georgerarnold Posted January 17, 2012 Share Posted January 17, 2012 Hi. I'm having problems with one project in Logic 8. I'm on a Macbook pro 2.4 Ghz Core 2 duo memory: 2 GB 1067 Mhz DDR3. I've been working on this project for about a year on and off and even though it has gone through many different fazes from big to small to big to small again the 'Disk Too Slow/System Overload' message has been a constant problem. Even though there are less tracks and less plug ins on it now the problem is at its worst. I've read through various similar complaints on the logic and apple boards but none of them seem to quite fit the bill. I've checked the hard drive (I'm using the internal one) and there doesn't seem to be a problem with fragmentation. I've quit all other programs and turned the airport off. I've changed the I/O buffer size and process buffer range. I've frozen all tracks (and tried unfreezing the audio instruments) I've changed various settings on the exs24. It's odd because, admittedly I'm asking a bit of the computer but, in other projects I regularly use more tracks and plug ins with out any trouble and also sometimes the message will appear at the end of the song where there are only two tracks of audio playing. The computer is struggling even when I open the project, the graphics go slow and things like soloing a track can take days. I'm willing to accept that this is just one of those things, I just wondered if anyone has any suggestions? Thanks for reading. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Nahmani Posted January 17, 2012 Share Posted January 17, 2012 How big is your hard drive? How much space left is there available on it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
georgerarnold Posted January 18, 2012 Author Share Posted January 18, 2012 It has a capacity of 232.57 gb and I have 24.49 gb left. I would have had considerably more space left 6 months ago, I guess. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
triplets Posted January 18, 2012 Share Posted January 18, 2012 That's 10% free. Not enough. You should have 20% free at least, so in you're case almost 50 gigs. Are you playing the project from the internal drive? If yes, that's another reason you get the message. You should save your project to an external FW800 drive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
georgerarnold Posted January 18, 2012 Author Share Posted January 18, 2012 You're right I should go through the hard drive and free up some space but that still doesn't explain why it is this song in particular that is the problem and has been a problem when the hard drive had more space on it. Regarding the hard drive, is there anyway round the fact that my lap top only has one firewire input? Truth is I can't afford a new hard drive right now but just incase I win the lottery. . . . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
simpleton Posted January 18, 2012 Share Posted January 18, 2012 You're right I should go through the hard drive and free up some space but that still doesn't explain why it is this song in particular that is the problem and has been a problem when the hard drive had more space on it.Regarding the hard drive, is there anyway round the fact that my lap top only has one firewire input? Truth is I can't afford a new hard drive right now but just incase I win the lottery. . . . FireWire devices can be "daisy-chained" and connected to your computer's single FireWire connection. Here's some info: viewtopic.php?f=10&t=36429 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
georgerarnold Posted January 26, 2012 Author Share Posted January 26, 2012 How big is your hard drive? How much space left is there available on it? Ok. So I bought I firewire hard drive, I now have 141 gb free space on my internal hard drive and I'm running my projects from my external. Although the external hard drive has fw800 capabilities, I have to daisy-chain it with my audio interface which according to he manual means the hard drive only runs at fw400 speeds. I'm having a really bad day. I'm now on a new project which has so far 17 tracks of audio (plus a few muted tracks), half of which are frozen and 3 software instrument tracks and 4 aux tracks. I'm running a fair few plug ins but nothing I shouldn't be able to handle and it just can't take it! There are 2 points in the song which just won't work, I'm in the middle of a session recording cello and it's embarrassing! Help! Please! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
georgerarnold Posted January 28, 2012 Author Share Posted January 28, 2012 Any suggestions? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CCTMusic Posted January 28, 2012 Share Posted January 28, 2012 Hi To get through the session, how about bouncing a stereo mix and just playing that back during the session? (Not gonna help the bigger problem but...) Also, swap the order of the drive/interface... Mac:Drive (FW800), Drive:Interface (FW400?) CCT CCT Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
georgerarnold Posted January 28, 2012 Author Share Posted January 28, 2012 Hi thanks for the reply, That's the order I have with the hard drive. It's just that when there is anything plugged into the fw400 input on the hard drive, it runs as a fw400. According to the manual. Thanks for the suggestion but the session was long abandoned. Fact is, to bounce this bastard down is probably going to be impossible. Aaah! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
