Multi processor, Snow Leopard, 8.0.3p ...?!

[MarkH]

bfx,

I think the answer to your question is somewhere in the middle. In the HD forum it appears there are many folks with 8x Core Mac Pro systems using primarily RTAS plugins. They are essentially using the HD cards for I/O and delay compensation. I'm not sure how USB/Firewire vs. PCIe plays into it, but I think you should get more from your system than you are currently experiencing. Maybe ask some of the folks in the HD forum about your setup?

I've heard that Pro Tools has reasonable multi core support. Most of us have experienced that Logic will use multi core CPU very efficiently and it's true Logic 9 will show you CPU meters for every core in the CPU window. I don't think there is any DAW that matches Logic's efficiency, so maybe Pro Tools is on par with Cubase, Nuendo, DP, Ableton, etc.. I do know that on my system the only plugins that seem to "slam" my CPU rather quickly, especially at low buffers, is Native Instruments. Proportionally speaking, even Logic takes a bigger hit than usual when using NI plugins. Compared to you I have a (lowly) Mac Book Pro 2.93ghz Core 2 Duo. I can add tons of Digi RTAS plugins (instruments and effects) and it barely hiccups. Add a couple instances of Kore and things will get heavier.

[bfx]

Thanks Mark

Probably the PCIe will do better than Firewire will do better than USB. Anyways, when Digi offered the MBox 2 with USB they should have taken care that it would not come in the way in terms of limited data transfer rates, driver issues or the likes. There's only one stereo pair of audio running through it which just must not be a problem. Otherwise it would be a plain deal breaker. Having said that I have to add that since I am using the 8-core I never experienced problems while using fx plugins (i.e. while mixing). I only ran into H/W buffer issues with MIDI/VIs. And as everyone can read up in this thread I tracked the (a) problem down to Digi's own VI Vacuum.

Now I don't know what the problem is. Is it: Everyone's having trouble with Vacuum – alright, then I just don't use it anymore. Otherwise I want a solution, because I like Vacuum as a nice synth with attitude and since Digi packed it into PT it's supposed to work, or . Well, PT support for Snow Leopard is rather new and I can live with some annoyances due to the unofficial user beta testing phase. Just for now I'm going to stay with PT for mixing as well as composing because it keeps things compact, clear and I don't have to take care for more than one DAW. But if I keep having problems with MIDI under PT I will just do what you more or less suggested and go back to Logic – which left me behind on my Windoze PC almost ten years ago when emagic was sold to Apple.

Of course there's a lot more potential in native (and open!) AU technology than proprietary RTAS. In the future I'll stay clear of buying myself deeper into RTAS-only plugins. Just that if someday I'm just fed up with PT I can move on to some other DAW. There's competition crawling up the hill and PT seems to get only heavier and harder to keep robust. Still, I don't see why using one RTAS VI on a very modern Mac should become a CPU issue. If it's not the plugin itself or something with my system then it's just a PT design flaw. With a session consisting of only one Vacuum instance the system usage meter is hovering around 1-2% and then suddenly a hiccup...?!

I do know that on my system the only plugins that seem to "slam" my CPU rather quickly, especially at low buffers, is Native Instruments.

The major problem with the NI product design seems to be that (last time I checked) all their VIs are build upon the Reaktor engine. That surely has advantages in software development (more comfortable way from prototyping to final release and even vice versa I guess) but disadvantages in performance since it's less streamlined and flexible.

[bfx]

Update:

Made a clean install of PT 8.0.3 with the full web installer today, double checked that all PT files were really gone, walked through the whole general troubleshooting thread once more and I am still running into the same issue.

I have one instrument track with Vacuum playing, just PT 8 plugins installed and after a couple of minutes I start getting mostly -9128 errors and sometimes even -6101 while playing back, which really does not make any sense to me, as the CPU (RTAS) usage meter is hovering between 2% and 5%. This time I used 14 processors at 85%, 64 samples through to 2048, everything else is default.

