peasantpunch Posted January 5, 2012 Share Posted January 5, 2012 Is it true that after a certain number audio recordings the strain on memory means logic handle it anymore? I've done probably over 300 vocal takes, and the final vocal is a real mash up of all these takes. Now theres a system overload and logic just won't budge, and i'm wondering whether this might be the sole problem, or something else is at work in the hard drive. If it is this that might be causing the problem, then what can i do? I need the vocal performance as it is, and anyway all the audio files in the media bin are there to stay, seemingly. Is there a way of copying the whole arrangement/track mixer with all the vsts to another project that i can in turn copy the vocal performance onto, so that theres not such a massive audio bin for the project? But i'm also wondering whether the problem might be related to the 40gb Omnisphere sound library that i installed. it was only after this that i started getting real problems, even though i hadn't added any additional omnisphere vsts to the project. Also, even after wiping omnisphere from the face of my mac, logic is still having problems it didn't have previously. Very frustrating, considering i need to continue with the project regardless of omnisphere. I'm going to double my RAM to 8gb (got a 2.3ghz i5 processor) to see if that helps, but i guess what i'd like to know is how to address the problem - if indeed it is a problem - of an overloaded audio bin, and the memory situation i've been left with my installing and de-installing a 40gb sound library. I've still got around 125gb of my 500gb hard drive left with it installed, i'd have thought that would be enough. I'm sure i've removed every last trace of omnisphere, and have removed the audio.cache so its off the audio unit manager too. It might be worth mentioning i also have a 40gb east west play library installed. Could this clash with omnisphere, even though the particular project i'm talking about uses neither of these vsts? I like to be able to work on the move, so would prefer not to use an external hard drive, if possible.... Would upgrading to a 1tb hard drive and boosting my ram to 8gb be a solution, or am i missing a trick or two here? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Nahmani Posted January 5, 2012 Share Posted January 5, 2012 Is it true that after a certain number audio recordings the strain on memory means logic handle it anymore? Yes and no. The number of audio files you record does not matter. The number of audio regions you have present in your Arrange area does, however, make a difference. So it depends on how many regions you have in your Arrange area. I've done probably over 300 vocal takes, and the final vocal is a real mash up of all these takes. Now theres a system overload and logic just won't budge, and i'm wondering whether this might be the sole problem, or something else is at work in the hard drive. Impossible to tell without more information, like what your HD and CPU meters display at the time of the overload. However to avoid the "too many regions" problem, you could freeze the track, or merge the regions. You can also try lowering the number of undo steps in Logic's preferences. If you want you could take a screenshot of your Options > Project Information window and attach it to this thread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ski Posted January 5, 2012 Share Posted January 5, 2012 Is it true that after a certain number audio recordings the strain on memory means logic handle it anymore? Yes. A large number of regions can cause Logic to generate error messages (how large a number that is exactly is hard to say, but I've seen it many times where having hundreds of regions is a culprit). But at the same time I'm pretty sure that Logic's capacity to handle this situation is both project and system specific, and on a 4G system you should expect these kinds of problems. You simply don't have enough RAM to run this kind of project. It's not a matter of "memory war" as simply not enough RAM to start with. But i'm also wondering whether the problem might be related to the 40gb Omnisphere sound library that i installed. If you change your system in some way (i.e., installed a huge library that takes up a tremendous amount of disk space, considering your internal drive has a small capacity to begin with) and then you see a drastic difference in performance, that's a sign. You also mentioned that you have about 25% of room left on your system drive, and that you don't want to use an external hard drive. So here's my analysis... First, it's obvious you need more RAM. Second, and perhaps equally as important: not wanting to use an external hard drive is a vanity, and right now it seems to me you need "function over form". Samples and projects -- ideally -- should be each written/played from external FW (or better) hard drives if you want any kind of decent performance. It's a given that if you're trying to read audio files from your system drive as well as expect the system to operate (i.e., the system needs occasional disk access just to run) that you should not be streaming audio files from an internal hard drive. The R/W head of the internal drive can only be in one place at a time. Considering the amount of free space you have left, you're right at the lowest limit of acceptable free hard drive space for any Mac, but especially one where you're not using an external drive to stream audio and samples from. I'd bet you'd see much better performance if (as an example) you wiped the Omnisphere library content from your internal drive as well as moved all of your projects to an external. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peasantpunch Posted January 5, 2012 Author Share Posted January 5, 2012 Thanks for the quick responses guys. I attached a screenshot of Project Information, hopefully this will show if i'm going overboard on something. For creative reasons i duplicate arrangements many times over within any project, but its mostly midi regions that get repeated. Do lots of midi regions cause as much of a problem as lots of audio regions? I'm actually as far as bar 3537 with all the duplications. Its awkward glueing together the all the audio regions on the vocal performance before i'm totally happy with the final performance, so its not something i feel i can readily do until the end. I guess in the future creating a seperate project without plug ins and just an audio backing track to do all the vocal recordings over is sensible. I can just copy them over then. But in the meanwhile, will glueing together all the midi regions help? