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Audio System Overload blues

I've been using Logic since Logic Pro 7. I used this on a Powermac G4 with a 5400RPM hard disk drive. It worked GREAT. I could record many many tracks and hardly ever have any dropouts or weird performance issues.


So why is it that today on a 2.7GHz i7 Mac mini with 4GB of RAM and a Fusion drive I can't even record three tracks without it barfing with "audio system overload" errors? It's like every time I try using Logic it gets worse and worse.


This is just BASIC RECORDING STUFF. No plugins, no loops playing, just me trying to record a simple multitrack project onto what should be really fast hardware.


It's like Logic has turned into a damp piece of tissue paper and it falls apart under the slightest load. Like, it doesn't even try to buffer stuff for writing out.


I've tried dozens of combinations of things, I've tried shutting down all my background apps, I've tried rebooting, I've done everything short of a full system reinstall on every new project and still... I can't get this STUPID PIECE OF SOFTWARE to do BASIC. STUPID. THINGS.


I'm getting really frustrated now, and I hope someone else has a quick fix other than switching software or buying a new computer. If there's even a basic means of diagnosing what the problem IS so I can try to fix it in some way, even! I mean this is getting really frustrating and it seems like Logic's inability to work is directly proportional to how quickly I'm trying to work on a piece for a client.

Mac mini, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.4), 2.7GHz i7, 8GB RAM, 1TB Fusion

Posted on Jul 6, 2013 12:40 PM

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6 replies

Jul 6, 2013 11:31 PM in response to fluffy

Sorry to hear about your mischief when using Logic, but I don't really think Logic is to blame really. It's rather a combination of circumstances negatively interacting in your setup , difficult to troubleshoot from a distance. My first guess would be a bit more RAM and don't use the system drive for audio production purposes.

I've not much experiences with ML other than testing it intensively with Logic at the moment and my first impressions are positive.


Good luck!

Jul 6, 2013 11:53 PM in response to kcstudio

I have 8GB of RAM, which is the most my system will take. My drive is an SSD on SATA. Being a Mac mini my only other drive expansion option that makes any sense is by getting a Thunderbolt enclosure, and an SSD over Thunderbolt can't be any faster than an SSD over SATA.There's nowhere faster to go, here.


No other piece of software has trouble like this on my system. Reaper runs just fine (but I don't like it as much as Logic).


I've been trying to put up with Logic 9 and Mountain Lion for a while but frankly these problems started back on Lion as well, and the only reason I even upgraded to Logic 9 was because I was strongarmed into it by all the GarageBand content getting "helpfully" upgraded from aiff to caf a while back.


Raelly I'm just hoping that someone has a quick fix I haven't tried but I'm not hopeful. I just keep throwing more money at this problem and it only gets worse. I'm sick of it.

Jul 7, 2013 2:25 AM in response to fluffy

So by keeping the CPU and I/O monitoring window open I can see exactly what's happening - my CPU will be used at 1-2% most of the way through, I/O will be at around 5% all the way through, and then suddenly the CPU usage will appear to spike to 100% completely out of the blue on the very same UI frame that the "audio system overload" message pops up. Even though there is NOTHING to make the load change (it can just be playing a short cycle of nothing but software instruments the whole time, for example).


Which makes me think that the problem isn't the audio system overloading, but the way that Logic DETECTS the audio system overloading going crazy. Like, for some reason the way it determines CPU usage is broken and occasionally spikes to 100%.


For now I've just disabled the audio system overload message entirely (after finding that in Preferences > Audio > General) so we'll see if that helps any.

Jul 7, 2013 3:50 AM in response to fluffy

It seems an old problem still not solved, see for instance:

>>https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4423320?answerId=20412186022#20412186022<<

And also system specific if I remember correctly. I can assure you that I perform life 24 track record sessions on a regular basis without any of the problems you mentioned. Thats what makes it so difficult to discuss.


Regards.

Audio System Overload blues

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