Digi/AVID, this is getting frustrating now and I would deeply appreciate some support feedback. I won't spend any more time with testing every combination of settings in the pref pane just to get the same results. Help! Please!

[BlueThursday]

Originally Posted by bfx

I have one instrument track with Vacuum playing

If I am correct the culprit for my H/W buffer errors is ...drrrrrumrrrrroll... Vacuum.

You just answered your own question, get rid of vacuum. Forget waiting for someone else if you already have the answer. Maybe they'll fix it later but it appears to be broke now.

I don't think I've ever received a buffer error and had high CPU usage shown so I'd avoid making that a required correlation.

[bfx]

You just answered your own question, get rid of vacuum. Forget waiting for someone else if you already have the answer.

If "the big silence" continues that's exactly what I'll do.

What I am actually waiting for is some kind of confirmation ... or communication ... or information. Something like "We'll fix it later but it appears to be broke now." Somehow that's what I expect from someone who I paid for something that is supposed to be in mint condition when sold. If that's too much to ask I'll be the next one chiming in with all that "Hey Digi you got a serious communication issue."

[DigiTechSupt]

Originally Posted by bfx

If "the big silence" continues that's exactly what I'll do.

What I am actually waiting for is some kind of confirmation ... or communication ... or information. Something like "We'll fix it later but it appears to be broke now." Somehow that's what I expect from someone who I paid for something that is supposed to be in mint condition when sold. If that's too much to ask I'll be the next one chiming in with all that "Hey Digi you got a serious communication issue."

Hey bfx - if you read the stickies we post (especially the ones below my signature) you would have seen this:

First, keep in mind that this is the USER Conference - meaning it's mostly other Pro Tools users that will be answering your questions. While Digidesign Tech Support maintains a presence here, with the hundreds of posts per day here on the DUC, we are unable to chime in on every one. We maintain limited hours of operation here, so many posts are bound to happen when we are not available. If you absolutely need a reply from Digidesign Tech Support directly, please use the Tech Support Request Form

I'm not here on the DUC every day, nor can I chime in on every post OR absolutely, positively follow-up on every one I post in in what someone expecting assistance would consider a 'prompt' manner.

I'm sorry if I'm being a bit rash about this, but I'm rather tiresome to read complaints about how someone can't get any help when they haven't read the stickies, posted the proper information, etc.

Help is there, if you choose the proper method.

One of these days I'm going to get my demand for a forum board that prevents people from posting until they've read the stickies and done a search.

So, with my opportunity to rant over, let's look at the situation here.

I was going to say regarding a previous post of yours that 10 D-Verbs on a track is unrealistic and likely the cause of the problem.

A little info on that - each tracks plug-ins get processed on the same processor. So, if you have 1 track and 10 D-Verbs, you can have one processor that's maxed out while the others are idle. Your system usage will read 25% or so, but you'll still get 'out of CPU' errors. This phenomena is pretty much the same with all DAWs.

Now that you've said you get these errors with 1 instance of Vacuum, I'm going to look into it. I have not experienced the problem myself in quick tests of Vacuum, so I'm having a few other testers give it a go and see what happens. I don't have any other reports of this so either people aren't using Vacuum or they're not having the problem (or not reporting it).

If anyone else comes across this thread and can repro the problem with Vacuum, please post your complete system specs!

Lastly - bfx, if you could generate and post a list of installed plug-ins, I'd appreciate it. You've read the info on plug-ins in the General Troubleshooting thread, yes?

[bfx]

Thanks for the reply

First off, I actually read the stickies – some time ago – and forgot about that one mentioning your limited time and presence in these forums. Sorry. I can understand your frustration with this. Seeing replies by you (if you are always the same person) and the poster called "Digidesign" to the top posts in the forum almost every day led me to believe that you guys (and gals?) probably read and answer posts on a regular basis. Following that I expected to get some kind of an answer from you. Even if it would have been "use the support forms". Now I realise that I have to downsize these expectations.

