logic pro x freezing files etc

[alexhedleymusic]

hi,
just started doing some new recordings on my new (refurbished mac) and so far going well but i did get one notice saying system overload but it didnt crash logic or anything and then i just carried on as normal and been all good sinse. just a bit worried as im only using about 6 tracks of audio so far and using basically no plugins. so just have a few questions. also my firewire hard drive has started being weird i do not know why but its started saying 'cannot save file doesnt exist' so iv switched now to just running the projects straight from the mac and backing all my stuff up to a usb 2 drive. so anyway until i work out what the hell has happened to my firewire drive im going to continue down this route and just try and save as much cpu etc as possible. but just have a few questions to help me understand the whole process a bit better.

1. how much will freezing help? like say i have 10 tracks of audio and i freeze them all... how much will this help the recording process perform percentage wise.

2. is there a way to freeze all the tracks into one bounce if that makes sense... so you basically would have all of the audio channels now in one piece of audio thus saving even more cpu etc or would this just not make any difference from the usual way of freezing all the tracks seperate.

3. what does the cpu and hd bar mean exactly

4. what are the other main things that i can change in preferences to make performance better while recording...

5. one thing i have used a lot of so far is flextime so will freezing these tracks make a lot of difference... does freezing all the tracks essentially make the project run like an empty project (almost) ?

so far so good but the system overload thing has rattled me a bit since the projects are starting to get more intense and i havent even started on recording guitars, drums and vox yet :/

thanks for the help guys

[muzines]

1. how much will freezing help? like say i have 10 tracks of audio and i freeze them all... how much will this help the recording process perform percentage wise.

"Freezing" is the process of rendering CPU-intensive plugins to an audio file. If you are using lots of plugins, or very heavy ones, freezing is useful in that is frees up CPU processing. This does result is larger audio files - for instance, if you had a typical 24-bit audio file, with plugins on it, freezing it will now result in a (temporary) 32-bit audio file, with no plugins. So while it can free up CPU use, it can actually put more stress on disk throughput.

However, with modern systems with small track counts, it shouldn't make enough difference to matter much.

If you don't have plugins o the audio tracks, there is no reason to "freeze" anything.

2. is there a way to freeze all the tracks into one bounce if that makes sense... so you basically would have all of the audio channels now in one piece of audio thus saving even more cpu etc or would this just not make any difference from the usual way of freezing all the tracks seperate.

You can bounce multiple tracks (with plugins) into single audio files, of course, but you lose the ability to control/mix them further at that point. If you have, say a 32-track backing vocal part, it's quite common to get the blend nice, and then bounce to a single stereo track to free up resources.

3. what does the cpu and hd bar mean exactly

The CPU bar shows the amount of work the CPU is doing. This is anything maths intensive - mixing and routing your audio, processing audio plugins, calculating instrument plugins etc.

The HD bar is the amount of work your disk drives are doing - if you are using only virtual instruments, then likely you aren't pulling any data from hard drives, so the disk meter would be low. If you are, however, doing 100+ audio tracks in a project, then your disk activity meter will be high. How many tracks/samples you can stream from disk depends on the speed of the disk and the interface it's connected to (USB, USB2, Thunderbold, Firewire etc), as well as what else is going on on that bus (for instance, if you had both an audio interface *and* your audio drivi connected via the same Firewire port, then that port is sharing all the disk I/O *and* all the audio interface I/O.

4. what are the other main things that i can change in preferences to make performance better while recording...

The main ones are the audio buffer size - small buffers, eg 32/64 are for less latency, but require more CPU time to process. Higher buffers give the CPU more breathing space, and so for mixing, you can raise the buffers. But this will give you more latency.

5. one thing i have used a lot of so far is flextime so will freezing these tracks make a lot of difference... does freezing all the tracks essentially make the project run like an empty project (almost) ?

