Track Counts

[AndrewPGlover]

Today I was doing a rough mix for a client and imported everything we had tracked for a song. I had rendered drums and guitar in separate templates to make sure the whole CD would sound the same when we're done, so this was the first time we had all of the parts together.

I put my faders and pans to where I thought they would start and and pressed play. Before the 4 count had even hit I got an overload notice and had to start resorting to stems I had made in the rendering sessions. If I had 100 or so tracks I would understand the issue, but I had 60, running on an 8x2.8 Mac Pro with 6GB of ram. I had zero plugins on and it still wouldn't play until I was down to 30 tracks.

To my knowledge PT LE with MPTK gets 64 tracks, so I found it quite appalling that Logic couldn't even reach those numbers.

I know I've run sessions with a much larger track count and haven't experienced any problem in the past so I'm writing this one up as a fluke. But I was wondering how many tracks everybody is getting in their sessions without bogging down or crashing.

Am I asking too much? And is this the final push to move to an HD system. I have been extremely vocal about my preference of Logic over Avid for years, but if I can get guaranteed stability, I think it is worth my investment.

 

[006]

That setup should be total beast man, something has to be set wrong in your DAW.

 

[AndrewPGlover]

Maybe the music was too bad an the computer didn't want to make me suffer. It could be running an 003 with Logic and the shitty Digi Core Audio driver, still seems retarded though.

 

[CatharsisStudios]

jesus christ dude, reaper for me, (proably not an option,) starts to get weird at like 110 tracks with everything unprinted

 

[greyskull]

dang... Logic shouldn't be doing that!
I've run larger projects on the largely less efficient P.T L.E on a way slower computer....

just a thought..... do you have UAD's?
there is an option on the UAD control panel which if pressed will make logic ONLY access 1 core.

 

[AndrewPGlover]

dang... Logic shouldn't be doing that!
I've run larger projects on the largely less efficient P.T L.E on a way slower computer....

just a thought..... do you have UAD's?
there is an option on the UAD control panel which if pressed will make logic ONLY access 1 core.

Seriously? This could explain it, I do indeed have a UAD card, although it wouldn't have been running at the time. Where do I uncheck with this option?

 

[greyskull]

I don't have a UAD at home... but i THINK it's here...

make sure that force logic use live mode is UNCHECKED.
just look at the settings on the UA page.
Even when not initiated, the UAD can do weird things to logic.
http://www.uaudio.com/webzine/2008/december/support.html

 

[Machinated]

definitely something up with your computer dude.

im running a 2.8gHzx8 mac with logic, and i've had well over 150 tracks with reverbs, delays, and CPU hungry plugins everywhere, and i seriously cant think of a time i've gone over 50%. and most of the time i keep my buffer size pretty low.

pretty sure its well stated that PT is considerably less efficient with plugins than cubase/logic etc

 

[Danny Drama]

I've just opened a session with 113 tracks, with some heavy plugins running under 50% cpu use on my online/gaming/porn browsing 2.26x8 in Logic.

Weirdly, the same project seems to be using about the same on my main DAW machine, an offline 2.66x12. Is that weird? Fuck knows. Seems like it should use less but whatever.

 

[AndrewPGlover]

The box was already unchecked when I looked at it. Maybe I need to update the drivers or something.

To the guys running all the tracks in Logic, what kind of interface are you using? I don't think it should matter, but I'm wondering if this is related to me using an 003.

 

[Danny Drama]

I'm using 2 Ensembles chained together.

 

[LydonB]

Do you have the new Logic update? Lots of people were complaining about their track counts getting cut almost in half due to the new update.

 

[AndrewPGlover]

No new update. I'm on 9.1. I heard about the problems and opted not to update. I am moving my sessions over to Pro Tools for the time being until I sort this thing out. I think I am actually enjoying the PT workflow which is something I didn't think I'd ever say. For arranging and composing Logic still has it beat for me. But I just edited a bass track into oblivion in PT way faster than I would've done it in Logic.

But on topic, if anybody has any other suggestions I would love to hear them!

 

[gabriel g.]

my projects always end up with 50+ up to 70+ tracks and busses and all with plugins and stuff and its all ok with logic ( newest version) on my mbp with only a dualcore 2.4 and 4gb ram.

make sure your logic preferences are setup the way only played audio hits up the cpu

I would say its a thing with your uad cards?

 

[greyskull]

holy shit that update disables hyperthreading. EPIC FAIL! Avoid 9.1.2 at all costs!
I've got it on here but I only use it run backing tracks, so didn't notice.
as a long time Pro-Tools user, it's oddly nice when a group or people who use another DAW get screwed for once!
Now Reaper needs to break; that'll shut those smug cunts up for 5 minutes.

 

[jimwilbourne]

until you can look into your problem. you may want to start mixing down some of those individual tracks to eliminate some heavy plugins.

the key here is to mix down the original track before you've tinkered with it at all as well.
that way if you ever need to go back (which you can't do after you've mixed down a track and reinserted it), you can just go back to the original.

saves TONS of processing power.

every now and then I'll end up with a mix that will completely rape my computer for no good reason. it'll go from 40% processing power to major slug after adding 2 basic EQ plugs.
makes me mental when that happens. so I know what you're going through.

 

[Skinny Viking]

Now Reaper needs to break; that'll shut those smug cunts up for 5 minutes.

 

[chrisrivalry]

hey a bit off topic, but I've been getting a really sluggish response in cubase with the amount of plugs I've been using. I'm using cubase 5 with a 2 ghz 2 gig ram desktop. I'm not sure if it's the ram or if it's the processor that I need to boost, any ideas?

 

[HeadCrusher]

I'd say both but would go for RAM first if money is thight. FWIW I'm running a setup that is even weaker than yours but it's enough for quick demos and songwriting in C5.

 

[ahjteam]

turn off the redtube and other stuff from the background