Playback Engine issues

[robbierobb]

I am using a Macbook (circa 2009ish) intel core 2 duo. 4 gb ram. I am using a Lacie 7200 RPM external hard drive to assist in more power. I have already designated its job in the "workspace" It is designated to Record. Should my laptop HD be transfer? or Playback? It works better when the macbook HD is set to TRANSFER. Either way I am still getting alerts in my sessions saying "CPU is running out of power, change buffer size" I end up having to bump the buffer size up and up and up EVEN DURING TRACKING to get it to stop, and I still get it randomly at the worst times! AND most of the time Im not even recording but a couple tracks. My mac has a limit of 4gb RAM. Any help?

[CME]

Originally Posted by robbierobb

I am using a Macbook (circa 2009ish) intel core 2 duo. 4 gb ram. I am using a Lacie 7200 RPM external hard drive to assist in more power. I have already designated its job in the "workspace" It is designated to Record. Should my laptop HD be transfer? or Playback? It works better when the macbook HD is set to TRANSFER. Either way I am still getting alerts in my sessions saying "CPU is running out of power, change buffer size" I end up having to bump the buffer size up and up and up EVEN DURING TRACKING to get it to stop, and I still get it randomly at the worst times! AND most of the time Im not even recording but a couple tracks. My mac has a limit of 4gb RAM. Any help?

You didn't specify if the external HD was USB or FireWire. It should be FireWire under osx. Also what is a typical session. How many audio tracks, instrument tracks, vi's, and overall plug-ins?

Aside from that try running the playback engine at one processor. If that helps you may have a plug-in giving you issues. Check and make sure everything is up to date. You can also take all the plug-ins out of the folder and reopen a session and see what it does. If it runs smoother add plug ins back until it doesn't run right. That is the plug-in giving you trouble. And even if a plug-in isn't being used it can cause issues.

[robbierobb]

oh yea sorry. Im using lacie 7200 Firewire 800 going into Presonus Firestudio(recent firmware update). I keep most of my stuff updated. My FIRST session has 1 midi track controlling 1 aux with Superior Drummer 2.0(up to date), and 2 audio tracks recording 2 mics on 1 guitar cab.......My second session has 3 tracks on drums, 2 on a guitar cab, and a 3rd for the bass(6 all together). Neither on of these is even testing any kind of limit from what I've seen in other studios using similar equipment. And just to do tracking Im up at like 1024 for h/w buffer size. From what I was taught u are shooting to be as low as possible for tracking and then bump it as you start straining it out with plug-ins and more tracks.

[The Weed]

He's talking about the number of processors you're assigning in Pro Tools, not the Buffer size.

Hold down the Shift key when opening a session. That will disable the plug-ins in the session. If there are no issues with the session when the plug-ins are all disabled, then enable them one at a time until the issue returns. That will be the plug-in causing the problem if it is indeed plug-in related.

Cheers,

[formfunction]

Originally Posted by robbierobb

I am using a Macbook (circa 2009ish) intel core 2 duo. 4 gb ram. I am using a Lacie 7200 RPM external hard drive to assist in more power. I have already designated its job in the "workspace" It is designated to Record. Should my laptop HD be transfer? or Playback? It works better when the macbook HD is set to TRANSFER. Either way I am still getting alerts in my sessions saying "CPU is running out of power, change buffer size" I end up having to bump the buffer size up and up and up EVEN DURING TRACKING to get it to stop, and I still get it randomly at the worst times! AND most of the time Im not even recording but a couple tracks. My mac has a limit of 4gb RAM. Any help?

are you actually creating the sessions on the Lacie drive? How is the drive formatted?
I have had these issues, and reinstalling the drivers, and reformatting the disk usually fixes them.
Mackbook HD set to "transfer"????? now thats a new one to me. ff

[robbierobb]

Im not sure if the sessions are "IN" the lacie or not. I'm still sort of new to a lot of this. So far from reading and asking around I:
1. Boosted ram from 2gb to 4gb(max)
2. Purchased a Lacie external 1tb, 7200 rpm(recommended)
3. Updated all my firmware and plug-ins
4. set my workspace......Macintosh HD to "playback", Lacie HD to Record, which is what I have read on these sites.

This has set me straight from where i was before the boost and lacie but I'm still getting errors on generally light sessions. Im googling around right now to read about reformatting my lacie maybe?

ALSO does my "activity monitor" in my utilities give an accurate reading on my usage? I figure if its the CPU then my ram cant keep up or something along those lines? It says i have 3.75 gb free before session and PT sucks about 2 of that and it says I have 1.8ish gb free during the session. Sorry if I'm not the most informative on here Im a full time student and work 40 a week so i read as much as i can during the day and try to put it in place at night with no damn internet to hold my troubleshooting little hand!

[CME]

Sounds like you're doing the right things. Have you done the trouble shooting/ optimizations at the top of the forum? Aside from that I still think it may be a plug-in issue. Even if you aren't using any plugs in your session, pro tools still loads all of them, and an out of date/poorly coded one can still cause issues.