 instrument (Hypha), I get the spinning beach ball for 3 seconds before the preset switches -- I am perplexed that this machine can somehow not be able to handle a preset switch during playback Anyone else experiencing this or can suggest what the issue might be? Edited February 12 by Symphonichrome more info Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atlas007 Posted February 12 Share Posted February 12 Have you tried enabling DFD in Kontakt? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Symphonichrome Posted February 12 Author Share Posted February 12 13 minutes ago, Atlas007 said: Have you tried enabling DFD in Kontakt? I have not tried that but, the question remains, how can a Logic project, consisting of one track, cause a beach ball in this situation - it makes me think that Logic itself is the culprit and I know others who have the same setup I do using different DAWs and nothing like this happens to them Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atlas007 Posted February 12 Share Posted February 12 Possible… I cannot trouble shoot same any further as I’m not using an M1 Mac. I don’t get this (beach ball) problem on my side. Some delay occurs when switching to a different preset depending of the size of the preset sample set at stake (in Omnisphere, Kontakt). I am using an external SSD 4TB (OWC) drive. DFD is definitely decreasing the loading time. The delay is then too shirt to be an issue here. It might be if I was performing live and depending on a instant switch during a song. But that isn’t advisable anyway. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
des99 Posted February 13 Share Posted February 13 (edited) Beach balls do not mean your computer cannot handle something. They simply mean the process that is doing CPU work is not responding to GUI events during the process, so macOS displays a beach ball to let the user know user input is blocked for the time being.. I’d guess that your preset switching in this instrument is loading a lot of samples, and when it’s done, it continues to service the UI again. The faster the disk, the quicker the sample loading process will happen, and the less likely you will see beachballs. Edited February 13 by des99 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Symphonichrome Posted February 13 Author Share Posted February 13 2 hours ago, des99 said: Beach balls do not mean your computer cannot handle something. They simply mean the process that is doing CPU work is not responding to GUI events during the process, so macOS displays a beach ball to let the user know user input is blocked for the time being.. I’d guess that your preset switching in this instrument is loading a lot of samples, and when it’s done, it continues to service the UI again. The faster the disk, the quicker the sample loading process will happen, and the less likely you will see beachballs. I still find it hard to believe that with one MIDI instrument (the only track in a brand new project), with no other plug-ins, would cause a beach ball on an M1 Max -- I thought the M1 Max was a powerful chip Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
des99 Posted February 13 Share Posted February 13 (edited) 28 minutes ago, Symphonichrome said: I still find it hard to believe that with one MIDI instrument (the only track in a brand new project), with no other plug-ins, would cause a beach ball on an M1 Max -- I thought the M1 Max was a powerful chip It has nothing to do with how powerful the chip is, or how many tracks you have in your project, it's about how the software is designed, how much work it needs to do, and the responsiveness of the system. I have a similar system but, for example, if I need to load a file on an external spinning disk, I have to wait while the drive spins up and delivers that content, and all the computer can do while it waits is beachball. The CPU is not even a factor in this example. Or if I load a deep-sampled Kontakt instrument which loads thousands of samples, even from fast SSD, all the CPU can do is wait while the Kontakt loading procedure happens - and again, as Kontakt is concerned with loading the samples as quickly as possible, it's UI is not responsive, and so after a certain time macOS will display a beachball to tell you it's busy and it's servicing UI events at the moment. I don't use the Kontakt instrument you are experiencing this with, so I don't know how many samples (potentially hundreds, or even thousands of files that need to be loaded), or what drives those samples are being pulled from - I'm just indicating that beachballs aren't an indication that your CPU is slow, and giving you some background as to how macOS and software works so you can better understand the performance of your system. Are the samples for this instrument on an external disk, or the internal SSD? Also, make sure your Kontakt 7 is up to date, they are releasing a lot of bugfix updates to K7 as it's been a little rough so far. Also - try another DAW (or demo, plugin host etc) if you think somehow Logic is doing this, and load the same