Tips to save CPU during mixing
- Thread starter Nebulous
- Start date
AudioGeekZine
arsehole know-it-all
2 things-
Always work from a secondary drive 7200 RPM, internal or Firewire/eSata
Defrag your drives, I like Auslogics disk defrag because it's fast and free.
Sorta related..
If you've got a bunch of tracks that only come in in certain parts of the song (a synth or something), is it better to have that track playing through the whole song, with silence before and after it, or is it better to just have that track playing where there's actual audio. Explaining it very badly..
Is it better to have your whole project filled with tracks like 'Desc-GtrSoloA' or 'Desc-GtrSoloB'?
1 long continuous file is better for disk performance, but 2 or three small pieces like that won't affect much. If you have 100s or 1000s of wav files in different places on the disk you'll get problems. There should be no problems with a session like in the picture.
You shouldn't need to adjust this, I've never heard of this being recommended.
Did you google it? It seems like a good idea, but you are more likely to completely hang the system if you overload in Realtime.
Do some proper benchmarks to test it.
EXAMPLE CUBASE BENCHMARK
Make an audio track and create a 5 minute long test tone. (sine wave, 1kHz, -20dB)
Set up another track with 5 roomworks on it. Now duplicate the track a bunch of times.
Arm all the tracks and record for 5 minutes at least. You should hear a constant unbroken tone.
Keep duplicating tracks until you get an error message or there are audible breakups in the test tone.
Try it at different buffer sizes.
Now try the same thing at different thread priorities. See if there is a difference, see if the system is completely unresponsive.
What I usually do is to insert the cpu-intensive plugins on the track, when your happy with the effects from it just mixdown the track into a wav, then unload all plugins on the original track and disable it(not just mute, disable). Now you can apply non cpu-intensive plugins on the newly created wav, like eq/comp.
If you ever decided that you didn't like the effect from the original track just enable the old track change parameters and do a new mixdown. Then move the newly exported track into the old channel, so you can still keep your eq/comp/whatever settings.
If you ever decided that you didn't like the effect from the original track just enable the old track change parameters and do a new mixdown. Then move the newly exported track into the old channel, so you can still keep your eq/comp/whatever settings.
Pedro Teixeira
Member
DaveBlack
Member
- Apr 7, 2009
- 630
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I know its not the best idea and I hate doing it but when I work on systems that cant handle it...I like to mix in frequency groups, like kicks and bass guitar - bounce that out, import to another session. Then I usually go with the highs like Synths, overheads, hats, etc. - so on and so forth. Most of the time I finish with midrangey stuff like vocals and guitar. Dont take my advice though lol just putting in my two cents.
Yeah, that's what I though may be the way to go about it. Really didn't like the idea of exporting with the plugin then importing back in.
I've brought the Cubase 5 manual to work with me today, just incase I get a chance to read it and see if they've upgraded anything. Though, based on the updated menus, I think they've actually pushed it even more in this direction.
Ermz
¯\(°_o)/¯
C_F_H_13
Protools Guru
Couple of tips for Mac users and PT users in general.
Mac stuff:
Although they are much easier to maintain then pcs you still have to do a few maintenance things to keep it going good. Run Disk Utility on your drives at least one a week. Repair Permissions and check all drives. If you are willing to be thorough, ALWAYS repair permissions before and after you install anything.
Turn off any extra fancy features. Spotlight/Corners, all that ridiculous flashy desktop related stuff. Also, have the least amount of stuff on the desktop. The difference is not much, but it definitely helps.
Watch for other programs running in the background. If you look at the usage meter in utilities, you'd be shocked at how much MSN/Firefox/general internet related stuff slows PT down. Messenger in particular is a killer.
PT STUFF:
If you don't have it yet get this. http://www.jcdeshaies.com/
Its a permissions/prefs app for pro tools users. It also comes with a great start up program that'll delete those digidesign databases folders at start up. That one thing alone will make assertion errors virtually disappear.
Make sure your Buffers are all set right.
Consolidate all audio tracks. Protools would rather read 1 big file then 10000 little ones.
