Slow stopping and saving on Macbook Pro

[Brian Middleton]

I do remote recording of high school concerts a couple of times a year, using an early 2011 Macbook Pro with 4GB RAM and the school's Mackie Onyx 1640i as a FW interface. I've been doing these concerts for years, and the setup has worked fine until recently.

I am recording up to 12 tracks (varies depending on the program) simultaneously. Each student group performs for 10-15 minutes, and the concerts last about three hours. My practice has been to record each group continuously, and then stop the transport and save the project in between groups.

Stopping and saving has always taken a little longer as the program goes on, with beachballs appearing by the end of the night. But until recently, at worst I'd see the beachball for 5-10 seconds. This changed last fall after I upgraded to Mountain Lion and DP8. At the fall concert, by the end of the night, stopping took so long that it was still not completed by the time the next group went on (a good 5 minutes), and I had to force quit and restart DP.

I tried updating to Yosemite to see if that would improve things, but it appears to have made them worse. I'm currently using DP 8.07 and MacOS 10.10.2. Last night I did a concert where I was only recording 2 to 4 tracks, and stopping/saving were taking up to a minute by the end of the night. Tonight I'll be doing 12-track recording, and I see disaster ahead.

Does anyone have any tips by way of optimizations that could make DP less bogged down by this kind of use case? (FWIW, my hardware config settings are 512 MB buffer, multiplier 1, priority medium.) Worst case, I could set up a separate DP project file for each ensemble and close/open the files instead of just stopping and starting the recording between groups, but that will make the mixdown phase a bit of a PITA.

Sorry for the long post, and TIA for any advice!

[corbo-billy]

A first idea: a fair bit with 4GB of RAM, in my opinion _

[Shooshie]

• Use fast external Firewire 800 drive for project files. (very important) Also, it must be formatted for MacOS. (also very important) It can also be External Serial ATA if you have the hardware.
• Get more RAM. Lots more, like minimum 4X what you have now. (Very Important)
• Flush UNDO. (may be important, if it's getting hundreds of entries)
• Use no plugins or VIs during recording. (Depends on plugins, but can be a drag on saving)
• Disable any tracks that aren't being used for that current project, especially instrument tracks or V-Racks. V-Racks are disabled at the Chunks Window. (Just an idea; I have no idea how important this might be for saving.)

Shooshie

[corbo-billy]

• Use fast external Firewire 800 drive for project files. (very important) Also, it must be formatted for MacOS.

+ 1 for an external HD to Save the Projects _

[Brian Middleton]

• Use fast external Firewire 800 drive for project files. (very important) Also, it must be formatted for MacOS. (also very important) It can also be External Serial ATA if you have the hardware.
• Get more RAM. Lots more, like minimum 4X what you have now. (Very Important)
• Flush UNDO. (may be important, if it's getting hundreds of entries)
• Use no plugins or VIs during recording. (Depends on plugins, but can be a drag on saving)
• Disable any tracks that aren't being used for that current project, especially instrument tracks or V-Racks. V-Racks are disabled at the Chunks Window. (Just an idea; I have no idea how important this might be for saving.)

Shooshie

Hi Shooshie,

Thanks for the reply. I never use plugins during recording (literally, I've never done it), and I do the sessions with only the tracks I'm actually recording enabled.

Unfortunately quadrupling RAM is not an option because I just discovered my MBP is actually a mid 2010, which maxes out at 8GB. (I assumed it was an early 2011 because I bought it then, but it must have been right before the switch.) But I can certainly double it. And it's probably past time to upgrade my old FW 400 OWC portable drive, though it has been a rock of stability.

One possibly dumb question about flushing Undo: the Undo history is project-specific, right? So if I'm dealing with a new project that was created specifically for this session, that shouldn't be a factor?

[Shooshie]

One possibly dumb question about flushing Undo: the Undo history is project-specific, right? So if I'm dealing with a new project that was created specifically for this session, that shouldn't be a factor?

That's right, and I assumed as much, but I'm out of ideas!


Shoosh