Audio Playback delay on all tracks in Logic Pro X

So you've already tried changing audio device, and it did not clear up that delay? Could you put up a screenshot of your Mixer?

How does the delay manifest? I mean, how can you know there's a delay if the whole project is delayed? Or do you mean the visuals trail behind the audio? Or is it live input MIDI?

If it is MIDI, clicking this button might help:

Yes, it's clearer now, thanks. To me it seems like a buffering issue, or perhaps RAM swapping. The delay is not in the Playback itself, but in the laggy "obeyance" of the commands.

There's not one clear cause for this, but as a rule it means that your Mac is starting to operate near its upper limits. These limits can be definitive (your hardware cannot do better), or they can be resolved (things can be optimized or organized differently). So I have some more specific questions (for which being behind the computer is probably necessary).

What type of Mac is it?

How much RAM does it have?

How much GB of space is free on your system disk?

Where are the audio files stored/streamed from?

In Logic, what is is your I/O buffer setting and your Process Buffer Range?

Are there any other apps open or are there any other (busy) background processes running? Also: do you have the Analyzer enabled on any open Channel EQ plugin?

It could well be that when you next start up your Mac and this project, it will run smoothly again. In some cases, a restart of Logic and/or the Mac is all it takes.

I have the exact same problem - it isn't about resources. I've just bought a new 2.6ghz macbook pro, clean install of everything: new Mavericks OS and Logic Pro X, tons of space and 4gb ram.

I'm playing two tracks and the audio is running a second behind the display. It was fine yesterday and I've not changed a thing - no other programs installed, no web surfing, nothing, I do all of that on another machine. This was supposed to be a mac purely for music and it's racking me off already.

I've also had audio engine error 'cannot process audio in time', again with only two audio tracks playing - and no plugins. And to think that i used to be able to record 40 minutes of eight track 16bit recording audio on a 1ghz PC without even a hiccup!

Same thing with either my usb audio interface or internal audio. Gah!

Maybe I should power it down, unplug it, count to ten and then plug it back in again?

Having this exact problem too. Never happened before, on WAY more demanding projects. Seem to have randomly started. Anyone find a solution to this?

Hil Erik

With regard to the tthings slipping out of time with the visuals, the only thing that works for me is to restart everything. Checking that plugin compensation is set to 'all' may have helped, it's difficult to say.

Logic's now legendary 'disk is too slow' and 'cannot perform the operation in time' messages are more difficut to diagnose. Buffer settings makes no difference. I've watched the resources data in Activity Monitor and from a hardware perspective it just doesn't make sense to me as to why it should fail. It just seems like the system suddenly thinks it is more taxed than it actually is.

I need ro record a drum kit soon and I cannot see that this machine will cope. I spent a lot of money on a Mac and Logic because I want something to work straight away. I can see no other third party factors to blame here, and if Apple don't sort this out I'll be going back to Windows machines and DAWs which are HALF the price.

Plugin delay compensation should be set to "All" only when the project is in the mixing stage, other than that leave it at Audio & Software Instruments. Having a delay inducing plugin on the Master Bus seems to be causing problems for some users as is the new graphic routines that Logic is using.

As for the machine acting more taxed than it is...the recent versions of OSX contain quite a bit of overhead, they buffer a lot of data to disk so the internal drive does a lot of work, using an external drive is recommended.

There's also these "new technologies" none of which are helpful for "real-time" performance.

http://www.apple.com/osx/advanced-technologies/

The Mac - PC thing is a bit of a myth especially over the last 10 years, if one educates themselves and either buys the right machine or builds one from the ground up, they make great DAW platforms as the OS is very tweakable. The Win-7 machine is the best DAW platform I've owned, with my Snow Leopard Mac Pro coming in a close second. Snow Leopard is still the most DAW compatible Mac OS, but you're limited to Logic 9.

tripdog,

I don't know if you should stick with the lesson learned/remembered because Logic should not be behaving this way. Is the audio off from the graphic representation of the wave form? Or does the playhead not move and Logic justs sitsthere for half a second?

Ahhh.. I didn't see the UA reference in your previous post, that explains it. The UAD Multiband is known for very high latencies

Pancenter wrote:

Having a delay inducing plugin on the Master Bus seems to be causing problems for some users as is the new graphic routines that Logic is using.

This seems to be it. I copied tracks over and then settings one by one until I found it was the Ozone 5 on the master bus that was causing the issue (even when it was turned off). That'll teach me to take mastering short cuts.

Erik K Veland wrote:

Pancenter wrote:

Having a delay inducing plugin on the Master Bus seems to be causing problems for some users as is the new graphic routines that Logic is using.

This seems to be it. I copied tracks over and then settings one by one until I found it was the Ozone 5 on the master bus that was causing the issue (even when it was turned off). That'll teach me to take mastering short cuts.

Haven't had this problem since my original complaint and Mavericks last update - I think it is one of those issues with more than one contributing factor. I definitely didn't have any time shifting plugs in running, but I will definitely watch my plug in use carefully with Logic from now.

Same here! Even when you disable it, it still seems like it is working on the background until you totally take the whole plugin from the channel strip. Is this a bug? It is really really annoying. I can't believe it is doing this without even maxing out my CPU cores :/

I also have this problem that when i zoom in on a track, the whole project jumps to the very end of the project or to the very start :/

A few years back I used a £35 DAW called N-Track and it had one feature that I absolutely loved and wish Logic had - DISABLE ALL PLUGINS button. Brilliant for A-Bing in mixing and ideal for troubleshooting problems like this too.