Help please... frustrated new user

[David McDonald]

Hello and thanks for any help you experienced users can give me. I just started with an MBox connected to a PowerMac G4 dual 533 / 1.25 GB / 120 MB drive dedicated to ProTools LE 6.1.2. I'm recording from a DAT using the spdif interface. Everything works fine off and on, but at totally random times, recording stops and I get a "CPU useage is holding up USB" error message. The message suggests deleting tracks but I have only one track open. I have no other software running in the background. I set the H/W buffer size to 1024 samples and CPU useage limit to 99% with a DAE playback buffer of Level 4. The same error message occurs randomly when I bounce tracks to disk. I can't believe my dual 533 can't keep up with a single stream, so there must be something else wrong. My USB cable is new and plugged directly into the Mac rather than through a USB patch bay. Can anyone suggest anything else. Thanks!

David

[Ping Pong]

Hi Dave,
Have you tried increasing the memory for DAE....DAE Folder>DAE Application>Get Info>Memory
Also increase memory for Pro Tools.
The more memory the merrier!
Close all windows other than the one you are using.
Bounce tracks and reload to free up Plugs


good luck

[Slim Shady]

Good suggestion Ping Pong... except that he's in OS X - you can't increase memory allocation in OSX like you can in OS9.

David, some things to check out:

1) Check the first thread on this board, it has lots of tips for running ProTools in OSX
2) keep your CPU limit to 75% or 85% - although there are higher options available, it tends to make the mBox less functional if you go above those levels.
3) Keep your DAE buffer at the default (I think it's 2) - changing that never works for me, and usualy causes more problems.
4) Make sure you are clocking to your external DAT player when recording from it - then when you switch back to editing, change the clock source back to 'internal'

If you're still getting problems after doing all the tinkering suggested in the first thread (OS X/Pro Tools 6.x setup and general troubleshooting) and the other stuff I suggested, I don't know what to tell you. Unfortunately I also sometimes encounter this error with my mBox - usually when working with very long un-edited files and trying to bounce them down. It seems to happen more with 6.1.2 than it did before, but I haven't taken the time to downgrade back to a previous version to check this out for sure.

Slim

[soundboy69]

Ping pong...he's using PTLE 6.1.2, so that means OS X. Memory is handled by the OS now (as opposed to OS 9), so can't really do that anymore. Try this (don't know if it'll work, but...), set CPU usage to 85%. See if you get this error as often. This is also a main reason why USB 1 interfaces aren't really up to the task of tracking. The bandwidth is quite limited. If it doesn't help, I'd suggest using a Firewire interface. I can't really think of anything else right now...

[soundboy69]

Hi, Slim...what's up?
We must've been replying at the same time, so...uh, yeah...what Slim said.

[BookSix]

Are you running ONLY protools when this happens? I sometimes get that error when I try to run iChat while working on a project...

[mcconnellsteve]

I set the H/W buffer size to 1024 samples

would halving (or quartering) that help? i don't have the same setup as you, but when tracking, especially using plugins, i set this to a pretty low number and crank it up when mixing.

don't know if that will help or not...
steve

[where02190]

USB drive speed is probably the root of your problem. there's a similiar post I think on this forum going now about this. Dump the USB drive and put a second internal drive in for audio, Apple has the instructions how to do it online. the speed of USB is simply not fast enough to perform to Protools stnadards for recording. It's fine (abet slow) for archive/backup, but not for read/write.

You can get a 120gb Wd drive from most any online vender for around $100 that'll give you superb performance.

[Chris Coleman]

USB drive speed is probably the root of your problem. there's a similiar post I think on this forum going now about this. Dump the USB drive and put a second internal drive in for audio, Apple has the instructions how to do it online. the speed of USB is simply not fast enough to perform to Protools stnadards for recording. It's fine (abet slow) for archive/backup, but not for read/write.

You can get a 120gb Wd drive from most any online vender for around $100 that'll give you superb performance.

Where exactly are you seeing that the poster is using a USB drive? He says he's got a "120 MB" drive dedicated to PT (I'm sure he meant 120 GB) and that the Mbox USB cable is brand new...just wondering...

[where02190]

Crap, I forgot the silly M-box is USB...I assumed he was using a USB drive because of his referals to USB....silly me...silly M-box.