Very slowwww LOADING time for a project using Amplitube

[David Polich]

I have one project with 12 instances of
Amplitube3 inserted on guitar tracks. Up
until yesterday, this project took about
45 seconds to load. Now it takes almost
5 minutes. Naturally this happened while
a client was here in my studio.

I''ve changed each instance
of Amplitube to Eco mode, it doesnt help.
The only fix seems to be to take all
the Amplitube tracks offline before saving
and closing the project.

Just wondering if anyone else has experienced
projects that formerly loaded quickly suddenly
taking an age to load, and whether anyone has an
idea of how to address this. Thanks.

[cleamon]

I have one project with 12 instances of
Amplitube3 inserted on guitar tracks. Up
until yesterday, this project took about
45 seconds to load. Now it takes almost
5 minutes. Naturally this happened while
a client was here in my studio.

I''ve changed each instance
of Amplitube to Eco mode, it doesnt help.
The only fix seems to be to take all
the Amplitube tracks offline before saving
and closing the project.

Just wondering if anyone else has experienced
projects that formerly loaded quickly suddenly
taking an age to load, and whether anyone has an
idea of how to address this. Thanks.

Yes, I've been experiencing abnormally slow load times. In my case, with Ample Guitar VIs. If I load the project without instrument tracks, or with instrument tracks disabled (from TO window), then it loads in a normal amount of time.
For example (a project with 3 different guitars (gibson, fender, martin):
load project with no VIs takes 10-15 seconds
load 1 instance of the VI takes 5 seconds
load project with VIs disabled takes 10-15 seconds, I then enable the VIs (5 seconds each)
load project with VIs (3 instances) enabled takes over 2 minutes - should take about 30 seconds.

Doing this with another popular, but less loved , DAW, takes about 30 seconds every time.

Doing this with DP and another (very large VI like Sample Modeling Sax) takes just a little longer than 30 seconds, but nothing like 2 minutes.

There's something odd going on with DP and Ample Guitars (and apparently Amplitube as well).

I submitted a techlink to MOTU, and though they tried (by having me upgrade OSX, DP8 and Ample Guitars), there was no solution or workaround.

Some on this board have suggested SSD drive. While that would speed (all) things up, it does not address the ABNORMALLY slow load times.

I have plenty of memory (10GB free before loading and about 8GB left after loading), CPU is barely working during load, and disk I/O is at a crawl (relative to it's potential).

[David Polich]

Thanks, good to know it's not just me.

Yeah there is something weird going on with Amplitube3 and DP. And Scuffham and DP as well.
The issue of projects that include Scuffham plug-ins crashing on quit have been longstanding, and
neither Scuffham nor MOTU have indicated any solution to it. In fact I've just stopped using Scuffham entirely, which sucks because I really like Scuffham S-Gear, it's a great sounding amp
sim.

Amplitube4 is due out at the end of this month. Maybe that will address the slow loading issue
with projects that include Amplitube3.

[musicman691]

Thanks, good to know it's not just me.

Yeah there is something weird going on with Amplitube3 and DP. And Scuffham and DP as well.
The issue of projects that include Scuffham plug-ins crashing on quit have been longstanding, and
neither Scuffham nor MOTU have indicated any solution to it. In fact I've just stopped using Scuffham entirely, which sucks because I really like Scuffham S-Gear, it's a great sounding amp
sim.

Amplitube4 is due out at the end of this month. Maybe that will address the slow loading issue
with projects that include Amplitube3.

Weird that bad things are happening with external amp sims. Haven't tried NI Guitar Rig 5 yet; will have to see how that goes.

There's been nothing on a release date for AT4 on Mac/Windows yet; just for IOS devices. See this thread on the IK forums: http://cgi.ikmultimedia.com/ikforum/vie ... =5&t=10144

[David Polich]

Update - I sent a techlink to MOTU and Chad responded with the suggestion to re-install
DP8.07 and Amplitube3, which I did. This diminished the problem considerably. Projects
with Amplitube3 are still taking a little longer to load than I'd like, but it's not 3 to 5 minutes
like it was before.

I think that upgrading to Yosemite might have corrupted both DP and Amplitube3.

[musicman691]

Update - I sent a techlink to MOTU and Chad responded with the suggestion to re-install
DP8.07 and Amplitube3, which I did. This diminished the problem considerably. Projects
with Amplitube3 are still taking a little longer to load than I'd like, but it's not 3 to 5 minutes
like it was before.

I think that upgrading to Yosemite might have corrupted both DP and Amplitube3.

I had all kinds of issues with not only Amplitube 3 but other software when I had OSX 10.10.2 as a boot partition. Thankfully I still have ML and Mavericks to work in on my daw computer.

When you did the 'upgrade' to Yosemite did you do it to a completely clean system drive or partition or did you do it right over an existing install of OSX? I know it's Apple's way to do it over an existing install of OSX but have seen that to cause myriad troubles too many times to risk it or recommend it. Clean install of Yosemite and applications seems to be the way to go and don't use Migration Assistant to bring programs over.

[mikehalloran]

When something is taking too long suddenly, best to open Console and see what the problem is.

[David Polich]

A clean install of an OSX upgrade and checking Console - both good recommendations.

I installed "over an existing version of OSX" - not a clean install. Because - I don;'t know how to
do a "clean install". When you download OSX installers from the App Store, there is no option to
download the installer and then run it a later date. It just downloads and then starts installing.

[musicman691]

A clean install of an OSX upgrade and checking Console - both good recommendations.

