reducing CPU load
 

Hi guys, have a mix session that I'm revisiting after a couple of months.

I don't know what happened in the interim, but the session is almost unplayable. I get CPU usage errors after only a few seconds of playback, even with buffer settings of 512 and 1024. Furthermore, after about one out of five playback attempts, the audio gets harsh and digitally clipped or something, kind of like there is a clock misalignment or buffer overrun or something. The only way I've found to clean this up is to change the playback buffer size, then it plays back normally. (until the next CPU usage error that is.) I don't think this mix uses any more plugins than I might use on any other mix, but something is definitely different about this one. I'm almost finished with this, and have resorted to bouncing and listening offline! :-(

Is there anything I can do besides disabling plugins to help with this? I'm on a 2015 MBP with 16GB RAM, running PT2018 (native). I do have an external UAD card running a handful of plugins, as well as 2 apple displays running from one of my TB ports, with my audio interface (apogee ensemble) and UAD card running from the other.

Thanks!!

Re: reducing CPU load
 

Hi !

First do a databases and peferences delete . Then double check all the system OS optimizations . Also try moving the session to another drive and test . Last load the session without **any** plugin or inactive . Press shift while loading session then start activating one by one until you see the issue .

Re: reducing CPU load
 

Try updating to the last known Sierra update - OSX 10.12.6 if you're not running it already.

Re: reducing CPU load
 

I'm familiar with trashing prefs, although I haven't done it yet since encountering this problem, but what is a database delete??

Re: reducing CPU load
 

Just what it says - delete the databases that PT creates. Pete Gates has a fine free utility that does that and more. For those on Windoze look up user guitardom here and he has Trasher for that operating system.

Re: reducing CPU load
 

here is a link for the OP !!! http://petegates.com/pg-pt-prefs.html

Re: reducing CPU load
 

As a public service guitardrom trasher ( lastest one ) works on mac and windows . I use it all the time on both OS .

Re: reducing CPU load
 

And just to be clear, deleting the Database stopped being a thing in Pro Tools 11 and later. But either way the popular utilities know what the correct things to do for different Pro Tools versions.

Re: reducing CPU load
 

What Apogee Ensemble? Sounds like a Thunderbolt, not Firewire, can you confirm that? What driver version?
What exact AAE error(s) do you get?

Good advice already on testing with all plugin removed and re-checking the systems optimization.
Make sure all your interface drivers, UAD software, other plugins etc. is up to date.
Make sure ignore errors is not checked.
Make sure "dynamic plugin processing" is not checked (YMMV but I generally think this should always be off)
Disk cache is set to a size, say 4GB, not "normal" (which effectively means "off").
Test playing that session using Built In Output as the playback engine.
Try uninstalling all the UAD software. Unplug the UAD hardware. Trash prefs. Reboot. Test.
Create a new Mac administrator account and try testing from that.
(cumulative try to do as many of these things as possible, don't keep undoing things).

Re: reducing CPU load
 

How did deleting databases stop being a thing with PT11 and beyond? It's still doable with the Pete Gates utility.