The reason I have not tried support yet is that last time I used the new AVID support in a different matter I received an undeliverable mail as response and got no reply at all. Seemed barely functional at that time. If you had not answered now I would have tried AVID support again, don't you worry.

I was going to say regarding a previous post of yours that 10 D-Verbs on a track is unrealistic and likely the cause of the problem.

A little info on that - each tracks plug-ins get processed on the same processor. So, if you have 1 track and 10 D-Verbs, you can have one processor that's maxed out while the others are idle. Your system usage will read 25% or so, but you'll still get 'out of CPU' errors. This phenomena is pretty much the same with all DAWs.

Thanks for that information. That is very helpful for any future troubleshooting of mine. Now that I thought about it, it even seems logical! However to draw out any errors connected to more than one plugin I narrowed it down as you know by now.

I have not experienced the problem myself in quick tests of Vacuum, so I'm having a few other testers give it a go and see what happens. I don't have any other reports of this so either people aren't using Vacuum or they're not having the problem (or not reporting it)

Few things I want to add here.
1) I came across the whole issue while using Vacuum (among other VIs) with lots of automation (in one session) and two to three instances at once (in another session).
2) When doing the only-one-instance-of-Vacuum-test I was able to trigger the errors more often with a heavier amount of MIDI notes.
3) I have run this test a couple of times now and at some rare opportunities it would play fine for even 20 minutes. Then I stopped, changed the buffer size – regardless of up or down, as far as I can tell – and then was able to trigger the errors more often with frequency rising. The problem persisted when switching back to the first buffer setting that had worked before. I am not sure if those periods free of errors occured only after PT re-installations.

Hope that helps a bit.

You've read the info on plug-ins in the General Troubleshooting thread, yes?

As long as you are referring to checking for incompatible plugins: Yes. As I wrote before I had done this test only with PT 8 plugins installed. Maybe I am wrong here again, but I expect them to be compatible without special notice. EDIT: Also checked the RTAS processors N-1 thing, of course.

Here's my plugin version list. I installed some 3rd party plugins to work with since my last post but also made a copy of the plugin folder from the latest PT 8 reinstall that I had used for testing. What I did now was reversing the folder accordingly by renaming and then printing out the list. If that is not the correct thing to do please let me know about it. (Clearing PT cache or else...)


Do 7 Jan 2010 11:50:56 CET


Pro Tools Version
__________________________________________
Pro Tools LE.app
8.0.3, Copyright 1991-2009 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.




Plug-In Versions
__________________________________________
AIRChorus.dpm
1.0.2.10105 Copyright 2009 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

AIRDistortion.dpm
1.0.2.10105 Copyright 2009 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

AIRDynamicDelay.dpm
1.0.2.10105 Copyright 2009 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

AIREnhancer.dpm
1.0.2.10105 Copyright 2009 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

AIREnsemble.dpm
1.0.2.10105 Copyright 2009 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

AIRFilterGate.dpm
1.0.2.10105 Copyright 2009 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

AIRFlanger.dpm
1.0.2.10105 Copyright 2009 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

AIRFrequencyShifter.dpm
1.0.2.10105 Copyright 2009 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

AIRFuzz-Wah.dpm
1.0.2.10105 Copyright 2009 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

AIRKillEQ.dpm
1.0.2.10105 Copyright 2009 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

AIRLo-Fi.dpm
1.0.2.10105 Copyright 2009 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

AIRMulti-Chorus.dpm
1.0.2.10105 Copyright 2009 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

AIRMulti-Delay.dpm
1.0.2.10105 Copyright 2009 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

AIRNon-linearReverb.dpm
1.0.2.10105 Copyright 2009 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

AIRPhaser.dpm
1.0.2.10105 Copyright 2009 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

AIRReverb.dpm
1.0.2.10105 Copyright 2009 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

AIRSpringReverb.dpm
1.0.2.10105 Copyright 2009 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