Kontakt instrument in, and switch presets. Do you see any different behaviour? Edited February 13 by des99 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Symphonichrome Posted February 13 Author Share Posted February 13 17 minutes ago, des99 said: It has nothing to do with how powerful the chip is, or how many tracks you have in your project, it's about how the software is designed, how much work it needs to do, and the responsiveness of the system. I have a similar system but, for example, if I need to load a file on an external spinning disk, I have to wait while the drive spins up and delivers that content, and all the computer can do while it waits is beachball. The CPU is not even a factor in this example. Or if I load a deep-sampled Kontakt instrument which loads thousands of samples, even from fast SSD, all the CPU can do is wait while the Kontakt loading procedure happens - and again, as Kontakt is concerned with loading the samples as quickly as possible, it's UI is not responsive, and so after a certain time macOS will display a beachball to tell you it's busy and it's servicing UI events at the moment. I don't use the Kontakt instrument you are experiencing this with, so I don't know how many samples (potentially hundreds, or even thousands of files that need to be loaded), or what drives those samples are being pulled from - I'm just indicating that beachballs aren't an indication that your CPU is slow, and giving you some background as to how macOS and software works so you can better understand the performance of your system. Are the samples for this instrument on an external disk, or the internal SSD? Also, make sure your Kontakt 7 is up to date, they are releasing a lot of bugfix updates to K7 as it's been a little rough so far. Also - try another DAW (or demo, plugin host etc) if you think somehow Logic is doing this, and load the same Kontakt instrument in, and switch presets. Do you see any different behaviour? Kontakt 7 and the library are on the internal ssd of the MBP M1 Max Kontakt 7 is up-to-date Logic is my only DAW but, I suppose I can get a free trial of another DAW and test it out Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
des99 Posted February 13 Share Posted February 13 Kontakt has a standalone version as well you can try... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Symphonichrome Posted February 13 Author Share Posted February 13 4 minutes ago, des99 said: Kontakt has a standalone version as well you can try... OK just tried standalone - no beach ball when switching presets while playing 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
des99 Posted February 13 Share Posted February 13 (edited) 10 minutes ago, Symphonichrome said: OK just tried standalone - no beach ball when switching presets while playing Ok - this is using the same mechanic to switch presets in Kontakt in both cases? Is this a button on the Kontakt instrument's GUI, or something else (eg Kontakt snapshots, loading/unloading complete instruments etc)? Is the standalone running natively, or under Rosetta? (Likewise for Logic). And is the version of Kontakt the same in both cases? I recommend running Logic under Rosetta and trying the same test - Logic loads plugins slightly differently in this case. I would also normally say to check activity monitor, but you're unlikely to be having RAM/swap issues with 64GB available. I have an M1 Pro and Kontakt is reasonably performant and behaves as expected here, I'm certainly not noticing beachballs in regular use, even if Kontakt spends 10 seconds loading samples etc. Also, are you on Monterey or Ventura? Do you get beachballs switching Kontakt patches in the same way with other Kontakt instruments, or is it just with Hypha? Edited February 13 by des99 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Symphonichrome Posted February 13 Author Share Posted February 13 1 minute ago, des99 said: Ok - this is using the same mechanic to switch presets in Kontakt in both cases? Is this a button on the Kontakt instrument's GUI, or something else (eg Kontakt snapshots, loading/unloading complete instruments etc)? Is the standalone running natively, or under Rosetta? (Likewise for Logic). And is the version of Kontakt the same in both cases? I recommend running Logic under Rosetta and trying the same test - Logic loads plugins slightly differently in this case. I would also normally say to check activity monitor, but you're unlikely to be having RAM/swap issues with 64GB available. I have an M1 Pro and Kontakt is reasonably performant and behaves as expected here, I'm certainly not noticing beachballs in regular use, even if Kontakt spends 10 seconds loading samples etc. Also, are you on Monterey or Ventura? Yes - pressing the right arrow in the Kontakt GUI to move to the next preset Both standalone and plugin running natively I will try Rosetta tomorrow as I cannot keep my eyes open Ventura 13.1 Thank you for helping me attempt to narrow down the issue - will post more when I run in Rosetta tomorrow 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.