n6smith Posted January 28, 2012 Share Posted January 28, 2012 If your HD is FW800 and you plug your FW400 Audio interface into the drive and the drive into a FW800 interface on your Mac.. then your HD will run at FW800 speed... and not FW400 as you seem to be indicating.... Only the Audio Interface and anything after that, will run at FW400 speed.... Computer ->FW800->HD->FW400->Audio Interface->FW400....... If your Audio Interface Manual says differently, the chances are you are either reading it wrong... or it is wrong... Wouldn't be the first time.... The HD would only run at FW400 speed if the Audio interface was plugged directly into your computer and the HD was then was plugged into the Audio Interface and not directly into the computer... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
georgerarnold Posted January 28, 2012 Author Share Posted January 28, 2012 Ok, that's how I have it anyway. Thanks for the concern. The fact is I still can't record on this song with out it freaking out. Any ideas? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
n6smith Posted January 29, 2012 Share Posted January 29, 2012 I think the reality of your situation is that you have only 2GB and you were running off your internal drive.. You have resolved one of those issues but not the other.. If you are using some heavy duty plugins (or even just average resource draining ones) then I would normally suggest Bouncing In Place those tracks and deleting the originals.. but you are running L8 so that won't work... Freezing all the non-audio as well as the audio with plugins tracks might help out and then unfreezing what you need to edit.. but that could well be a tedious process to freeze and unfreeze. One last trick is to create a blank Audio track and make sure that is the track that is selected when you playback your project as if you select a track with plugins.. the computer and Logic has to keep any plugins on that track.. record active which uses up precious resources.. so creating and selecting a blank track can help eliminate this and free up more resources.. However.... More memory would seem to be the only practical solution I can determine.. and luckily, the cost of memory has really dropped recently so a dig around OWC or Amazon might find you 2 extra GB (or more likely 2X2GB as i assume your laptop has two 1GB sticks installed) for anywhere between $20-$40... for the pair. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
georgerarnold Posted January 29, 2012 Author Share Posted January 29, 2012 I think you're absolutely right. Thank you. I shall investigate. Is there anything I should know when purchasing/installing memory? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed Smith Posted January 29, 2012 Share Posted January 29, 2012 That's 10% free. Not enough.You should have 20% free at least, so in you're case almost 50 gigs. Are you playing the project from the internal drive? If yes, that's another reason you get the message. You should save your project to an external FW800 drive. I'm having a problem where during playback all of a sudden a track will stop playing back during the chorus. My session has 170+ tracks. I noticed that the track dropping out coincides with the hard drive meter in logic momentarily spiking. I'm using a 13" early 2011 Macbook Pro 2.3GHz Intel Core i5 with 4GB of Ram on OSX 10.7.2 and Logic 9.1.6. I'm about to upgrade to 8GB of RAM but I've just seen this thread and wonder if my hard drive is the problem. I'm running off the Internal hard drive which only has 11Gig free. Why does it matter how much free space you have left and is it really quicker to run a project off an external firewire drive than an internal one? By running of one of these how much of a difference will it make and is it likely to fix the issue I'm having? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lookatthisguy Posted January 29, 2012 Share Posted January 29, 2012 … Why does it matter how much free space you have left … You have to remember that, among other things, virtual RAM exists on the system drive. Also, the fuller the drive is, the more the arm has to move around to read and write and access and whathaveyou. Sometimes, that's too much for that arm to do in time, especially if your drive is only 5400rpm. … and is it really quicker to run a project off an external firewire drive than an internal one? Depends on your setup. WIth the technologies that be, SATA is most optimal, but you'll only get that if you have a Mac Pro, a MacBook Pro with an ExpressCard slot, or a Mac with Thunderbolt, provided you're Richie Rich. Barring SATA options, FireWire is your best bet, if not in terms of speed, then in terms of reliability. By running of one of these how much of a difference will it make and is it likely to fix the issue I'm having? Hard to say for sure, but I'd hazard a guess that if you clean up your system drive to at least that 20% triplets recommends (and TBH, I tend to be more conservative on that number) and shift the project off the system drive, that ought to help a fair bit, as will your RAM upgrade. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
