System Overload

[Spectacle]

Spectacle,

 

How do you use Logic? Do you record bands -- if so, how many tracks are you f*#@ing with? Are you an electronic musician -- if so, how many instruments are you running simultaneously? Are you using multi-instruments?

 

I do not believe that my hardware is different than any number of musicians out there. At home I use an M-audio Firewire 410. I have a Mac Pro. These are standard music-making pieces of hardware and I believe that having overloads is ridiculous with some common-place hardware.

 

I don't believe you giving Logic a good enough workout. If you did, you would get overloads every once in a while.

 

I am not dismissing Logic. It is my favorite app! But let's get real:

 

The problem is in Logic, not my hardware.

Look, the question is not about "getting real". My experience has been virtually identical to Jay's (Ashermusic), as expressed right after your post. And I agree completely with Dave Gross about trying to find individual solutions (since the very existence of me, Jay, and Dave on the one hand, and you, inmazevo, and others on the other hand indicates that the same problems aren't happening on all systems). But again, I am NOT ruling out that it is a problem with Logic's code. What I have been saying is that if it is a problem with Logic's code, it is a problem with the way in which this code runs on YOUR systems. This is a point that should help us narrow down the problem and help FIX your issues (or at least turn the developers on to something specific that they can address in an update).

 

I don't routinely run hundreds of tracks. But it's usually in the dozens, with VIs mixed in with audio tracks. Logic 8 is more stable and more powerful for me than Logic 7 was. Full stop.

 

But my personal experience isn't the only thing informing what I have said on here. I have also referred to the reports people are stating all over these forums. Take the demo songs for example. Some people are getting overload messages when they play the demo songs that came with Logic. Others can play these songs, add various plugs and instruments and still never get the messages.*

 

*I fit in this second group, the only error message came just once, when I loaded up the Plaid song for the first time right after starting Logic immediately after a cold boot -- and hitting spacebar(stop)-return-spacebar(play) one time resolved it with no further trouble.

 

So what does this discrepancy mean? One thing it certainly means is that the overload problems aren't universal. It doesn't mean that they aren't something within Logic, but it DOES indicate that there is likely a difference between various people's systems/settings. Your hardware (computer, interface, drives and particular formatting), may not be messing things up. But the way in which Logic deals with your specific hardware might be. Or buffers. Or drivers. Or third-party plugs. Etc. You see what I'm saying?

 

Also, as I have said all along (and as Jay says right after your post), yes, I have occasionally gotten the right-after-startup overload messages. But I got them much more often in Logic 7 than Logic 8, and when it does occur it is nothing more than a one-second blip for me -- NOT (for me) a twenty to thirty minute loss of work/waste of time.

 

And with regard to the script, it seems to be helping a lot of people. This means that it is working for them. End of story. If it isn't working for you that sucks. But it doesn't mean that the script just plain doesn't work. In fact, it underlines the point that there are problems going on in your setup that are different from those in other people's.

 

So, overall, I'm pulling for you. And I'm trying to help. But it is quite clear that different things are happening on different people's systems. Which means that it probably isn't simply a general bug in Logic. Does it let Logic off the hook? Of course not. But it does mean that we need to try to find commonalities between the people who are having the issues -- and the way in which Logic's settings are configured, what 3rd-party material is installed on different machines, and the way in which Logic is interacting with hardware, plugs, drivers, etc. is much more likely the culprit.

[Spectacle]

Spectacle, could you try this on your machine to see that is not giving you overload?

 

1. Create 1 audiotrack with the apple loop Club Dance Beat 001 running from measure 1 for 4 bars.

2. Create 1 Ultrabeat track and midi region with some notes starting at measure 5 running for 4 bars.

3. Create 1 ES2 track and midi region with a 4 note chord starting at measure 9 running for 4 bars.

4. Create another ES2 track and midi region with a 4 note chord starting at measure 13 running for 4 bars.

5. Set the playhead at the start of the project and Save.

6. Reboot the computer and open up Logic and just hit the play button. Do nothing else.

Hi Raoul,

 

I did this sequence here precisely as indicated, and here's what happened:

 

Everything all good until measure 9, when there is a sudden spike and an overload message. Press return and hit the spacebar again, and no trouble whatsover in the project no matter what you add.

 

I then saved, shut the project down and rebooted the computer, tried again, and the response was exactly the same. One spike/overload message when that ES2 kicked in that first time. But hit two keys quickly and everything's all good.

 

I then closed the project, loaded a different project of mine, played it a bit (of course, no overloads), saved it, closed it, and reopened the Raoul test project. Hit play...and no bumps spikes or error messages whatsoever. And through all of this, with the exception of the one spike with error message, the CPU meter is hardly even registering activity at all -- just a blip at the bottom.

 

My system info:

MacBook Pro Core2Duo 2.33GHz 3GB RAM

5400rpm 120GB internal drive

7200rpm 500GB eSATA external drive (which the project was saved on and loaded from)

Interface = Alesis i/O 26 (FW400)

 

So here's the deal: when an ES2 is played for the very first time in this manner, with a four-note chord, it will spike and give the error message. But it only happens exactly ONE TIME, when I have just booted up the computer, and then started Logic for the first time. It won't happen at any point again after that until I shut the computer off and start it up again.

 

This is exactly in keeping with my previous experience, and is at the very most a microscopically minor nuisance that doesn't affect me in any way. Like casually brushing at a fly. Only much better than that, because the fly never comes back. And it is an improvement upon Logic 7, which I nevertheless had no real complaints about in this regard.

 

I hope that is of some help to you.

[humberto]

I

 

Here comes a lecture:)

 

I have recently become aware that many of you do this. This is BAD practice. You are begging for corrupted files, overload messages, etc.

 

Slow down a little.

