Handling BIG mixes

First of all, as various plugins require different amounts of pocessing power, I would sugges a little experiment: Open your Task manager/performance monitor, play the track and turn your plugins on one at a time, you will find that many will cause only a small increase in cpu load but there may be some that cause a large spike in load and if you have multiple instances of this plugin you will have found your culprit.

How plugins affect your performance is largely processor dependant, the ram is useful for preloading audio data. I am a Samplitude user so I am unfamiliar with your DAW, but there may be adjustable settings for multithreading to devide up the processing of VST/RTAS/VSTi's/etc into multiple cores to reduce the load on any one core. If it is all on one, once it is maxed, the audio starts going whacky. Overclocking would be the only option. Regarding the 32 bit/64 bit thing, as long as your OS is 64 it should be ok. Plugins are individual processes and I've never heard of a plugin that came close to using up anywhere near 4 gb of ram. Individually they should be able to total more than that provided the OS can handle the ram. Adding more ram wont make much of an improvement. you need more processor cycles per second to make all the added calculations. Since any type of processing of audio adds to cpu load, if you track a few notes at a time like some people on this forum then that would be a hell of a lot of crossfades to process.
 
On my i7 laptop I actually saw less spikes and a performance improvement by going into the BIOS and turning of all Speedstepping. Essentially that makes it into a quad core forever. Otherwise it will shut off cores and boost clockspeeds for better performance on most things. DAWs don't like it as much.

Do some google searches. Steinberg actually recommends doing this for i-Series CPUs. I am on my phone so copy/pasting is a bitch...
 
AndrewB said:
Oh, and also, not to hijack the thread, but how are you guys getting up to 35 tracks or more?
Click to expand...

Easily. Just do music that has more stuff than midi drums, bass, 2 guitars and 1 vocal track. I just mixed barely 5 minute long track that had like 110 tracks (roughly 20 routing buses, 30 tracks for drums, 30 for bass and guitars, 20 for vocals and 10 for everything else), and I could easily think of more things to add to it to make it look something like this, and it still wouldn't be anything special really:

001 Kick In
002 Kick Out
003 Kick Trigger
004 Kick Sample
005 KICK BUS

006 Snare Top
007 Snare Bottom
008 Snare Trigger
009 Snare Sample
010 SNARE BUS

011 Tom 1
012 Tom 1 Trigger
013 Tom 1 Sample
014 Tom 2
015 Tom 2 Trigger
016 Tom 2 Sample
017 Tom 3
018 Tom 3 Trigger
019 Tom 3 Sample
020 Tom 4
021 Tom 4 Trigger
022 Tom 4 Sample
023 TOMS BUS

024 Overhead L (Ride side)
025 Overhead R (Hihat side)
026 Hihat
027 Ride
028 China
029 Crash L
030 Crash R
031 Room L
032 Room R
033 Ambiance
034 CYMBALS BUS

035 Snare Reverb
036 Drums Reverb
037 Drums Para Comp
038 DRUM FX BUS

039 DRUMS BUS


040 Bass Clean DI
041 Bass Clean DI pedals
042 Bass Clean Amp SM57
043 Bass Clean Amp B52

044 Bass Dist DI
045 Bass Dist DI pedals
046 Bass Dist Amp SM57
047 Bass Dist Amp B52

048 BASS BUS


049 Rhythm Guitar 1 DI
050 Rhythm Guitar 1 SM57
051 Rhythm Guitar 1 MD421
052 Rhythm Guitar 2 DI
053 Rhythm Guitar 2 SM57
054 Rhythm Guitar 2 MD421
055 Rhythm Guitar 3 DI
056 Rhythm Guitar 3 SM57
057 Rhythm Guitar 3 MD421
058 Rhythm Guitar 4 DI
059 Rhythm Guitar 4 SM57
060 Rhythm Guitar 4 MD421
061 RHYTHM GUITAR BUS

