dreaded HW Buffer size crashes

[wwittman]

so,

perhaps it's because I am so used to working in HD,
but I am finding that mixing on my LE system (iMac 2 core, 4gig, 10.5.8, PT 8.0.1) I seem to hit the system wall way too quickly.
Way more quickly, at least, than I suppose I EXPECT to.


am I just expecting too much from ANY LE system? from the iMac?


how many implementations of third party plug ins are you guys finding you can run?
I find that perhaps 6 or so URS EQs and or compressors (for example) is enough to cause the system to lock up even at the highest HW buffer setting

[Pure Audio]

I found that once I ditched Apples built in Fw bus my system drastically improved stability, I believe it was a communication problem for me.

Before this significant change there were a few things I learned to help prevent falling over.

1) - Turn Spotlight off.
2) - Turn all Mac osx perks off (like shadow on boxes etc.)
3) - Never implement a plugin during playback. (sure way to crash a system in LE, normal fare in HD)
4) - Never use 003 with something else connected via FW. (I found drastic increases in buffer issues on my Mac pro when I had a FW harddrive or Powercore attached)
5) - Make sure you've got the latest Plugin versions

hope this helps.

[wwittman]

Originally Posted by Pure Audio

I found that once I ditched Apples built in Fw bus my system drastically improved stability, I believe it was a communication problem for me.

can you elaborate on that?

[wwittman]

Originally Posted by Pure Audio

1) - Turn Spotlight off.
2) - Turn all Mac osx perks off (like shadow on boxes etc.).

come to think of it, can you elaborate on these too?

[skabuddah]

Not to sound stupid but doesn't DiGi tell us to use an external drive As far as i can tell FW is the connection ?

[Concerttom]

Originally Posted by Pure Audio

Never use 003 with something else connected via FW.

Uh, no -- you've got to record to a drive separate from your system drive, and unless you've got a separate internal one, you have to record to an external HD via FireWire.

[aeongrey]

Originally Posted by wwittman

come to think of it, can you elaborate on these too?

Spotlight is a MAC search feature, top right corner of the screen. Turning both of these off should be in the system settings.

[mikebeck]

Originally Posted by wwittman

so,

perhaps it's because I am so used to working in HD,
but I am finding that mixing on my LE system (iMac 2 core, 4gig, 10.5.8, PT 8.0.1) I seem to hit the system wall way too quickly.
Way more quickly, at least, than I suppose I EXPECT to.


am I just expecting too much from ANY LE system? from the iMac?


how many implementations of third party plug ins are you guys finding you can run?
I find that perhaps 6 or so URS EQs and or compressors (for example) is enough to cause the system to lock up even at the highest HW buffer setting

I'm running PT8 on a Macbook Pro with very similar specs to your iMac, and I'm thinking there must be something wrong; I know I can run plenty more URS plugins than that, especially at the highest buffer setting. I'm using an MBox2 and two external firewire drives (one for samples, one for recording).
When I first installed PT8, I did have some issues with lockups and buffers, but I pared down the plugins, updated some others, did the recommended troubleshooting (deleting PT databases, etc.), and it ran great after that. I can't keep many amp sims active without bouncing, so I just prefer to commit to a sound and record wet through an aux to an audio track now, using Eleven LE and the Amplitube 2 series. I frequently use PT8 to record drum MIDI with BFD2 and Toontrack Superior 2 at low buffer settings, and those two are fairly resource-intensive.
I'd suspect an incompatible plugin or plugins to start with.
I've mixed numerous 24+ track sessions with plugins on every track without even using the highest buffer setting.
It's been over a year, so I can't quite remember, but I think that it was probably some of the included LE versions of third-party plugins that came with my initial install of PT7 that were out of date when I upgraded to PT8 soon after installing PT7.
I'll have to check the version, but I haven't updated PT8 to the latest release, and haven't updated for a long time; we might be running the same version.

[wwittman]

interesting

I'm fairly sure I'm not running anything out of date,
in fact, other than the aforementioned URS it's mostly included Digi and AIR plug ins

oh, and IK reverb

I HAVE done all of the recommended 'troubleshooting' as far as I know

[ankely]

How many RTAS Processors do you have turned on?

Reduce it to one. See if that helps.

See pg 43, Chapter 5: System Setup, in the Pro Tools Reference Guide.

Hope this helps.