Freezing *renders plugins into audio files*. If you aren't using plugins, freezing won't have much affect except to make your disk work harder. It won't have any affect on flextime performance.

so far so good but the system overload thing has rattled me a bit since the projects are starting to get more intense and i havent even started on recording guitars, drums and vox yet

If it only happened once, your computer could have been doing something else at the time, maybe spotlight indexing your drives or checking for some software update or something. What are the CPU and disk meters telling you in this project? Are any of them loaded high?

[ConcertinaChap]

I used to get overloads occasionally when I first started with Logic on a Mac but I found a couple of steps that stopped the problem and I've not seen it since.

1) Turn off Time Machine.

2) Go to System Preferences / Energy Saver
- Clear the "Put hard disks to sleep when possible" tick box.
- Set computer/display sleep to never.

Obviously reverse these steps once you've stopped recording.

CC

[alexhedleymusic]

1. how much will freezing help? like say i have 10 tracks of audio and i freeze them all... how much will this help the recording process perform percentage wise.

"Freezing" is the process of rendering CPU-intensive plugins to an audio file. If you are using lots of plugins, or very heavy ones, freezing is useful in that is frees up CPU processing. This does result is larger audio files - for instance, if you had a typical 24-bit audio file, with plugins on it, freezing it will now result in a (temporary) 32-bit audio file, with no plugins. So while it can free up CPU use, it can actually put more stress on disk throughput.

However, with modern systems with small track counts, it shouldn't make enough difference to matter much.

If you don't have plugins o the audio tracks, there is no reason to "freeze" anything.

2. is there a way to freeze all the tracks into one bounce if that makes sense... so you basically would have all of the audio channels now in one piece of audio thus saving even more cpu etc or would this just not make any difference from the usual way of freezing all the tracks seperate.

You can bounce multiple tracks (with plugins) into single audio files, of course, but you lose the ability to control/mix them further at that point. If you have, say a 32-track backing vocal part, it's quite common to get the blend nice, and then bounce to a single stereo track to free up resources.

3. what does the cpu and hd bar mean exactly

The CPU bar shows the amount of work the CPU is doing. This is anything maths intensive - mixing and routing your audio, processing audio plugins, calculating instrument plugins etc.

The HD bar is the amount of work your disk drives are doing - if you are using only virtual instruments, then likely you aren't pulling any data from hard drives, so the disk meter would be low. If you are, however, doing 100+ audio tracks in a project, then your disk activity meter will be high. How many tracks/samples you can stream from disk depends on the speed of the disk and the interface it's connected to (USB, USB2, Thunderbold, Firewire etc), as well as what else is going on on that bus (for instance, if you had both an audio interface *and* your audio drivi connected via the same Firewire port, then that port is sharing all the disk I/O *and* all the audio interface I/O.

4. what are the other main things that i can change in preferences to make performance better while recording...

The main ones are the audio buffer size - small buffers, eg 32/64 are for less latency, but require more CPU time to process. Higher buffers give the CPU more breathing space, and so for mixing, you can raise the buffers. But this will give you more latency.

5. one thing i have used a lot of so far is flextime so will freezing these tracks make a lot of difference... does freezing all the tracks essentially make the project run like an empty project (almost) ?

Freezing *renders plugins into audio files*. If you aren't using plugins, freezing won't have much affect except to make your disk work harder. It won't have any affect on flextime performance.

so far so good but the system overload thing has rattled me a bit since the projects are starting to get more intense and i havent even started on recording guitars, drums and vox yet

If it only happened once, your computer could have been doing something else at the time, maybe spotlight indexing your drives or checking for some software update or something. What are the CPU and disk meters telling you in this project? Are any of them loaded high?