062 Lead Guitar L DI
063 Lead Guitar L SM57
064 Lead Guitar L MD421
065 Lead Guitar R DI
666 Lead Guitar R SM57
067 Lead Guitar R MD421
068 Melody Guitar L DI
069 Melody Guitar L SM57
070 Melody Guitar L MD421
071 Melody Guitar R DI
072 Melody Guitar R SM57
073 Melody Guitar R MD421
074 Guitar Solo DI
075 Guitar Solo DI pedals
076 Guitar Solo SM57
077 Guitar Solo MD421
078 Guitar Solo Delay FX
079 LEAD GUITAR BUS

080 Clean Guitar L DI
081 Clean Guitar L SM57
082 Clean Guitar L C414
083 Clean Guitar R DI
084 Clean Guitar R SM57
085 Clean Guitar R C414
086 CLEAN GUITAR BUS

087 Acoustic Guitar 1 L C414
088 Acoustic Guitar 1 R C414
089 Acoustic Guitar 2 L C414
090 Acoustic Guitar 2 R C414
091 ACOUSTIC GUITAR BUS

092 GUITAR BUS


093 Synth Melody L
094 Synth Melody R
095 Synth Melody MIDI
096 Synth Pad L
097 Synth Pad R
098 Synth Pad MIDI
099 Synth Strings L
100 Synth Strings R
101 Synth Strings MIDI
102 Synth Brass L
103 Synth Brass R
104 Synth Brass MIDI
105 Hammond L
106 Hammond R
107 Hammond MIDI
108 Grand Piano L
109 Grand Piano R
110 Grand Piano MIDI
111 Keyboard Solo L
112 Keyboard Solo R
113 Keyboard Solo MIDI

114 KEYS BUS


115 Vocal Lead Verse
116 Vocal Lead Verse Double
117 Vocal Lead Chorus C
118 Vocal Lead Chorus C Double
119 Vocal Lead Scream
120 LEAD VOCAL BUS

121 Vocal Lead Chorus L
122 Vocal Lead Chorus R
123 Vocal Harm Verse L
124 Vocal Harm Verse R
125 Vocal Harm Chorus L
126 Vocal Harm Chorus R
127 Scream Vocal 1
128 Scream Vocal 2
129 Scream Vocal 3
130 BG VOCAL BUS

131 Gang Vocals 1
132 Gang Vocals 2
133 Gang Vocals 3
134 Gang Vocals 4
135 Gang Vocals 5
136 Gang Vocals 6
137 Gang Vocals 7
138 Gang Vocals 8
139 GANG VOCAL BUS

140 Vocal Reverb
141 Vocal Delay Short
142 Vocal Delay Long
143 Vocal Dist
144 Vocal Chorus
145 Vocal Para Comp
146 VOCAL FX BUS

147 VOCAL BUS


148 Tambourine L
149 Tambourine R
150 Shaker L
151 Shaker R
152 Sub drop FX
153 Reverse Reverb FX

154 MISC BUS


155 MUSIC BUS
156 VOCAL BUS
157 FX BUS


158 MASTER BUS
Click to expand...

But even tho if you have 160 tracks in your session, it doesn't mean you have to use all of them in the mix, and you certainly don't even have to process every single track.
 
aortizjr said:
On my i7 laptop I actually saw less spikes and a performance improvement by going into the BIOS and turning of all Speedstepping. Essentially that makes it into a quad core forever. Otherwise it will shut off cores and boost clockspeeds for better performance on most things. DAWs don't like it as much.
Click to expand...

^^^Forgot to mention that. Getting rid of corestepping also helps get rid of any Firewire/USB hardware instabilities. You'll probabl need to Overclock if your only at 1.6 Ghz. You should be able to O.C up to an extra 500-800 Mhz just on standard fan cooling. I got my 2.4 Ghz Core2 Quad 6600 up to 3.4 ghz with barely any BSODs, 3.0 with no problems. Core temps topped out at 68 degrees I think. BTW your cpu can handle up to 100 degrees but it wont last very long.
 
Holy shit, this is just a joke.

