LPX, Dante Virtual Soundcard, High Sierra

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Level 1

12 points

LPX, Dante Virtual Soundcard, High Sierra

I work for a church where the previous AV tech was using Studio One 3, on an older iMac (Sierra) with 8gb RAM, that was received with a Presonus board they used to have. Since then they have upgraded to a Roland M5k, with a Dante card, and are still using the same Mac to record with.

Now I've come along with my MacBook Pro running High Sierra, 3.1ghz i7, with 16gb RAM, and decide to setup LPX to record with... of course testing it first. Recording about 17 tracks simultaneous non-stop for about an hour or so. Using 44.1k, 24bit, external SSD - yet I get the "disk too slow" error about 3 or so times during the recording. Here's the thing, Dante Virtual Soundcard doesn't state that it "IS" compatible with High Sierra, but it also doesn't state that it isn't. I figure since the audio tracks are coming through, that wouldn't be causing LPX to give a too slow error.

Apple has always released good software in my experience. I've never used Logic Pro X before, but this situation makes it look like crap - to be beaten out by Studio One on a 8gb iMac with 5400 RPM external????

I wonder if it's something else. Have any of you run LPX with Dante Virtual Soundcard without any errors?

MBP 15"

Posted on Jun 3, 2018 12:59 PM

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Answer 1

Pancenter

Level 6

14,788 points

Jun 4, 2018 9:22 AM in response to Boom Jynx

Another thing I do... Mac pundits wring their hands when I say this... I disable journaling on all drives and I disable spotlight on on any external drives, or at least disable as much as I can.

Is it a retina machine?

Run Logic in Lo-Res.

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Answer 2

Boom Jynx Author

Level 1

12 points

Jun 4, 2018 2:34 PM in response to Pancenter

Yes, it's a retina machine. I ran it in Lo-Res with last night's test.

I decided today to test out a LaCie (my other 2 drives were G-Tech), with High Sierra, non-SSD, USB-C, and things worked pretty good. I didn't have anyone playing, so I was only recording dead air. Like the other drives, it starts out barely hitting 5%, then about 6 minutes in, begins to pulse at 60% where it eventually reaches 100% at 12 min. However, after being there for a couple of min, it goes back to 60% and then eventually hits about 40% about a half hour in, and stayed there until I stopped the recording after 1 hour.

I'll post back what I find that eventually works (assuming I find something), in case anyone else is in the same situation.

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Answer 3

Pancenter

Level 6

14,788 points

Jun 4, 2018 6:30 PM in response to Boom Jynx

Sounds like it's recording to RAM then dumping it all to disk while still trying to record. That would explain the 6-10min delay as you have 16GB RAM.

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Answer 4

Boom Jynx Author

Level 1

12 points

Jun 4, 2018 7:21 AM in response to Pancenter

Hi Pancenter,

I'm running a new MacBook Pro USB-C. I'm saving projects to an SSD, with more than 50% free space, and have tried the various I/O Buffer settings with no luck. I'm not monitoring through Logic, only recording, therefore the output is simply set to built-in.

The only thing within your suggestion that I hadn't tried before was running it with Sierra, not High Sierra. Luckily I had an external hard drive with Sierra on it, and a concert last night to test with. I booted up from the external (it is an SSD), and connected another external, 7200 RPM for storage, and made all of the settings you suggested. It was very similiar to my previous attempts - it starts off fine for the first 10 min. or so. The activity monitors shows very little on the CPU, and maybe only 10% or so for HD I/O - but then I started get sporadic spikes on the HD I/O and after several minutes, maybe 20 or so, it will stop with the error "disk too slow (write)" message. I would have to agree since the CPU doesn't seem to be even close to breaking a sweat - but the disk I/O is ridiculous. I wouldn't think it has anything to do with it being a USB-C port - I'm not using any adapters.... but this is really strange.

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Answer 5

Pancenter

Level 6

14,788 points

Jun 3, 2018 1:27 PM in response to Boom Jynx

Logic has several settings that may need to be adjusted.

In Logic's Preferences/Audio set the I/O Buffer to 1024, you're not monitoring real time through Logic are you?

Also, in the same preference area, set Multithreading to "Playback Tracks"

There's other factors, namely an SSD and the fact that Sierra is a more efficient system for running Logic.

Is your Mac Pro a Retina machine?

If so, with Logic not running open applications and do a "Get Info" on Logic. Enable the selection that allows Logic to run in Lo-Res.

There's no guarantee that says software produced by Apple is going to be efficient and trouble free.. Apple's a hardware company and it's in their best interest to sell new machines. That said, Logic runs pretty well on a 6yr old iMac 16GB, Sierra.

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Answer 6

Pancenter

Level 6

14,788 points

Jun 4, 2018 8:37 AM in response to Boom Jynx

When you say a 7200 rpm drive for storage.. do you mean you're recording to it or are you still recording to the SSD?

I was hesitant to mention the SSD as the problem but if you are still using it to record to you may dealing with problem related to sustained writing. While SSD's can run I/O as fast as 200mb/sec a sustained write can tax the internal SSD's microprocessor possibly overheating the circuitry. SSDs can burst a lot of data in a short amount of time but you're not the first to report sustained write problems.

Give the 7200rpm Drive a try.

I've done a lot of live recording using an old PC XP laptop with a 750mb 5200rpm internal drive partitioned for OS/Audio, 12 - 16 tracks, two hours at a time and never had problems at 44.1kHz 24-bit.

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Answer 7

Boom Jynx Author

Level 1

12 points

Jun 4, 2018 8:55 AM in response to Pancenter

I was writing to the "7200". I decided to try and verify if it is actually 7200 or 5400 - and I can't tell. It is USB-C, and I'm using a direct cable (no adapter). I was using the SSD as my startup drive, since it had a clean Sierra install with nothing else added.

I like your idea of this being an issue related to sustained writing, since it appears to be spiking to the max. erratically, after several minutes of being just fine. And the CPU was barely showing any activity.

I remember trying the 7200 with High Sierra, and getting a few spikes, but it never just stopped with an error. I may try that again with the other preference tweaks...

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LPX, Dante Virtual Soundcard, High Sierra

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