Pro Tools Settings for optimum use.

[Chopper]

I have PT 10.3.2 on OSX 10.8.2 I have 32G of memory and almost 1 gig free on the drive.

I am finding that as I go through from one song to the next, my meter display in PT is getting slower and slower. More so in songs that I have more tracks in. At some point, if I try to open or modify a plug-in or EQ, I get the spinning wheel of death and then pro tools will either crash with an error log, or I will have to force quit the program and restart it. My %CPU in the activity monitor has been as high as 130.8. Which I don't understand because I would think 100 is the maximum.

I have looked, though maybe not in the right places, but I would appreciate any suggestions or help you can provide to me so I can reduce or eliminate these frustrating issues.

[Chief Technician]

Originally Posted by Chopper

I have PT 10.3.2 on OSX 10.8.2 I have 32G of memory and almost 1 gig free on the drive.

If you only have 1 gig free on your hard drive, that is a problem. You need to fix that before doing anything else.

Originally Posted by Chopper

I am finding that as I go through from one song to the next, my meter display in PT is getting slower and slower. More so in songs that I have more tracks in. At some point, if I try to open or modify a plug-in or EQ, I get the spinning wheel of death and then pro tools will either crash with an error log, or I will have to force quit the program and restart it. My %CPU in the activity monitor has been as high as 130.8. Which I don't understand because I would think 100 is the maximum.

The maximum percentage in Activity Monitor is 100*<#_of_cores>. So if you have an 8-core system, the maximum percentage any one process can use is 800%.

Originally Posted by Chopper

I have looked, though maybe not in the right places, but I would appreciate any suggestions or help you can provide to me so I can reduce or eliminate these frustrating issues.

If you have crash logs, post them somewhere online where we can view them.

[Chopper]

Sorry. My mistake. I have almost 1 Tb free.

I have done some additional checking and changed my sessions to 88.2 and 32 Bit Floating. According to some of the videos, this is suppose to help.

Do you agree?

[Chief Technician]

Originally Posted by Chopper

Sorry. My mistake. I have almost 1 Tb free.

That's a relief.

Originally Posted by Chopper

I have done some additional checking and changed my sessions to 88.2 and 32 Bit Floating. According to some of the videos, this is suppose to help.

Do you agree?

I don't work at 88.2 or have a need for 32 Bit Float files. Do you think its helping? That might be all that matters.

[Chopper]

I have only been working on sessions I recorded previously. I'm still seeing some things like slow meters on individual channels even though the CPU and disk activity is very minimal.


But with things at 32-bit and 88.2 most things seem okay. The settings were something I found on You Tube when I searched for Pro Tools 10. It also talked about sample settings, but I don't want to change too much without knowing what will happen.

I would feel better knowing what was happening so I could prevent it in the future, but other than the meter issue, things are working. The slowed meters does not affect the audio playback.

[queemacarthur]

If you have more than one processor then in setup, playback engine reduce the processors used by one, even if you only have two.
That will make a big difference.

Higher sample rates use more processing power lower ones less.