Alright, I've printed everything to audio such that I have no more synth vsti's, no more amp sims, printed into a "MIX" session. after a couple more busses and finishing vocal tracking, I'm up to 41 tracks, expecting to reach 45 by the time I finish mixing.

This thing STILL lags every 10 minutes for a few minutes, with 52 plugins (EQs, compressors, trigger vsts, reverb convolution), and still more to come. Do I need to print yet again?? Am I still over-indulging??

I just think this is beyond practicality right now.

EDIT: For the record, CPU in the DAW itself stays around 3-6% MAX, and 11% in the spikes.
 
coreyb said:
Holy shit, this is just a joke.

Alright, I've printed everything to audio such that I have no more synth vsti's, no more amp sims, printed into a "MIX" session. after a couple more busses and finishing vocal tracking, I'm up to 41 tracks, expecting to reach 45 by the time I finish mixing.

This thing STILL lags every 10 minutes for a few minutes, with 52 plugins (EQs, compressors, trigger vsts, reverb convolution), and still more to come. Do I need to print yet again?? Am I still over-indulging??

I just think this is beyond practicality right now.

EDIT: For the record, CPU in the DAW itself stays around 3-6% MAX, and 11% in the spikes.
Click to expand...

Print your triggers .
 
If CPU stays at 11% max, and if you get a few mn of lag regularly, there is definitely something wrong. If CPU is reasonnable and the buffer setting high enough, you shouldn't even have lag. What are you specs ?
 
coreyb said:
Holy shit, this is just a joke.

Alright, I've printed everything to audio such that I have no more synth vsti's, no more amp sims, printed into a "MIX" session. after a couple more busses and finishing vocal tracking, I'm up to 41 tracks, expecting to reach 45 by the time I finish mixing.

This thing STILL lags every 10 minutes for a few minutes, with 52 plugins (EQs, compressors, trigger vsts, reverb convolution), and still more to come. Do I need to print yet again?? Am I still over-indulging??

I just think this is beyond practicality right now.

EDIT: For the record, CPU in the DAW itself stays around 3-6% MAX, and 11% in the spikes.
Click to expand...

Have you tried raising the buffer?
 
To the OP, I didn't see any mention of the sample rate of the session. If you are running 96khz or above you will run into CPU issues really quick, especially compared to lower sample rates. 96khz and above requires several times more processing power for everything. This could definitely be a possible explanation for your low track and plugin count on your i7 system.
 
awesome tips guys, i really should start doing this...

i'm currently trying to finish a mix, but it takes ages and gets really annoying when playback stops every 1/4 of a measure because of a cpu overload.

it seriously pisses me off and hinders so much, but i've felt that when i print a track i can never go back to the source if it's not good enough. but a separate project file changes everything. i can't believe i've been putting up with this shit so far :lol:
 
If your CPU is maxing out at 11 percent and you are experiancing intermittant lag issues then something has to be randomly reading/writing to the hard drive.

Use a hard drive resource monitor to check and see what is reading and writing to the HD during these laggy periods.

What OS are you using?
 
coreyb said:
I'm on Windows 7, 64-bit. What "monitor" do you suggest I use?
Click to expand...

Great, that simplifies things. Open the task manager, there should be a button in the lower left called "Resource Monitor". Expand the Disk monitor section and click on the title of the Total column to sort by highest to lowest. Examine what applications are using the most HD resources during the spikes and investigate them.

In a side note, as great as Windows 7 is, it, like xp when it first came out, is still in its buggy stage and certain hardware can cause problems. When I first upggraded to Windows 7 64 bit, I had to uninstall my nVidia drivers and use the built in driver as well as roll back the C++ Runtime environment to prevent random BSOD's while my Firestudio was hooked up. Then I had to roll back my Gigabyte BIOS to an earlier version to prevent DPC Latency spikes which were causing audible clicks, pops, and other ugliness. DPC Latency Checker was a useful tool in this case.
 
Awesome, i'll definitely try that as soon as I can.

Yeah the DPC latency checker is great, i'd often get these absolutely ridiculous spikes during these periods, like over 1 million microseconds.
 
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