Newb Q for you guys. I do the backbone of each project with native instruments Maschine, then drag the audio files to logic for mixing/mastering. The plugins are taking lots of CPU so my question is…
Is it possible to bounce in place all tracks and continue to add plugins to each track, or would I have to bounce the tracks into a separate project to finish adding the rest of the mixing/mastering plugins needed?
Which Daw? In Cubase for example you can ‘freeze’. You can then ‘unfreeze’ add more, then freeze again
I use Logic Pro X,
In logic there are 2 options for freezing one source only and the other pre fader, but neither allow me to save cpu and add plugins simultaneously.
Since the cpu consumption is all coming from plugins not software instruments**
Mmm I don’t use Logic Pro but someone else may know a way. It is sounding like you may need to bounce the channels completely and then treat them as new wav files.
Is it definitely just the plugins and not a combination? Is it 1 or 2 channels that are worse? I have a mix at the minute where I have less plugins on the bass channels than the other channels, but they (2 of them) need freezing all the time whereas all other channels are running without freezing. Just the 2 bass channels (out of 32 channels) take almost half the cpu. Look for things like that too…
Hope that helps and hope someone has a better workaround…
Wow ok thanks for the feedback! I’m only working with audio files, no midi, no virtual instruments. So the only thing that is draining my cpu should be plugins right? I’m gonna try to bounce in place and see how the workflow is today.
Has to be the plugins then. Check the obvious stuff like making sure no other programs/processes are running in the background and that the computer is optimised for audio. Some plugins are a lot heavier than others on cpu too.
Yeah I usually close all other apps when I’m running logic, especially safari, it’s a huge cpu hog.
@lukeofguitar, I used to use Logic Pro X still do from time to time. When I was working on tracks individually I disabled the ones I was not working on. This does help, it turns off the plugins in the disabled track(s), but it is a pain when you want to hear the tracks in perspective. I always close all other apps on my iMac. I also turn off WiFi and if you have DropBox shut that down too as it’s a mini memory hog!
The other thing I did was to have an empty instrument track at the bottom (Named: CPU SAVE) that sends only to Stereo output. When you go to play back, select the track, and then begin playback, it seems to level out the cores, might work for you, might not, give it a try. If you need more explanation, let me know and I’ll post pics.
Hope it helps,
Cheers,
Sean
Thanks for the suggestions Sean! I’m going to be getting one of the new fully spec’d imacs, I’m hoping that it’s so fast I won’t have to worry about any of this all though that probably going off on a limb.
BTW if anyone wants to know I’e been using bounce in place and it works!
Hmmm. I am running Logic X on a macb pro w 16gb ram and have large sessions with between 35 & 60 tracks and stacked with plugins. After channel stripping and mixing the tracks (in context) I then just freeze each track and move on tand the next track. If I need to make changes or adjustments I just unfreeze and re freeze. This works perfectly for me keeping Cpu and dsp usage on the minimal end. Once I’m well into the track if the cores start getting full I’ll just render all the drums and bass tracks and any other really VST stacked tracks down to audio. Between freezing and rendering this does the job. There are a lot of factors that play into how your computer and daw handle CPU and they all affect performance. I’m a Comp SCI major and have had a bit of experience figuring this stuff out, albeit mostly in the OSX world. I’ll try to find the time to post a thread about some techniques for optimizing a comp/daw environment for heavy tasked audio production sometimes soon.
@TheSheep Thanks Sean! I’ll experiment with those recommendations. I just got a new 4.2 GHZ, 32GB, Quad core iMac. It’s a BEAST! well compared to my macbook pro. I haven’t had the chance to do a mix down on it yet, but from the looks of how it handles other tasks, it should help a lot, along with my Apollo twin quad as well.
What is your buffer rate? A low buffer rate is not required when mixing so bump it up to 1024.
Disabling Wi-Fi used to help a lot when I had big projects.
If I used LPX I would freeze over BIP, as freezing tracks creates a 32-Bit float audio file whereas BIP 24-Bit integer.
I use 1024. I’ll try disabling wifi, but I have an ew computer now, it’s a lot faster compared to what I was using when I posted this. Thanks @Paul !