ok thanks. i understand all this a lot better now. so if i was to come to a point where i was about to record drums (il be using 4 audio channels for this) and it was giving me bad signs then i suppose a way around this could be to bounce the track and work from the bounce. but if i was to bounce the track would i then need to work on this in a seperate session or is there a way to de-activate all of the other tracks so theyre not using any power and only the new whole song (minus drums) bounce is using power from the mac... also rasing the buffer size. at the moment im working at 128.... so maybe i should raise this.... if i raise this it wont effect any audio/midi that iv'e already recorded? i suppose when im just using playback i should put the buffer up full and then reduce that down as far as it will go latency wise till its confortable to record? but maybe i should be looking to go a step higher than 128 all the time. So there is something a bit weird with the meters... everytime i press play the hd spikes to full 100 percent but then drops immediately to zero and just works fine... so nt sure why its doing that but it doesnt seem to be a problem... but maybe a bit strange... then when the tracks rolling the cpu probably hangs at around 5 percent and peaks occasionally at about 10 percent.... the hd will sit around 5 and ocassionally peak at about 15 percent... but to be honest the hd usually seems to be sat at zero. other than when i press play and it maxes out for some reason but that doesnt actually seem top be causing any problem whatsoever and just seems like a little glitch or something. Really appreciate your time helping me out with this. thank youuuu!

[alexhedleymusic]

I used to get overloads occasionally when I first started with Logic on a Mac but I found a couple of steps that stopped the problem and I've not seen it since.

1) Turn off Time Machine.

2) Go to System Preferences / Energy Saver
- Clear the "Put hard disks to sleep when possible" tick box.
- Set computer/display sleep to never.

Obviously reverse these steps once you've stopped recording.

CC

great!! thanks for this i shall do this for sure!! `ppreciate it!!

[muzines]

so if i was to come to a point where i was about to record drums (il be using 4 audio channels for this) and it was giving me bad signs then i suppose a way around this could be to bounce the track and work from the bounce. but if i was to bounce the track would i then need to work on this in a seperate session or is there a way to de-activate all of the other tracks so theyre not using any power and only the new whole song (minus drums) bounce is using power from the mac...

Before exploring workarounds - are you saying that you cannot record four audio tracks on your system?

Even on old systems and slow hard drives, you should be able to get tens of tracks without your computer breaking into a sweat.

But yes, of course you can bounce to audio files, add those audio files back into your project, and mute or deactivate whatever tracks you wish - these are all basic tasks in any DAW.

also rasing the buffer size. at the moment im working at 128.... so maybe i should raise this.... if i raise this it wont effect any audio/midi that iv'e already recorded? i suppose when im just using playback i should put the buffer up full and then reduce that down as far as it will go latency wise till its confortable to record? but maybe i should be looking to go a step higher than 128 all the time.

I wouldn't just blindly start following over-complex procedures. If you feel your system can't perform for your needs at 128, raise it to 256, and see whether it improves your system performance. There is no real reason to keep toggling this during record and playback all the time, or put it to "full" or "minimum" because they are the biggest/smallest numbers in the menu, in the hope that they will be best to use. I generally run at 128, and sometimes go down to something smaller when I need better latency performance (eg, tracking guitars through FX). That's it.

I can't help thinking that you're over-worrying because you got an overload indicated one time.

So there is something a bit weird with the meters... everytime i press play the hd spikes to full 100 percent but then drops immediately to zero and just works fine...

Well, that's only "weird" to you because perhaps you think it shouldn't work that way. When you press play, Logic has to do a ton of stuff. It has to access your drives and pre-load audio content from files on disk, and start filling up track buffers. It has to flip any selected tracks into Live mode to shift them onto high priority cores. It has to send out MIDI reset information, information for control surfaces, initialise plugins and start sending audio to them etc etc. This is why you see the CPU doing some work when you hit play. This is entirely normal behaviour.

so nt sure why its doing that but it doesnt seem to be a problem... but maybe a bit strange...

It's not a problem, it's not strange, and it in no way prevents your machine from playing the project you just started.

then when the tracks rolling the cpu probably hangs at around 5 percent and peaks occasionally at about 10 percent.... the hd will sit around 5 and ocassionally peak at about 15 percent... but to be honest the hd usually seems to be sat at zero. other than when i press play and it maxes out for some reason but that doesnt actually seem top be causing any problem whatsoever and just seems like a little glitch or something.