I installed "over an existing version of OSX" - not a clean install. Because - I don;'t know how to
do a "clean install". When you download OSX installers from the App Store, there is no option to
download the installer and then run it a later date. It just downloads and then starts installing.

Actually that last statement is wrong, or at least it was for me. When I downloaded Yosemite from the App Store I had to manually start the install where I wanted to put it.

A clean install is just that - you install Yosemite or any version of OSX in a boot partition that has previously not had an install of OSX. To clean the partition you format it. I already had my system drive (a two terabyte size 7200rpm spinner) split into two partitions - one for OSX 10.8.5 and a second for OSX 10.9.5. I then split the 10.9.5 partition into two, keeping OSX 10.9.5 on one and installing 10.10.1 on the newly created boot partition. All splits done in OSX disk utility. Downloaded Mavericks and when I clicked the installer it asked me where I wanted to do the install and I told it.

Here's at least one way to do a clean install: http://osxdaily.com/2013/10/26/clean-in ... mavericks/

[David Polich]

Ok, thanks. Well a clean install looks like a real PITA that would involve days of re-installing,
re-authorizing, etc. Not sure if I care to waste that much time. But I'll keep it in mind.

[musicman691]

Ok, thanks. Well a clean install looks like a real PITA that would involve days of re-installing,
re-authorizing, etc. Not sure if I care to waste that much time. But I'll keep it in mind.

It's either one spends the time doing it right upfront or runs into issues and spends more time trying to debug things and ends up doing a clean install anyways. Like the old TV commercial line where the mechanic says: you can pay me now or pay me later. Meaning it's cheaper/easier to do it right from the beginning. Apple doesn't always know best on how to work within it's operating system.

Part of the problem with just installing over the top of an old OSX or using Migration Assistant (commonly known as Assassin) is you could be bringing over s/w that's not compatible with the new OSX or even bringing over unseen bugs in the s/w that ran okay in the old OSX.

[mikehalloran]

Ok, thanks. Well a clean install looks like a real PITA that would involve days of re-installing,
re-authorizing, etc. Not sure if I care to waste that much time. But I'll keep it in mind.

I agree that clean installs are a waste of time unless you are trying to find disk space. I did my first in over 20 years last October and found 300G! Performance improvement? None -- I didn't expect one.

DP has screens that show you what processes are working and failing. That's how I found that MOTU had made big changes between 7.0/7.1/7.2. 7.01 opened my old projects; 7.24 crashed and 7.12 showed me why. MOTU support told me I had corrupt files which turned out to be incorrect. Once I knew, I could fix the problem.

Console shows what is loading, failing and what old crap is still on your system that's trying to load and must be purged. It is how i know when to reinstall DP - again. When you see something you don't understand, Google it. That's how I learned.

My friends think I'm joking when I say that computers are my enemy. I hate them. Know thine enemy. Keeping mine running smoothly is how I show mine enemy who's boss. When something screws up, I want to know what happened so I can move on. Somewhere along the line, I got good at this -- it wasn't my intent.

I want to compose, arrange, make music, write articles, post online, write books, keep in touch with people... Things that computers help me do, especially now that I'm handicapped.

[musicman691]

Ok, thanks. Well a clean install looks like a real PITA that would involve days of re-installing,
re-authorizing, etc. Not sure if I care to waste that much time. But I'll keep it in mind.

I agree that clean installs are a waste of time unless you are trying to find disk space. I did my first in over 20 years last October and found 300G! Performance improvement? None -- I didn't expect one.

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. I find NOT doing a clean install of a new version of OSX brings out a whole bunch of oddities that wouldn't exist otherwise. Been there, done that and hated it. To me it's worth the time to do it right from the start. I've helped quite a few people clear up problems via a clean install. If one is organized and has their installers at hand it's relatively easy. Authorizations might be an issue if it's other than iLok and I'll not deny that part.

[mikehalloran]

Apple OS and DP have diagnostic tools that allow you to find and fix problems. If a a clean install works, then using those tools to find and fix the problem would be faster - every time. If there's a bug in Amplitude, then neither will work but, at least you will know.

There's no "agree to disagree" nonsense here when you don't know how to find such problems and would rather write many paragraphs of justification than learn anything.

I really don't care how much of other people's time you have helped waste.

[David Polich]

I didn't want this thread to turn into a debate or a flame war over clean installs of OSX.

Here's the thing - I've always installed previous OSX updates "over" an existing version,
and I don't partition my system drive. Never had an issue until this update of Yosemite.
And even then, it's the kind of issue that many users would never encounter, because they
either don't have DP or they don't have Amplitube 3.

I'm inclined not to do clean installs in the future simply because I really don't want to bother
with re-installing ALL third-party software and support data (such as sample libraries and presets).
In some cases, the licenses for software I use no longer exist because the companies are out of
business, even though their products still work. I know a "clean install" is good advice, but yeah,
I'll just take my chances anyway. As George Carlin used to say, that's just the kind of guy I am.

I'm not a fan of partitioning a drive. I think it's an outdated solution, the better solution being
put nothing but the system on a system drive, and put software and VI's on a separate drive,
and the support data for software and VI's on a third drive, and finally a fourth drive for backup. That's my next plan of action, get an SSD drive for the system, and two more "regular" hard drives for software and support data, and the fourth drive for Time Machine backups. These days, hard drives are incredibly cheap and bigger than ever.

Anyway, thanks guys for taking the time to reply.