CPU Spiking when arming even ONE track

[propower]

Originally Posted by JFreak

De-activating a plugin is just as good as no plugin at all, as far as the mixer is concerned. Only difference being that de-activated plugin retains its settings when re-activated.

While I agree with you about no difference to "the mixer" I thought I had seen many times where just having a "bad" plugin in the folder that pro tools loads at launch can lead to much trouble. Apparently the OP's experience supports this theory but I sadly can't point to any definitive proof . I have taken the extra conservative approach of troubleshooting by removing plugins from loading then relaunching over and over whilst adding them back in one at a time. Horribly painful but it is yielding consistent results.

Any further info on this is much appreciated...

[propower]

Glad to hear you are up and going!

With the Waves stuff there is a weird install method where you put the plugs in with their installer than do the AAX installer... at least so I remember. Also they HAVE to be the latest and greatest waveshell - PI version or all bets are off. FWIW - I am using waves V9.1 of Diamond, SSL etc and it is working fine...

[JFreak]

Guys, are you sure you know the difference between "bypassing" and "de-activating"... Because de-activating is just as good as removing. You can also remove the plugin from the plug-in folder once you've de-activated it and PT won't care. It just retains the plug-in settings in case you want to re-install and re-activate it.

[propower]

I hear you and I really can't say which is right. But IME there is a difference. Take this example - I can deactivate something on one track and then instantiate the same PI on a different track. PT certainly doesn't take the PI out of the program just because it is de-activated somewhere.

[trigoe]

Originally Posted by JFreak

Guys, are you sure you know the difference between "bypassing" and "de-activating"... Because de-activating is just as good as removing. You can also remove the plugin from the plug-in folder once you've de-activated it and PT won't care. It just retains the plug-in settings in case you want to re-install and re-activate it.

Thats an excellent point. I think I was using the terms too casually.

I had them bypassed so they were blued out in the mixer thinking this would be the same as taking them out of the mixer altogether saving CPU power as I used to do with Logic all the time.

I was control clicking the rows to get them bypassed. Not the same I gather. Thanks!

[Ru_C]

Hey there, pretty much agree with everything propower said re: plugin choice.

My laptop hard drive died recently, so I bit the bullet & put in one of those new crucial 550 1tb SSD drives.

Before I started reinstalling everything on the main Mountain line partition, I made a separate 200gig partition, where I installed Mavericks and PT11 (regular, not HD).

I've been doing some 'destruction testing' on it re:buffer size, and it seems to cope fine with simultaneous 24 track recording, feeding 5 separate stereo headphone sends via pre-fader sends on each track, & with a compressor + EQ on every record channel, plus a reverb on another send/aux.

It can do all this at a buffer of 32samples (44.1k) without falling over. The trick does seem to be using the right plugins though ! As a rough rule, I've found that all AVID's own plugs are well behaved, but the more clever (ie modelling type) plugs I've tried from third parties, the less luck I have at a 32 sample buffer.

I was specifically looking at a 'live band recording' situation with my mobile rig, and wanted to give each musician a separate cue-mix, without have to muck around outside of protools with a separate mixer.

My MacBook Pro is probably less powerful than your iMac, so yours should work all being well.

I did no tweaking of the OS beyond disabling the shortcut to spotlight, and left the playback engine on the default settings (but set the buffer at 32 samples)

I know this probably hasn't helped that much, but it should be possible on your setup. Any chance you could borrow a different interface for a day to try, then at least you'd know if its a driver issue? That would be my next step if I was in your shoes.

For what it's worth, my mobile interface (Presonus Firestudio 26 I/O) hasn't had its drivers updated beyond Lion (Mac OS 10.7) yet it still appears to work against all the odds, so I guess Apple can't have made too many drastic changes under the hood that affect this area.

[JFreak]

Originally Posted by propower

I hear you and I really can't say which is right. But IME there is a difference. Take this example - I can deactivate something on one track and then instantiate the same PI on a different track. PT certainly doesn't take the PI out of the program just because it is de-activated somewhere.

Yep, whatever is loaded into memory is in the memory, lurking and waiting to crash. Some plugins behave very badly, but in that case just take it out from the Plugins folder, report to the plugin vendor, and wait for a fix.

[demodigi]

I agree with JFreak too

- DEACTIVATING (ctrl+cmd+click) totally disable the plugin and free up CPU usage, don't introduce latency anymore, no GUI, no active automation, etc...
-> still keep PI's settings, even if you don't have the plug-in installed on your computer (so ensure compatibility between computers without loosing informations like settings and automations)

- BYPASS (cmd+click) just makes an Audio bypass, it doesn't totally free up CPU (GUI & automation still active) nor change latency value
-> it allows automation bypass and sound comparison on the fly (without clicks and/or CPU spikes or phase issue due to latency changes during playback)

The problem is that some 3rd party plug-ins don't make the difference between bypass and deactivating because Bypass function doesn't work like this with AU and VST plug-ins -> in this case contact the PI vendor to fully support AAX

@propower

I had seen many times where just having a "bad" plugin in the folder that pro tools loads at launch can lead to much trouble.

I also agree : this was the case with the old DAE engine (with RTAS/dpm plugins).
BUT I thought it was past since new DAE (AAX).

It would be interesting to know if, actually, it is still the case with AAX (I don't experience this but don't actually make any deep test since PT11).

@trigoe
1/ Did you find the culprit plugin ?
2/ Which one is it (Avid one or a 3rd party one) ?
3/ Does simply deactivating (not bypassing) solves the issue, or do you have to move the culprit plugin out of the "Plug-ins" folder (moved to "Plug-ins (Unused)" folder) ?

Thanks for your feedbacks.

[Bruce Paine]

Originally Posted by propower

three threads same topic - Moderators - please merge

Threads merged.