Hey Guys,

"System Overload - The audio engine was not able to process all required data in time"

So i'm beginning to get this all the time on a project I'm working on in Logic 8 Studio.

Now I've had this problem before and was told to change my buffer settings to a higher value than when recording, which I have done. [currently at: 512 samples]

However it still overloads.

I've now frozen every single track except the ones I am working on and still no luck or improvement.

There are a lot of edits in the project and 38 channels of audio. I'm using auxiliaries for verbs [space designer - only 2 instances].

Each channel has EQ and maybe half or less have compression.

My mac laptop specs: 2Ghz Intel Core Duo, 2GB RAM, HDD 7200RPM.

Am I just running too much audio and pushing my system too hard?

Cheers for any replies,

Martyn

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Look Up. Captain Christ says you think too much about the wrong things. You sing about the wrong things. Take Extra Special Care.

Quote Mart[y]n:

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Am I just running too much audio and pushing my system too hard?

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You have a disk meter and CPU meter in Logic. What are they telling you?

They seem to be ok then suddenly peak causing the system overload.

Is there any way I can improve my settings or working method to rectify this?

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Look Up. Captain Christ says you think too much about the wrong things. You sing about the wrong things. Take Extra Special Care.

Quote Mart[y]n:

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They seem to be ok then suddenly peak causing the system overload.

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Well, which is peaking, the disk, or the cpu, or both?

If the disk is peaking, freezing won't help because freezing reduces the CPU load but increases the disk load. Unfreezing reduces disk load but increases CPU load.

Quote Mart[y]n:

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Is there any way I can improve my settings or working method to rectify this?

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Again, it depends where you bottlenecks are. If your issues are disk related, and you don't say what your disk setup is or how hard your working the disk (ie, audio tracks only, or lots of streaming sample usage, or both etc), and what speed and interface your disk is on, but you want interfaces with a high bandwidth eg FW800 or ESATA, and fast drives (7200/10Krpm), and possibly to spread the load over multiple drives to lessen the load on each.

If CPU is your issue, then you need to look at your plugin/instrument usage. Perhaps render/bounce out some to plain audio files. Use larger buffers too. But your CPU can only process a certain amount of data in real time - if you are asking it to do more than it can do, it's going to stop. You have to work within your resource limitations.

Also, check how much ram you have - if you have a small amount of ram, this will cause more bottlenecks too.

Its the CPU meter that is peaking. The HD one is fine.

As mentioned before I have 2GB RAM.

There are no instances of software instruments. The project comprises of only audio [38 tracks].

There are lots of edits in this audio. All tracks except the ones I'm working on are frozen.

Buffer is set to 512 samples.


Plug-ins consist of only Logic EQ and compression on the audio channels. Only 2 instances of Space Designer being used.

Any suggestions would be appreciated Desmond.....

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Look Up. Captain Christ says you think too much about the wrong things. You sing about the wrong things. Take Extra Special Care.

Quote Mart[y]n:

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Its the CPU meter that is peaking. The HD one is fine.

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Ok.

Quote Mart[y]n:

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As mentioned before I have 2GB RAM.

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That's very low to run the OS and a heavy app like Logic. Try and go to at least 4GB if you can.

Quote Mart[y]n:

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There are no instances of software instruments. The project comprises of only audio [38 tracks].

Plug-ins consist of only Logic EQ and compression on the audio channels. Only 2 instances of Space Designer being used.

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Hmm... that doesn't seem like too much to ask of a 2GHz Core Duo. If you disable the plugins, is your CPU meter still high, or does it fall right down? Is it the Space Designers being the biggest CPU load?

What happens if you up the audio buffers to 1024..?

This is one reason I actually love Cubase.

It'll keep going even if the CPU goes boom.

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Composer;
www.ogonline.org

Quote oggyb:

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This is one reason I actually love Cubase.

It'll keep going even if the CPU goes boom.

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Hmmm. Presumably on some quantum computer in a parallel universe!

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Dynamite with a laser beam...