n6smith Posted January 30, 2012 Share Posted January 30, 2012 It's worth noting.... that if one is going to use an external drive then Firewire800 is the route to go but also.. the drive itself needs to be 7200... I mention this because someone contacted me having switched to an external FW800 drive and saw little difference in performance until I realized he had bought a slower 5400 Ext HD... Finally, it's all about combinations of things.. A Fast Ext HD with fast access via FW800 & more memory & making sure there is plenty of room on your System drive.. All these things together can make noticeable differences to the performance of Logic (and other programs!) Skipping any one of these can result in a bottleneck to your computer's performance and not allow you to make the most of your other upgrades to your computer. The best analogy I can think of... is comparing a computer to a Formula 1 race car. You might well have the best driver and fastest car in the field but if you don't put the right tires on for the conditions... fill the tank with gas... and setup the aerodynamics for the circuit in question.. your car isn't going to go anywhere that fast... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arkadi Posted January 30, 2012 Share Posted January 30, 2012 I had similar problems but I couldn't take it anymore and just went out and got the damn Thunderolt drive. Was extremely painful laying down $560 bucks for a 1TB drive, but its super fast and solved all my hard drive problems. I'd also recommend getting more ram. I maxed out my macbook pro (which I use for VEP) to 16GB for only $270 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed Smith Posted January 30, 2012 Share Posted January 30, 2012 Thanks for the advice. Just thought though, my current drive is only 5400rpm and 320GB. What's most likely to give me better performance..... 1) replacing my existing internal hard drive with a 750GB 7200RPM drive. This would give me plenty of free room on the drive and faster spin speed. 2) Stick with my 5400rpm 320GB drive and buy an external Firewire 800 drive to run my logic sessions from. Would love to get one of those Thunderbolt external hard drives but they're a bit too expensive at the moment. Will have to wait until more come onto the market. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
triplets Posted January 30, 2012 Share Posted January 30, 2012 I would go with the external FW800 drive for your projects and use your 320 gb drive for backup. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed Smith Posted January 31, 2012 Share Posted January 31, 2012 I would go with the external FW800 drive for your projects and use your 320 gb drive for backup. Thanks for the advice. I think I'll have to give this a go. Upgraded to 8 GB of RAM and running Logic in 64bit mode but still get the occasional track dropping out though with big sessions. Out of interest why is it better to go the external firewire route rather than using a 7200rpm internal drive when the data transfer speeds seem to be much greater for the internal drive? Did a search but could only find posts where people said it was better but didn't give a reason. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
georgerarnold Posted January 31, 2012 Author Share Posted January 31, 2012 Ok, I've bought some more memory, about to install it. Wish me luck. I hope this fixes it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
georgerarnold Posted January 31, 2012 Author Share Posted January 31, 2012 Ok. Memory installed (now 4gb), External firewire 800 hard drive, 140gb free space on internal drive. The project plays better but the cpu load meter is constantly in the red. Should this really be happening to a project with only 17 audio tracks???? I haven't tried recording yet but it wouldn't surprise me if it is still impossible. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
georgerarnold Posted January 31, 2012 Author Share Posted January 31, 2012 The project still displays the system overload message at the same spot when I play it. At that moment there are 11 tracks playing. Is that right/normal? I can't have more that 4gb of memory on my mac! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eriksimon Posted January 31, 2012 Share Posted January 31, 2012 The project still displays the system overload message at the same spot when I play it. At that moment there are 11 tracks playing. Is that right/normal? Yes, it can be (right/normal). Apart from all the advice you have received, I haven't seen one possibility mentioned: that it just was the processor that maxed out. Even though all the other advice was very valid, IF it was just a question of "too much going on at one time", then the best solution is to freeze instrument tracks. Also, having an audio track selected during playback helps, AND deselecting all inputs (= selecting "no input") on your audio tracks also helps. As soon as recording is done for a track, I set it to "no input". Also, it is hard to say if it is normal without knowing the what plugins and instruments you use - a screenshot of your arrange + mixer would help. And though your original issue may still exist, I'm pretty sure that you've avoided some new ones with the measures you've already taken. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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