AIRStereoWidth.dpm
1.0.2.10105 Copyright 2009 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

AIRTalkbox.dpm
1.0.2.10105 Copyright 2009 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

AIRVintageFilter.dpm
1.0.2.10105 Copyright 2009 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

BF Essential Clip Remover.dpm
8.0.0, Copyright 1991-2008 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

BF Essential Corr.dpm
8.0.0, Copyright 1991-2008 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

BF Essential Meter.dpm
8.0.0, Copyright 1991-2008 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

BF Essential Noise.dpm
8.0.0, Copyright 1991-2008 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

Boom.dpm
1.0.2.10105 Copyright 2009 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

Chorus.dpm
8.0.0, Copyright 1991-2008 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

Click.dpm
8.0.0, Copyright 1991-2008 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

D-Verb.dpm
8.0.0, Copyright 1991-2008 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

DB-33.dpm
1.0.2.10105 Copyright 2009 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

DigiReWire.dpm
8.0.3, Copyright 1991-2009 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

Dither.dpm
8.0.0, Copyright 1991-2008 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

Dynamics III.dpm
8.0.0, Copyright 1991-2008 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

EQ III.dpm
8.0.0, Copyright 1991-2008 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

Elastic Audio.dpm
8.0.3, Copyright 1991-2009 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

Eleven Delay UI.dpm
8.0.3, Copyright 1991-2006 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

Eleven Distortion UI.dpm
8.0.3, Copyright 1991-2006 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

Eleven Dynamics UI.dpm
8.0.3, Copyright 1991-2006 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

Eleven EQ UI.dpm
8.0.3, Copyright 1991-2006 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

Eleven FX Loop UI.dpm
8.0.3, Copyright 1991-2006 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

Eleven Free.dpm
8.0.0, Copyright 1991-2008 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

Eleven Modulation UI.dpm
8.0.3, Copyright 1991-2006 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

Eleven Reverb UI.dpm
8.0.3, Copyright 1991-2006 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

Eleven Tuner UI.dpm
8.0.3, Copyright 1991-2006 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

Eleven UI.dpm
8.0.3, Copyright 1991-2006 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

Eleven Volume UI.dpm
8.0.3, Copyright 1991-2006 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

Eleven Wah UI.dpm
8.0.3, Copyright 1991-2006 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

Flanger.dpm
8.0.0, Copyright 1991-2008 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

Invert-Duplicate.dpm
8.0.0, Copyright 1991-2008 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

LoFi.dpm
8.0.0, Copyright 1991-2008 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

Maxim.dpm
8.0.0, Copyright 1991-2008 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

MiniGrand.dpm
1.0.2.10105 Copyright 2009 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

Mod Delay II.dpm
8.0.0, Copyright 1991-2008 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

Multi-Tap Delay.dpm
8.0.0, Copyright 1991-2008 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

Normalize-Gain.dpm
8.0.0, Copyright 1991-2008 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

Ping-Pong Delay.dpm
8.0.0, Copyright 1991-2008 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

RectiFi.dpm
8.0.0, Copyright 1991-2008 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

Reverse-DC Removal.dpm
8.0.0, Copyright 1991-2008 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

SansAmp PSA-1.dpm
8.0.0, Copyright 1991-2008 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

SciFi.dpm
8.0.0, Copyright 1991-2008 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

Signal Generator.dpm
8.0.0, Copyright 1991-2008 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

SignalTools.dpm
8.0.0, Copyright 1991-2008 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

Structure.dpm
1.1.0.9837 Copyright 2005-2007 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

TL AutoPan.dpm
8.0.0, Copyright 1991-2008 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

TL InTune.dpm
8.0.0, Copyright 1991-2008 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

TL MasterMeter.dpm
8.0.3, Copyright 1991-2009 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

TL Metro.dpm
8.0.0, Copyright 1991-2008 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

Time Comp-Exp-Pitch Shift.dpm
8.0.0, Copyright 1991-2008 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

Time Shift.dpm
8.0.1, Copyright © 2005 by Digidesign, a division of Avid. All rights reserved.