Have you turned off wifi? Wifi will cause the sort of problems you are describing.

James.

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JRP Music - Audio Mastering and Restoration.
http://www.jrpmusic.net

Hey guys,

Firstly thanks for the responses.

So WiFi is off. Always was.

If I up the buffer to 1024 samples the CPU goes mental and remains in the red, refusing to play the track. Lower rates don't help either.

If I bypass all the plug ins it will play but the CPU meter stays around the 35 - 45% mark.

This is my plug in list: [all standard logic plug ins except the one instance of LiquidMix]

EQ - 24 instances
Compression - 7 instances
LiquidMix - 1 instance
Space Designer - 2 instances
Spread - 1 instance

I don't consider that excessive.... Is It? I feel it shoudn't be a problem for my machine...

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Look Up. Captain Christ says you think too much about the wrong things. You sing about the wrong things. Take Extra Special Care.

Someone just told me how to check my RAM usage and while running logic with all the plug ins on as described above it says I have 900MB free ram available yet Logic still over loads?????

I'm very confused......

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Look Up. Captain Christ says you think too much about the wrong things. You sing about the wrong things. Take Extra Special Care.

If you were running Windows I would tell you to download Process Explorer and see what was using up all those processor cycles. Is there something similar for the Mac?

James.

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JRP Music - Audio Mastering and Restoration.
http://www.jrpmusic.net

Quote James Perrett:

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If you were running Windows I would tell you to download Process Explorer and see what was using up all those processor cycles. Is there something similar for the Mac?

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Activity Monitor in the Utilities folder.

You are getting 45% *CPU* usage *just* play back twenty audio tracks? Something's wrong there.

Are you playing off a USB drive? Try moving those audio files to a different drive to rule out drive performance - any better? Any worse?

No, I don't think he's doing anything strange - I run Logic Pro on a G5 (2 x 2.5Ghz) with 6Gb RAM and I get the same thing (I also got it in Logic 7). I'm using the internal Hard Disk - and its pretty empty. The issue usually goes away after you have run the song through a few times which suggests it is not very intelligent in the way it reads data off the disk. Although the issue is more pronounced with a larger mix, I can have that issue with only a few tracks. I'm certain it has something to do with Logic, because once the stuff is in RAM it runs with the CPU meter barely showing.

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Daniel Davis
Edinburgh Recording Studio Windmill Sound

if this was in the future in a 60s/70s sci-fi show, Logic 8 would flash red on screen, play a WAV of a warning klaxxon, and smoke would come out of your computer until it finally blew up.

WHAT'S GONE *WRONG* WITH THE FUTURE?!?!

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~~~ A weasel hath not such a deal of spleen as you are tossed with! www.feline1.co.uk ~~~

Quote Daniel Davis:

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The issue usually goes away after you have run the song through a few times which suggests it is not very intelligent in the way it reads data off the disk. Although the issue is more pronounced with a larger mix, I can have that issue with only a few tracks. I'm certain it has something to do with Logic, because once the stuff is in RAM it runs with the CPU meter barely showing.

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This is Logic's song core/CPU optimisation feature which in version prior to 9 has this effect on newly opened songs until it's been played through and the entirety of the song has been optimised for playback.

This behaviour has changed in LP9 and is no longer an issue.

This is madness.

I've bounced down several tracks to clear things up a bit and its no better whatsoever.

To clarify:

I'm running it off my Internal HDD which is 7200rpm.

I have 2GB RAM

I'm using Logic 8 Studio

Its a Mac 2Ghz Core Duo

There is no background programs running or WiFi or anything silly like that.

Ive got the project down to 29 tracks [from 38] [96Khz, 24bit]

Buffer is set to 512 Samples.

with:

10 EQ Instances
1 Liquid Mix Instance
2 Space Designer Instances
1 Spread Instance

Can anybody figure out what I'm doing wrong? I have no clue it should easily be able to handle this workload.


??????????????

[ps thanks to everyone who is helping me with this conundrum]

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Look Up. Captain Christ says you think too much about the wrong things. You sing about the wrong things. Take Extra Special Care.