Sure, the CPU is doing some work - it's calculating the mixing of all your streams of 24-bit audio, it's updating meters and the timeline, the transport and other graphics things, it's shuffling audio between Logic and the OS/audio drivers and maybe doing other work depending on your preferences and project settings. And processing any plugins if you are using any.

The HD meter is low because you're only using a few audio tracks.

I honestly think you're worried about problems you don't have...

[alexhedleymusic]

so if i was to come to a point where i was about to record drums (il be using 4 audio channels for this) and it was giving me bad signs then i suppose a way around this could be to bounce the track and work from the bounce. but if i was to bounce the track would i then need to work on this in a seperate session or is there a way to de-activate all of the other tracks so theyre not using any power and only the new whole song (minus drums) bounce is using power from the mac...

Before exploring workarounds - are you saying that you cannot record four audio tracks on your system?

Even on old systems and slow hard drives, you should be able to get tens of tracks without your computer breaking into a sweat.

But yes, of course you can bounce to audio files, add those audio files back into your project, and mute or deactivate whatever tracks you wish - these are all basic tasks in any DAW.

also rasing the buffer size. at the moment im working at 128.... so maybe i should raise this.... if i raise this it wont effect any audio/midi that iv'e already recorded? i suppose when im just using playback i should put the buffer up full and then reduce that down as far as it will go latency wise till its confortable to record? but maybe i should be looking to go a step higher than 128 all the time.

I wouldn't just blindly start following over-complex procedures. If you feel your system can't perform for your needs at 128, raise it to 256, and see whether it improves your system performance. There is no real reason to keep toggling this during record and playback all the time, or put it to "full" or "minimum" because they are the biggest/smallest numbers in the menu, in the hope that they will be best to use. I generally run at 128, and sometimes go down to something smaller when I need better latency performance (eg, tracking guitars through FX). That's it.

I can't help thinking that you're over-worrying because you got an overload indicated one time.

So there is something a bit weird with the meters... everytime i press play the hd spikes to full 100 percent but then drops immediately to zero and just works fine...

Well, that's only "weird" to you because perhaps you think it shouldn't work that way. When you press play, Logic has to do a ton of stuff. It has to access your drives and pre-load audio content from files on disk, and start filling up track buffers. It has to flip any selected tracks into Live mode to shift them onto high priority cores. It has to send out MIDI reset information, information for control surfaces, initialise plugins and start sending audio to them etc etc. This is why you see the CPU doing some work when you hit play. This is entirely normal behaviour.

so nt sure why its doing that but it doesnt seem to be a problem... but maybe a bit strange...

It's not a problem, it's not strange, and it in no way prevents your machine from playing the project you just started.

then when the tracks rolling the cpu probably hangs at around 5 percent and peaks occasionally at about 10 percent.... the hd will sit around 5 and ocassionally peak at about 15 percent... but to be honest the hd usually seems to be sat at zero. other than when i press play and it maxes out for some reason but that doesnt actually seem top be causing any problem whatsoever and just seems like a little glitch or something.

Sure, the CPU is doing some work - it's calculating the mixing of all your streams of 24-bit audio, it's updating meters and the timeline, the transport and other graphics things, it's shuffling audio between Logic and the OS/audio drivers and maybe doing other work depending on your preferences and project settings. And processing any plugins if you are using any.

The HD meter is low because you're only using a few audio tracks.

I honestly think you're worried about problems you don't have...

hi Desmond,

yes I appreciate what your saying here but i did state right from the beginning of this thread that im not currently having problems... im just asking these questions to learn about the system so that i dont have to start asking loads of seperate questions about problems if and when they arise but to just have more of a better overall view of how logic works so that i can work them out for myself in the future.. i have taken on board what you have mentioned though and will stick with how its going at the moment and adjust accordingly if and when problems arrise
thanks for your time

[muzines]

Ok, well I hope that helped...

[ConcertinaChap]

Before exploring workarounds - are you saying that you cannot record four audio tracks on your system?

