Core Audio Overload with VSL samples

Question

Core Audio Overload with VSL samples

Hi,

I'm having huge problems using VSL Special Edition samples in Logic Pro 7 which I've been having since I've bought the library in May last year.

I've been having hard disk problems with my external firewire hard drive, so assumed that was the problem, and have now moved the samples onto a new, second internal harddrive (formatted to HFS+ journaling off). Since then, the glitching has reduced, but the "Core Audio Overload" error message keeps on appearing.

I have a dual 2.0Ghz G5 with 4GB ram and a Presonus Firebox.

I currently have 30 instruments loaded with minimal effects, and while idle one of the cores hovers around 30%. I then try to play 3 instrument tracks at the same time and both cores instantly overload. Disk I/O is at zero.

Disk buffer is set to 1024. I've also tried "larger disk buffer" but this made no difference.

Would appreciate some help asap as I am getting desperate with this!

Many thanks

G5 dual 2Ghz, Mac OS X (10.4.9), 4Gb RAM, Presonus Firebox

Posted on Jan 26, 2009 6:28 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Jan 28, 2009 11:36 PM in response to monkeymagic99

mm99,

in case you were still looking for a solution to your problem, you could try the following:
- freezing some of the tracks
- when you play back the tracks, before hitting the play, click on an empty track (any track will work, as long as it does not have any instruments or plugins) - when a track loaded with vsl is selected while playing back, it will cause the overload.
- when using reverb, place it on a bus instead of directly on a track.

I hope these suggestions will help ease the problems you were having.

Best wishes,

H.

Reply

Answer 2

tschroe

Level 1

15 points

Jan 29, 2009 8:38 PM in response to monkeymagic99

Looks like you're doing just about everything right. Have you checked your general system health? For a benchmark, I use xbench and to do routine system maintenance I use Onyx. I was having the core overload but since then I got a second internal drive and did some system maintenance - my bench score went from 40 to 55% (not entirely sure what that percentage actually means, but it went up and I have not yet gotten the overload issue since **knock on wood** hehe)

Reply

Answer 3

linuxuser

Level 3

680 points

Jan 30, 2009 7:42 PM in response to monkeymagic99

Drag the starting time to start at bar 'zero'. This gives samples time to get ready, for lack of a better technical term. I do this on all Logic projects. The entire project should then play a little smoother.

I would turn the disk buffer back to medium and set buffer in Logic to 512. Also check for updated drivers for your Presonus.

When I had a dual 2.0 G5 I could only get about 30 VSL (Horizon series) tracks max, fwiw... 😟

Reply

Answer 4

Caramby

Level 4

1,523 points

Feb 5, 2009 3:38 AM in response to monkeymagic99

I agree with tschroe about general system health, especially since you have had hardware problems already. In particular, test your RAM… although not the most likely source of the problem, once things start getting mysterious it's a very good place to look. Dodgy RAM may appear to be fine most of the time, but when the dodgy part kicks in, all kinds of **** can break loose. Including damage to hard drives.

P.S.: apparently you can't mention hades in this Forum. Curious. Hence the asterisks above, which are not mine, & which make my language appear much worse than it is.

Message was edited by: Caramby

Reply

Answer 5

Feb 5, 2009 9:55 AM in response to Caramby

Hi all, many thanks for the responses, much appreciated. I'll have a go and see what I can figure out...fingers crossed!

Reply