Dump all unnecessary playlists and REMOVE all unused regions (shift-apple U to select them then shift-apple P to get rid of them) PLEASE DO NOT HIT DELETE.
The removal of unused regions is the number 1 way in PT to speed things up.
Despite Digi's best efforts, PT HATES RTAS instruments....even it's own! Print those files. A Soft Synth in Logic/cubase/nuendo uses considerably less CPU then it does in an identical situation in pt. So don't be fooled.
I'll add more as I think of them....
Mac stuff:
Although they are much easier to maintain then pcs you still have to do a few maintenance things to keep it going good. Run Disk Utility on your drives at least one a week. Repair Permissions and check all drives. If you are willing to be thorough, ALWAYS repair permissions before and after you install anything.
Turn off any extra fancy features. Spotlight/Corners, all that ridiculous flashy desktop related stuff. Also, have the least amount of stuff on the desktop. The difference is not much, but it definitely helps.
Watch for other programs running in the background. If you look at the usage meter in utilities, you'd be shocked at how much MSN/Firefox/general internet related stuff slows PT down. Messenger in particular is a killer.
PT STUFF:
If you don't have it yet get this. http://www.jcdeshaies.com/
Its a permissions/prefs app for pro tools users. It also comes with a great start up program that'll delete those digidesign databases folders at start up. That one thing alone will make assertion errors virtually disappear.
Make sure your Buffers are all set right.
Consolidate all audio tracks. Protools would rather read 1 big file then 10000 little ones.
Dump all unnecessary playlists and REMOVE all unused regions (shift-apple U to select them then shift-apple P to get rid of them) PLEASE DO NOT HIT DELETE.
The removal of unused regions is the number 1 way in PT to speed things up.
Despite Digi's best efforts, PT HATES RTAS instruments....even it's own! Print those files. A Soft Synth in Logic/cubase/nuendo uses considerably less CPU then it does in an identical situation in pt. So don't be fooled.
I'll add more as I think of them....
AudioGeekZine
arsehole know-it-all
Good tips.
shift-apple P should be shift-apple B unless this is one of the few commands that is different in the PC version.
A PC version of the Preference trashing utility is here made by another user. Very helpful.
http://drop.io/trasher3
It's an autohotkey script, so there no GUI. Follow the instructions.
Digidesign also makes one called the Tech Support Utility. Would you be surprised that it doesn't work right. :roll:
Make sure your Plugins are all compatible/up to date
On a MAC sometimes it works better to reduce the # of processors to an odd number (1 core on a dual core/7 cores on an 8 core mac) particularly with Native Instruments plugs.
shift-apple P should be shift-apple B unless this is one of the few commands that is different in the PC version.
A PC version of the Preference trashing utility is here made by another user. Very helpful.
http://drop.io/trasher3
It's an autohotkey script, so there no GUI. Follow the instructions.
Digidesign also makes one called the Tech Support Utility. Would you be surprised that it doesn't work right. :roll:
Make sure your Plugins are all compatible/up to date
On a MAC sometimes it works better to reduce the # of processors to an odd number (1 core on a dual core/7 cores on an 8 core mac) particularly with Native Instruments plugs.
Machinated
Member
great stuff in here
although i have actually forgotten what its like to run out of cpu.....
seriously.
although i have actually forgotten what its like to run out of cpu.....
seriously.
C_F_H_13
Protools Guru
kev
Im guybrush threepwood
JeffTD
Senhor Testiculo
I can see why you'd turn off spotlight (especially consider apple+space is a pretty useful shortcut in PT
), but you get rid of Corners? The 'all windows' bit of it gets used every 2-3 minutes for me - so much easier to hover on up to a corner, click on the plugin/midi editor/tracking window than to do anything else, IME. Does Corners really take up that much CPU?
C_F_H_13
Protools Guru
I can see why you'd turn off spotlight (especially consider apple+space is a pretty useful shortcut in PT
I could see how that could be useful, but I just use the windows configurations in Protools. As far as CPU, every extra thing does a little...in that case it might be almost nothing, but on my laptop I notice a huge difference.
