DSP Cards for Logic 8

Question

Level 1

8 points

DSP Cards for Logic 8

I'm new to Logic 8 and getting my feet wet. (recording and mixing)

Mac Pro - Leopard
Digi 002 (Black Lion Mod)
Various plugins and external pres, etc

I am a paid/ registered user of the Logic software and trying to minimize its impact on my Mac's processor power. How best to achieve this?

Can I:

- Purchase a DSP card that can go in my Mac Pro and run my Logic/ Waves plugins with that?
- If so, which DSP card(s)? HD Core or Acel card? Are there others?

Any advice on what to do next to achieve the best performance possible is much appreciated.

~ J

MacBook Pro 2.16/ 2GB RAM, Mac OS X (10.4.7), Yee haw Logic 8!

Posted on Feb 9, 2009 10:09 AM

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Answer 1

chucknkd

Level 1

35 points

Feb 9, 2009 10:24 AM in response to Joel DuBay

not much you can do for logics plugs, maybe have an older computer set up as a node but thats about it. more RAM too.

waves has a hardware dsp unit thats an external box.

the HDcore and accel are for pro toolsHD systems only, although logic can use the interface for audio I/O.

the UAD2, duende and powercore might be your only options for 'off'board dsp help.

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Answer 2

Feb 9, 2009 11:01 AM in response to Joel DuBay

You can check on Universal Audio the UAd2. I am not using so much Logic plugins anymore once you use this kind of plugins you see a big difference of quality... So your idea of DSP card is the best choice you have to gain extra cpu for logic itself. but really your mac is very powerfull>
Just to give you a rough idea of the power you will gain. Using 60 plugins on one project (35 from UAD2 card - 90% of the ressources in the DSP card + 25 from Waves - alot of them from GTR3.5 for guitars), with SUperior 2 multichannel output / each go on Aux channels with UA plugins on. 30 audio tracks (most of them stereo), 4 buss channels, 24 Aux channels, 4 Submix channels, all automate with volume, panning, and some tracks with effects control... the mac works at 20 % of his ressources and everything was running smoothly...no cpu spkikes, no audio dropout, even the low latency mode can be use to add audio recording on the top... i am amazed... So running the double of that will be certainly not a problem for your computer....

Denis.

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Answer 3

Joel DuBay Author

Level 1

8 points

Feb 9, 2009 11:10 AM in response to home studio

Hmmm... sounds like a Mac Quad is the answer. I could use my Mac Book pro as a Node too then?

The plugins I use from Apple are Space Designer and Delay designer (only). I don't use any of the other other Logic ones. I have Waves Platinum and Sound Toyz too.

You can only use the UAD cards for UAD plugins, right? No one makes a Generic card that you can run other plugins on, right? (now there's a market!)

Peace

~ J

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Answer 4

Bee Jay

Level 6

10,900 points

Feb 9, 2009 11:32 AM in response to Joel DuBay

No, because plugins have to be specifically coded for it. Every plugin maker would have to make a variant of each plugin, specifically to run on the DSP, which isn't very practical.

An 8-core Mac Pro has plenty of plugin grunt though - do you really need DSP?

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Answer 5

David_Pye

Level 4

2,325 points

Feb 9, 2009 1:20 PM in response to chucknkd

chucknkd00 wrote:
the HDcore and accel are for pro toolsHD systems only, although logic can use the interface for >audio I/O.

No strictly true, Logic can use these cards but only to run TDM plugins in DAE mode. Which is a messy nightmare. Get a new mac.

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Answer 6

Joel DuBay Author

Level 1

8 points

Feb 9, 2009 1:43 PM in response to Bee Jay

That's the thing, I don't know if I need DSP or a 5-8k new Mac. Logic 8 does not work well with an MBP (Core Duo 2.16 / 2GB RAM) if you want to use Space Designer and Delay Designer on a 3-5 audio tracks, plus have a couple of instrument tracks running as well. The HD spins up and run so hot, plus it barely makes it with that (limited by design) amount of RAM. It's a real challenge.

So, I'm looking for answers. Thank you guys.

Anyone using another Mac (mini or MacBook) as a node for recording with a Mac Pro Quad?

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Answer 7

David_Pye

Level 4

2,325 points

Feb 9, 2009 1:57 PM in response to Joel DuBay

Well I really think you should be getting better performance than that are you using an external HD? What audio interface are you running?

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Answer 8

Joel DuBay Author

Level 1

8 points

Feb 9, 2009 3:19 PM in response to David_Pye

Currently using a modded Digi 002 from Black Lion. I will occasionally connect to an external HD with a FW800 connection.

But that's it.

Are there any "performance tweaks" I can do on my MBP?

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Answer 9

Joel DuBay Author

Level 1

8 points

Feb 9, 2009 8:20 PM in response to Joel DuBay

So...........yeah. Is there anything I can do to make my current machine perform better, or is this pretty much it for me?

~ J

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Answer 10

DJWillis

Level 1

34 points

Feb 12, 2009 6:22 PM in response to Joel DuBay

More RAM will help. And fast hard drives.

Just load a bunch of tracks and plugins til you reach your limit, then decide if it's not enough.

A new Mac 8 core at 2.8 ghz will cost less than $3k. Plus some RAM and drives = <$3500. That's what I got and I never get anywhere near slowing down my machine.

I also got a UAD-2 card because their plugins sound awesome, not because I need the processing power.

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Answer 11

Feb 13, 2009 3:34 AM in response to Joel DuBay

Also bear in mind that Snow Leopard will have Open CL, allowing your mac to dump processes to your gfx card.

I'm guessing thats one reason we're not seeing any logic updates, they're hard working on getting it running smooth with open cl. The thing is, if they do that our gfx cards will be amazingly powerful DSP card replacements. It's a bright future we have ahead of us (as long as apple sorts the mess that logic is turning into)...!

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