massive delay when I hit record using an external firewire drive

Question

massive delay when I hit record using an external firewire drive

Hi! I just bought a freecom external firewire 400 drive so I can carry on recording with Logic Pro (my 60 Gb drive on my macbook 1.83ghz is full). It's very fast for tranfering files etc, but when I come to record audio files onto it in Logic projects, I get a massive 2 minute delay when I hit record to when it actually starts recording, and that stupid spinning thing comes up.

I'm running with 2 gb of ram and when recording to the internal hard drive I get no delay.

Any ideas?!

Macbook 13" 1.83Ghz, Mac OS X (10.4.11), 2 Ghz Ram

Posted on Feb 24, 2008 8:43 AM

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Answer 1

cigame2

Level 3

548 points

Feb 24, 2008 9:01 AM in response to nicktheguitarmeistro

My idea is, you did not format the disk as Mac OS Extended.
And make it non journaled too.

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Answer 2

Feb 24, 2008 9:08 AM in response to cigame2

No you're right, it's as it came with MS-DOS (FAT32) format. Its a bit of a pain to transfer everything off then reformat it but if necessary i'll do it.

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Answer 3

Feb 24, 2008 10:07 AM in response to nicktheguitarmeistro

there's your problem.

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Answer 4

cigame2

Level 3

548 points

Feb 24, 2008 11:00 AM in response to nicktheguitarmeistro

I have another idea because you soon will open another thread the kind of:
"Help! Core audio system overload"
You want to know why?

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Answer 5

Feb 24, 2008 11:16 AM in response to cigame2

I'd love to know why. Share with us please! And why non-journaled format? For speed?

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Answer 6

cigame2

Level 3

548 points

Feb 24, 2008 1:37 PM in response to nicktheguitarmeistro

Search for threads like these:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=6403185&#6403185

I'm using eSATA drives for Sample libraries, loops and audio recording.
I also have a small 2,5" USB/Firewire drive for loops and libraries when I'm on the road or want to work on the MacMini. This gets you out of trouble when the operating system has to read or write stuff. But if you have a lot of RAM and are not using EXS much, it might work without. Try it.

I'm deactivating journaling on the external audio drive to prevent the appearance of the beach ball when recording more than 4 tracks smaller than 20 mb after hitting stop. If you only record one or two tracks at a time it doesn't matter.
More on this:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=6470899&#6470899
Or search for:
journaling audio drive

I've met a few people who bought a Macbook plus Logic Studio and expect they have a multitrack studio with all possibilities of a big studio in their hand.
Is Apple promising this in their adds?

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Answer 7

Feb 25, 2008 3:53 PM in response to cigame2

Cool. Thanks for your advice, it works like a dream now! For me it is like having a pro studio on my computer, Logic 8 is such a great interface for creativity in my eyes!

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