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peasantpunch Posted January 5, 2012 Author Share Posted January 5, 2012 Considering the amount of free space you have left, you're right at the lowest limit of acceptable free hard drive space for any Mac, but especially one where you're not using an external drive to stream audio and samples from. I'd bet you'd see much better performance if (as an example) you wiped the Omnisphere library content from your internal drive as well as moved all of your projects to an external. So all the projects (plus audio files), plug in sound libraries and sample banks would go on an external fire wire hard drive. I guess the only things that leaves on the internal hard drive is logic, logic's sample libraries, and all my plug in components, both native and external? Is it straightforward installing plug ins on the internal hard drive and yet separating their sound libraries onto to an external? Thanks again for the advice.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Nahmani Posted January 5, 2012 Share Posted January 5, 2012 It's debatable whether or not your want to move the libraries to an external drive, but your projects should be on another drive, correct. And ski's correct that while your internal HD should be fine, you're right on the edge of the recommended amount of free available space, so if you could free up a bit more that would make it more comfortable. In my experienced MIDI regions aren't slowing down Logic projects, audio regions are. Have you tried freezing your tracks? You can always unfreeze them when you need to work on them, and re-freeze them. That's what I'd recommend if you want to keep the flexibility of going back to your edits, but lose the slow-down due to the sheer amount of audio regions (477 is a lot). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peasantpunch Posted January 6, 2012 Author Share Posted January 6, 2012 In my experienced MIDI regions aren't slowing down Logic projects, audio regions are. Have you tried freezing your tracks? You can always unfreeze them when you need to work on them, and re-freeze them. That's what I'd recommend if you want to keep the flexibility of going back to your edits, but lose the slow-down due to the sheer amount of audio regions (477 is a lot). By freezing do you mean muting??? I can't really change my recording technique so i'm always going to have lots of audio regions, but am i right in thinking by recording them on a separate arrange page i'm making things easier for myself? The problem i have now is that i've recorded all these audio regions onto my main mix, so when i play parts of the arrangement with lots of plug ins it grinds to a stand still. If i get you right, its all the audio regions (not all the audio files in the audio bin) that are slowing me down, and merging all the regions on the vocal performance before mixing i should be ok. But if its the audio regions and not the audio files that are causing the problem, then why can logic still not handle parts of the arrangement that are just plug ins and no vocals? Its frustrating because before i installed 40gb omnisphere on the internal HD all the plug ins were running together perfectly, but now even after having wiped omnisphere and freed the space again logic still can't cope, as if i've still got the 40gb back on there! Its not as if there are many more audio regions in the project since then anyway... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Nahmani Posted January 6, 2012 Share Posted January 6, 2012 By freezing do you mean muting??? No: Freezing Tracks in the Arrange Area Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peasantpunch Posted January 6, 2012 Author Share Posted January 6, 2012 It's debatable whether or not your want to move the libraries to an external drive, but your projects should be on another drive, correct. And ski's correct that while your internal HD should be fine, you're right on the edge of the recommended amount of free available space, so if you could free up a bit more that would make it more comfortable. Is it recommended keeping sound libraries / sample folders on the internal HD because its more convenient for Logic to communicate with them? And one last thing - are there any specs i should look for in a new external HD? Would a 7200rpm 32bit 1TB firewire 800 be ok? Thanks again David. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
triplets Posted January 6, 2012 Share Posted January 6, 2012 FW800 drives with 7200 rpm is all you need. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ski Posted January 7, 2012 Share Posted January 7, 2012 Is it recommended keeping sound libraries / sample folders on the internal HD because its more convenient for Logic to communicate with them? Yes (and in some cases it's required). But we're talking specifically about stock Logic sounds, not 3rd party plugins. While the players themselves are typically installed on the system drive, samples and other library content are best stored on a separate HD. And one last thing - are there any specs i should look for in a new external HD? Would a 7200rpm 32bit 1TB firewire 800 be ok? Two such drives is ideal. One for projects (meaning audio recordings and saving Logic projects), the other for sample libraries (not including Logic's sample libraries). Oh, and partitioning is out of the question, as it won't solve any thruput issues that you might be having. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Nahmani Posted January 28, 2012 Share Posted January 28, 2012 Is it recommended keeping sound libraries / sample folders on the internal HD because its more convenient for Logic to communicate with them? Yes (and in some cases it's required). But we're talking specifically about stock Logic sounds, not 3rd party plugins. While the players themselves are typically installed on the system drive, samples and other library content are best stored on a separate HD. This actually depends on the number of drives available. Keep in mind that many sounds are actually loaded into RAM - so their location may affect project loading time, but not project running performance. As for the ones (or the portions of samples) that are streamed from HD, in a situation where you only have two HD it is often better to have the samples on one HD, the audio tracks (therefore the project folder) on another. Since I don't recommend saving your project folder on your system drive, that means the sample libraries (3rd party or not) are better off being on the internal, system HD. If you have 3 or more HDs, then I agree with ski, the best solution is one HD for the system, one (or more) for your projects, one (or more) for your libraries. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ski Posted January 28, 2012 Share Posted January 28, 2012 +1 on what you said regarding a 2-drive system. The cost of a third drive, however, more than pays for itself in terms of convenience (not to mention that it's just a better way to run a music production system in which someone anticipates heavy usage of 3rd party sample streaming). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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