Ok, you're running at 96KHz, which means the load of *everything* is more than doubled, disk load, and the load for each plugin. This for a Core Duo (not Core 2 Duo) machine, is quite a lot of load for such a machine. Especially with such a small amount of RAM.

Do you *have* to run at 96KHz? Have you tried running at 44.1KHz like the rest of us normals?

You say your internal drive is 7200 - you specced this yourself, or bought the machine and specifically customised it with a 7200 drive?

Edited by desmond (19/04/11 03:33 PM)

Quote Steve Hill:

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Quote oggyb:

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This is one reason I actually love Cubase.

It'll keep going even if the CPU goes boom.

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Hmmm. Presumably on some quantum computer in a parallel universe!

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In the audio preferences/ general tab, uncheck display audio engine overload message.



Also how much free space do you have on your system drive?



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G-Dub
Studio G-fx 15inch quad-core i7 Macbook Pro Logic913

Edited by G-Doubleyou (19/04/11 04:22 PM)

Quote desmond:

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This for a Core Duo (not Core 2 Duo) machine

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Quote Mart[y]n:

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Its a Mac 2Ghz Core Duo

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Quote Mart[y]n:

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My mac laptop specs: 2Ghz Intel Core Duo

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Quote desmond:

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You say your internal drive is 7200 - you specced this yourself, or bought the machine and specifically customised it with a 7200 drive?

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http://www.allhdd.com/st9200420asg-seagate-momentus-200-gb-7-2k-rpm-16mb-b uffer-2-5-inches-form-factor-sata300-notebook-hard-drive-with-g-force-protection-new-pull- .html

Quote desmond:

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Do you *have* to run at 96KHz? Have you tried running at 44.1KHz like the rest of us normals?

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Forgive me for wanting the highest quality for my recordings. I've clearly learnt a lesson now.

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Look Up. Captain Christ says you think too much about the wrong things. You sing about the wrong things. Take Extra Special Care.

Quote Mart[y]n:

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Quote desmond:

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Do you *have* to run at 96KHz? Have you tried running at 44.1KHz like the rest of us normals?

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Forgive me for wanting the highest quality for my recordings. I've clearly learnt a lesson now.

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Yeah, my Core 2 Duo (4GB RAM) coughs when I record at 88.2. Not always, but it happens.
Its fine at 44.1 though. I really do think you need more RAM and CPU power to capture high SR. I use a dedicated PC for anything over 48. Good luck with it.

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I'm All Ears.

Quote Mart[y]n:

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Quote desmond:

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Do you *have* to run at 96KHz? Have you tried running at 44.1KHz like the rest of us normals?

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Forgive me for wanting the highest quality for my recordings. I've clearly learnt a lesson now.

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And how's that working-for you?

Edited by Andi (19/04/11 10:53 PM)

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Andi, www.thedustbowl.net Mixing, Mastering, Audio Editing at The Dustbowl Audio

Nothing inherently wrong or "abnormal" recording high SR if your system can cope.

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I'm All Ears.

Quote Andi:

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Quote Mart[y]n:

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Quote desmond:

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Do you *have* to run at 96KHz? Have you tried running at 44.1KHz like the rest of us normals?

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Forgive me for wanting the highest quality for my recordings. I've clearly learnt a lesson now.

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And how's that working-for you?

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Read through the posts.......

Quote ken long:

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Yeah, my Core 2 Duo (4GB RAM) coughs when I record at 88.2. Not always, but it happens.
Its fine at 44.1 though. I really do think you need more RAM and CPU power to capture high SR. I use a dedicated PC for anything over 48. Good luck with it.

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I always knew that higher SR required more space on the HDD but I never knew that it also required more RAM and CPU when mixing..... Got new sound card with higher SR capabilities so I thought i'd give them a try. Ah well, you live you learn.

Just ended up bouncing tracks down, old school. Cheers for the help all.

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Look Up. Captain Christ says you think too much about the wrong things. You sing about the wrong things. Take Extra Special Care.