It's surprising. Back when I got my first iMac (quad core 8GB) and installed Logic on it and got it all running tickety-boo we had a friend round and so I proudly offered to record her playing her fiddle. Single track only and after 40 seconds Logic stopped recording with an overload message. It was quite embarrassing. I think I posted about it here (good few years ago now) and that's when I started turning off Time Machine and things like that. Never had a problem since. Of course, with my current machine with its 8 cores and 32 Gig of RAM I should never see an overload I know, but I still turn things off. It's probably like touching a lucky rabbit's foot but hey! don't knock it, it works

CC

[muzines]

What often happens is people power up their new Mac, connect up their hard drives, install Logic and 60GB worth of content, and hit record...

They don't realise that new Macs will *always* be slow at first, as Spotlight kicks in on multiple processes to index all those drives and content - this can take anything from an hour or so to a whole night or more, depending on what you have connected, and it will ramp up and down in load depending on what else you are doing with the machine.

Spotlight activity is definitely something to be aware of if the fans start ramping up...

[ConcertinaChap]

All fair comment though this was a couple of weeks after I got the beast and even Spotlight shouldn't take that long to do its stuff. I was pretty confident in the machine by then and the blowout set me completely aback. One of the skills I've learned since then is how to blag my way out of such a circumstance

Cheers,

CC

[muzines]

There was some weirdness in old Logic versions, certainly in LP7, and possibly through LP8/9 (I forget the exact timescales now) but Logic would have a kind of weird "warm up" phase when you first opened up a project.

On the first play through, it was like Logic was doing some extra work, or playback optimisation or something, which would often cause playback errors and overloads. Once you'd played through the project, or demanding sections of it for the first time, then it would settle down and be fine after that.

They did eventually change/fix this and Logic no longer does this, but it did catch people out with playback problems...

Anyway, these days Logic is pretty solid and battle tested for the most part, thankfully...

And yes, blagging with confidence is a useful skill...

[alexhedleymusic]

Before exploring workarounds - are you saying that you cannot record four audio tracks on your system?

It's surprising. Back when I got my first iMac (quad core 8GB) and installed Logic on it and got it all running tickety-boo we had a friend round and so I proudly offered to record her playing her fiddle. Single track only and after 40 seconds Logic stopped recording with an overload message. It was quite embarrassing. I think I posted about it here (good few years ago now) and that's when I started turning off Time Machine and things like that. Never had a problem since. Of course, with my current machine with its 8 cores and 32 Gig of RAM I should never see an overload I know, but I still turn things off. It's probably like touching a lucky rabbit's foot but hey! don't knock it, it works

CC

hey, Im not sure if i can work out how to turn time machine off. iv gone on there in system preferences and the only thing i can see to do is untick backup automatically. will that switch it off do you know?

thanks for the help

[ConcertinaChap]

Yes, exactly. You should also have a "Show Time Machine in menu bar" option. It's worth ticking that as then you can get to TM Preferences, trigger an immediate backup or get to the TM restore screen just by clicking on the icon in the menu bar.

CC

[ManFromGlass]

One thing that helped me was to max out the ram in my machine. I also run a separate drive for audio. Still I have 1 or 2 plugins that hit the cpu hard and on rare occasions I will get the cpu error message.

I found a little trick where after I record on the cpu intensive track that if I never select that track again during playback I don’t get the error message. I assume that the cpu intensive track is expecting to record more and so there a lot of cycles being used in preparation. I could be wrong.

And then there are times when Logic does weird things but the song isn’t corrupted. Sometimes a quit and reboot of Logic helps. In the worst case an entire reboot of the machine helps.

[muzines]

I found a little trick where after I record on the cpu intensive track that if I never select that track again during playback I don’t get the error message. I assume that the cpu intensive track is expecting to record more and so there a lot of cycles being used in preparation. I could be wrong.

Yes, this is called Live Mode and that track, instruments, any plugins on it and any it feeds through busses are put in a prioritised, super-responsive mode, which takes a bit more CPU.

Selecting an audio track or a "No Output" track on playback will reduce a little bit of CPU load.