Grouping

[dannymeltzer]

I work on very long audiobook mixes, up to 20+ hrs in a session. I sometimes group the long voice edits [with many thousands of edits] just to make it less unwieldy to move long sections of things around in a session.

I find that the more I group clips, long sections of clips with many, many edits in them--or group several groups together in ANOTHER group--this tends to really bog down the session. I get spinning wheels or delays for actions. Not all the time but it happens and more with more grouping

Is this just the way PT is? Or anything I can do to help performance here? I was hoping when I got a new Mac Studio and some NVMe's that I would be able to blast through some of these big sessions more easily but it does not seem to be the case.

Should I just avoid grouping?

Any thoughts are appreciated. Thanks!

Mac Studio M1 Ultra / 64GB memory / OS Monterey 12.5 / PT Ultimate 2022.7 / Attached OWC Thunderbay with NVMe

[its2loud]

Originally Posted by dannymeltzer

I work on very long audiobook mixes, up to 20+ hrs in a session. I sometimes group the long voice edits [with many thousands of edits] just to make it less unwieldy to move long sections of things around in a session.

I find that the more I group clips, long sections of clips with many, many edits in them--or group several groups together in ANOTHER group--this tends to really bog down the session. I get spinning wheels or delays for actions. Not all the time but it happens and more with more grouping

Is this just the way PT is? Or anything I can do to help performance here? I was hoping when I got a new Mac Studio and some NVMe's that I would be able to blast through some of these big sessions more easily but it does not seem to be the case.

Should I just avoid grouping?

Any thoughts are appreciated. Thanks!

Mac Studio M1 Ultra / 64GB memory / OS Monterey 12.5 / PT Ultimate 2022.7 / Attached OWC Thunderbay with NVMe

How much Ram do you have allocated to disk cache?

Can you post a screen shot of your system usage window in Pro Tools?

Try increasing your disk cache amount and see if you get better performance. With that much audio in your session there’s a lot of SSD reading and writing happening. Even with the fast drives it’s possible the system is bogging down with having to retain all the clip group data.
Otherwise it’s possible the issue has to due with whatever processing is happening on the track.

[Ben Jenssen]

Originally Posted by its2loud

How much Ram do you have allocated to disk cache?

Can you post a screen shot of your system usage window in Pro Tools?

Try increasing your disk cache amount and see if you get better performance. With that much audio in your session there’s a lot of SSD reading and writing happening. Even with the fast drives it’s possible the system is bogging down with having to retain all the clip group data.
Otherwise it’s possible the issue has to due with whatever processing is happening on the track.

He's doing audio books. I doubt that he's dealing with hundreds of tracks, so I don't think data thruput is the issue. My guess is this is PT. Just my 2cents.

[thin ice]

Are you working on the internal drive, which should be the fastest? A different discipline, but I know Beat Detective eventually slows things down with thousands of regions created.

[dannymeltzer]

Originally Posted by its2loud

How much Ram do you have allocated to disk cache?

Can you post a screen shot of your system usage window in Pro Tools?

Try increasing your disk cache amount and see if you get better performance. With that much audio in your session there’s a lot of SSD reading and writing happening. Even with the fast drives it’s possible the system is bogging down with having to retain all the clip group data.
Otherwise it’s possible the issue has to due with whatever processing is happening on the track.

Disk playback cache I just have set to NORMAL. Should I set to a specific number? It is audiobooks but these sometimes turn into elaborate mixes with lots of music and effects, 30 tracks is not unheard of. Not nearly as many as a film mix but it's not always just a couple tracks. Media drive is an NVMe inside an OWC Thunderbay connected with thunderbolt. I can't think of how to get faster drive speeds than this, I am up to around 2700 MB/s. System usage window screen shot here:

[its2loud]

I doubt it’s the drive but you’d need to rule out anything else to determine. My suggestions are this.

Increase your disk cache to 16GB. You have plenty of RAM. See if you notice any improvements when moving clip groups.

If you do not, then copy the entire session to your internal drive. Then do a similar test. Keeping the same disk cache.

Lastly, this could be a plug-in issue as I suggested. Run the session with all plugs inactive. Not just bypassed. Then make some big edits with clip groups as you say would cause the SWOD. You’re going to have to do some troubleshooting here to determine if this is a bug in 2022.7 or a system issue.

[dannymeltzer]

Ok thanks, will try these things. So 16GB is better than the NORMAL setting? I never really understood what NORMAL meant as a setting but that is the default so I left it that way.

[Ben Jenssen]

Originally Posted by dannymeltzer

Ok thanks, will try these things. So 16GB is better than the NORMAL setting? I never really understood what NORMAL meant as a setting but that is the default so I left it that way.

Normal = 'the way it used to be, before disk cache', IOW, no disk cache. You have to set it to something to have disk cache. Strange nomenclature.

[smurfyou]

Originally Posted by Ben Jenssen

Normal = 'the way it used to be, before disk cache', IOW, no disk cache. You have to set it to something to have disk cache. Strange nomenclature.

Avid docs says Normal is automatic and dynamically allocates as needed.

An Avid rep once said in a video that Normal means off.

I haven't gotten a straight answer about which is correct.

OP, how many grouped clips are we talking? I find extraneous "auto-created clips" bog things down. I've had a ton of grouped clips in film sessions and haven't noticed a slowdown due to that. But I don't usually nest them, maybe that adds to the processing.

[dannymeltzer]

Originally Posted by smurfyou

Avid docs says Normal is automatic and dynamically allocates as needed.

An Avid rep once said in a video that Normal means off.

I haven't gotten a straight answer about which is correct.

OP, how many grouped clips are we talking? I find extraneous "auto-created clips" bog things down. I've had a ton of grouped clips in film sessions and haven't noticed a slowdown due to that. But I don't usually nest them, maybe that adds to the processing.

Thousands and thousands of clips. Imagine 1-3 edits between every sentence or word of someone speaking nonstop for 20 hours. I can see how the nesting would tax the system, was curious what others' experience was regarding this. Thanks.