TimeAdjuster.dpm
8.0.0, Copyright 1991-2008 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

Trim.dpm
8.0.0, Copyright 1991-2008 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

Vacuum.dpm
1.0.2.10105 Copyright 2009 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

VariFi.dpm
8.0.0, Copyright 1991-2008 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

XPand!.dpm
2.0.2.10105 Copyright 2009 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

bombfactory BF76.dpm
8.0.0, Copyright 1991-2008 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.





Plug-Ins Unused Versions
__________________________________________
Automap Plug-Ins

BF Essential Tuner.dpm
8.0.0, Copyright 1991-2008 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

Dynamics II.dpm
8.0.0, Copyright 1991-2008 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

EQ II.dpm
8.0.0, Copyright 1991-2008 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.

Funk Logic Masterer.dpm
8.0.0, Copyright 1991-2008 Digidesign, A Division of Avid Technology, Inc.







Toolkits and Digitranslator Versions
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Music Production Toolkit is not installed


DV Toolkit 2 is not installed


Digitranslator 2 is not installed


Digitranslator 1 is not installed

[MarkH]

bfx,

Can you plug your mbox into the front of your mac pro's usb ports and leave the other usb ports on the front unoccupied? Unfortunately I don't have the time to re-read all of this thread, but maybe isolating the mbox to a single usb connection on the front would resolve your problem. Even though the mac pro has multiple usb ports on the front, i think it is more like a hub on the front rather than each port running directly to the motherboard. You could try the same on the rear, but most people have multiple devices connected on the rear.

When I first purchased my mbox micro I had a USB hub connected to the side of my mac book pro. Although the devices connected were low bandwidth devices and shouldn't have caused any problems, I would get errors during playback. I moved the mbox micro to a dedicated port on my MBP and the errors went away.

Now, I will say that I could use the mbox micro on the same USB hub with Logic or Ableton (core audio) and never run into the same problem. So, that leads me to believe something is very architecturally different about the audio engine in pro tools versus other applications using core audio.

Also, did you reprair permissions in Disk utility?

[bfx]

Mark, thanks for the suggestion. I'll give it a try later on and see if that changes anything. Unfortunately I am not feeling lucky since I checked my Mac's system profiler and clearly see the Mbox 2 on its own USB-Bus. I can see 8 entries named "USB-Bus" and also two entries clearly marked as "Hub" (one externally for the iLok/mouse/keyboard and the other one an internal one build by Apple). The Mbox 2 is not associated with a high speed bus though (the Mbox 2 is supposed to work with USB 1.1 AFAIK) so maybe changing the USB port still has some effect. I'll let you know!

Now, I will say that I could use the mbox micro on the same USB hub with Logic or Ableton (core audio) and never run into the same problem. So, that leads me to believe something is very architecturally different about the audio engine in pro tools versus other applications using core audio.

Someone already suggested the Mbox 2 system design as being flawed. I am not following the threads about related issues with 002/003 devices, so I cannot say if there's a connection to any device itself or not. One would think the proprietary hardware dongle design would make PT reliable and fast – and in regards to mixing jobs I never have been disappointed yet – but with VIs and MIDI I am not so sure anymore...

Also, did you reprair permissions in Disk utility?

I went through the General Troubleshooting thread a couple of times. So yes I did that several times.

[MarkH]

bfx,

Can you just recap when things go bad? You launch a new session, create a virtual instrument track, instantiate Vacuum, record some midi, then when you play back you get errors?

Do you have midi notes on bar 1? Are you getting the errors when you playback and Vacuum is trying to play at bar 1? Or do you have empty measures and no matter where Vacuum attempts to play, PTLE craps out?

The reason I am asking is that by default Pro Tools starts playback at measure 1. One thing I did is have playback start at measure -1 so there is always 1 measure of silence before any VI's start playing.