 

I have been doing this since logic on the PC, and to be honest with you, all this issues you speak of are pretty recent.

 

logic 6 hardly ever gave me overload messages.

[FlowerPower]

what I find interesting in reading this thread, and the original 'here's a script for you' thread..is the analogy between Western and Eastern medicine.

 

'the script fix' is typcially Western. 'We don't know what's causing the problem, so here's a pill to make you feel better'.

This makes sense - unless the problem is that Logic 8 is programmed to grab too little (or too much) CPU power, and this script makes Logic get the portion of the available power it needs.

 

Someone wrote somewhere that Logic can play a lot more voices/racks than Logic 7 - maybe Logic 8 by default simply tries to use more power than it's capable of handling.

[humberto]

what I find interesting in reading this thread, and the original 'here's a script for you' thread..is the analogy between Western and Eastern medicine.

 

'the script fix' is typcially Western. 'We don't know what's causing the problem, so here's a pill to make you feel better'.

This makes sense - unless the problem is that Logic 8 is programmed to grab too little (or too much) CPU power, and this script makes Logic get the portion of the available power it needs.

 

Someone wrote somewhere that Logic can play a lot more voices/racks than Logic 7 - maybe Logic 8 by default simply tries to use more power than it's capable of handling.

 

well this makes sense also, common sense

 

logic 8 needs a fast mac to run, as some g4 owners have found out, So, just to load logic, its gonna need alot more CPU power then logic 7.

 

logic 8 is more taxing in terms of GUI, so if you dont have a good video card, your not going to get the same fast screen redraws like in logic 7.

 

 

Not so much as a hiccup. The only time I start to get System Overload messages is when I try to open a 3rd party plug-in while the sequencer is running.

 

Here comes a lecture:)

 

I have recently become aware that many of you do this. This is BAD practice. You are begging for corrupted files, overload messages, etc.

 

Slow down a little. .

 

I have been doing this since logic 5 on the PC. the whole idea of getting an expensive apple computer is to do these things on the fly! Why spend $2000 on a new apple computer if you have to sit and wait for it to load stuff?

 

its pure insanity that todays high end mac computers running logic get overload messages.

 

and it doesnt happen with everyone. why not?

 

you have 3 different apple CPU's out there, motorola g4's, IBM G5's, and Intel.

 

thats all for mac, and considering the fact, one can only ponder if APPLE COMPUTERS logics code is REALLY that much better the EMAGIC code for running logic.

 

Its to many factors with these apples these days, you never know what plugins are more stable, PPC or UB.

 

if you ask me, EMAGIC was better at developing logic then apple is.

[thindave]

Humberto, while I can appreciate that you're having issues with your system, you're starting to sound like a broken record on this board.

 

You're posting is multiple threads about how your hardware isn't cutting it - not necessary...

 

The bottom line here is that L8 was a massive re-engineering of the app and it should be treated almost as a v1.0 product. As many others have already stated, if you have serious work to get done, stay with what works for you. If L7 never worked for you, then you bought the wrong sw...

 

Dave

[humberto]

Humberto

 

The bottom line here is that L8 was a massive re-engineering of the app and it should be treated almost as a v1.0 product.

Dave

 

 

yes logic 8 was a massive re-engineering of the app, and a complete failure if you ask me.

 

people have the right to know that things were not always like this, logic never use to have all these issues. It had issues, but not on a grad scale like this.

 

logic 8 was a rush job, logic 7 still needed to be updated. there are pros on this very forum stuck, between features added in logic 8 and removed from logic 8.

 

there was a young lad here who needed a different frame rate in logic 7, because logic 8 was unstable, yet people yelled at him and told him to basically upgrade to 8, stay on 7, move to another app or shut up.... but logic 8 really is NOT for every pro out there, and this is a hard fact many logic fans are going to have to swallow.

 

the if logic 8 doesnt work for you go back to logic 7 or move on doesnt help, thats the advice people give, instead of realizing apple is destory the logic user base

 

I dont know, people make a living off of logic, and you cant expect pro's to sit around and wait for logic to be built up from a 1.0 version while deadlines have to be met.

 

pro's do not like being beta testers and thats what logic 8 is, in my humble opionion

[raoulflutter]

jera, did you reboot?

 

Spectacle, if I line up the tracks so that all the regions start at measure 1, i don't get the message after rebooting, compared to when the regions start one after the other. In the original test i get the message at the beginning of measure 5, when the ultrabeat starts to play.

 

I am new to Logic Express since a couple of weeks, so I have not made any big projects yet, but the Plaid track played fine after restarting the song only once after rebooting.

 

R.

[Fred B]

So here's the deal: when an ES2 is played for the very first time in this manner, with a four-note chord, it will spike and give the error message. But it only happens exactly ONE TIME, when I have just booted up the computer, and then started Logic for the first time. It won't happen at any point again after that until I shut the computer off and start it up again.

 

This is exactly in keeping with my previous experience, and is at the very most a microscopically minor nuisance that doesn't affect me in any way. Like casually brushing at a fly. Only much better than that, because the fly never comes back. And it is an improvement upon Logic 7, which I nevertheless had no real complaints about in this regard.

Ok, so at least we can agree that there IS a "nuisance" with Logic. Of course, the personal rating may be different. For me the basic function of a sequencer is to play whenever I press "play" assuming the computer is capable to play the song at all. And I do NOT consider it a microscopically minor nuisance that Logic doesn't provide this basic functionality.

 

PS. Although sounding negative this is actually meant as a constructive complaint, namely that the developers should rethink some quirky design decisions.

.

[Tapeworm]

Its like having a new car that always dies on you after driving a 100 feet then having to restart it in order to be able to go on your way.

Dumb, dumb, dumb and stupid. Fix it Apple!