DP6 Audio Overload and freezes every 10 minutes

[Stuartfox]

Hi!

I have just moved to mac from a sonar based studio and thought all would be better... but I'm being dogged by DP crashes and I'm not sure how best to tackle it.

This error sometimes appears before DP freezes"Audio playback has overloaded your computer's processor. Digital performer has detected an error in the audio...... etc etc". Sometimes the audio (or a particular plugin) just stops sounding with a crack.

This keeps happening with a variety of plugins open, but I've not really put this system to the test yet by loading a lot of synths and samples....

My Spec: Mac Pro quad 3.0 x2
10GB ram
3 x 500GB HDDs
os10.5
DP 6.01

Plugins installed:
Vienna ensemble
EWQL Play
MOTU Symphonic
Hypersonic 2

I know its a vague question and there could be 100s of factors causing this - but I wonder if anyone has had similar issues. I'm having to force quit every half hour or so--- I'm close to moving back to PC just to finish this project

[kgdrum]

i'm not using DP6 yet or Leo but most people will suggest updating 10.5 to a more recent version.
OSX 10.5 was the 1st Leopard release and subsequent updates solved many problems.
someone else who is on a Macintel in Leopard might be able to give you some more info.

[nk_e]

What's your audio interface?

You might also want to check your latency settings....

[Shooshie]

First of all, you can turn off the alert box in the preferences. No need for everything to be interrupted every time there is a CPU spike. Next, there are lots of things that can cause such spiking. First of all, with your setup you should be able to run without any CPU overloads. But that "Crack" followed by silence sounds familiar. I found that to be caused by a faulty VI preset. When I reloaded the VI and saved another preset for it, the problem went away. There may be other problems as well.

For heavy CPU load -- lots of tracks -- you may want to increase the buffer to 1024. In DP 6.01 on an Intel machine, that's a very usable setting.

I notice you have some very heavy VI's installed. If you are using a lot of tracks from each of Vienna, EWQL, and MSI, you may be getting into high CPU territory. To enhance the performance of these, I suggest putting each of your big VI's on a separate hard drive. Try to split them across busses, too, when possible. First of all, get the fastest drives possible for your internal bays. Those are SATA, which is a very fast drive interface. You'll want to get fast drives like the Western Digital Raptor for big multitimbral VI's. There are some fast Firewire external drives, as well, which utilize very large internal caches. These may also work well for some of your VI's. If necessary, you might want to get a PCIe Firewire card, and put a fast drive on it, too. My strategy for drives is to imagine them in action, and to avoid collisions of data. In other words, when a VI is reading, that drive should not be required to do anything else -- like writing. Keep your DP files on a drive separate from your VI's.

These are not hard and fast rules. You can put everything on one drive if you want, but that's going to be one heckuva busy drive. I try to plan in advance which drives will be reading and which will be writing, and keep them separate as much as possible.

There are other things to consider:
• reboot from power-off before working on heavy-duty projects
• keep other applications closed when working in DP
• kill the Dashboard with "Dash-Off" (check Versiontracker for the latest one) to get rid of what can become a heavy CPU hog. You can restart it later.
• if you have USB interfaces, try to keep them plugged into the Mac's USB port rather than going through a hub.
• Is your iSight camera plugged in? Unplug it and close iChat. Some go as far as removing the iSight driver. I haven't found that necessary, but it might be for iMacs and others in which the camera is always active.
• Use V-Racks
• Keep Soundbites Window closed when not using it.

There are tips on optimization in the Stickies Threads. If this all seems overwhelming, remember that most of these options are "set and forget" in operation, so don't think that it's going to be a huge task every time you open DP. But I would definitely go through your VI instances in your existing tracks and consider re-creating the ones that are causing the overloads.

Here's a suggestion that can make a BIG difference -- using V-Racks:
In DP, ALL your VI's are live ALL the time unless you have them spool the track to disk before playing. If you choose "always run in real time," in then they DO. So, if your single file has multiple chunks -- that is, you've arranged many songs in one file, or you've backed up your chunks with duplicates, then remember that all the VI's in all the chunks are online all the time. This is necessary for chunk chaining. (Unless they've changed this in version 6, but I've heard nothing to indicate such a change.) If your VI's are in your tracks, then you could have a huge pile of online VI's running unnecessarily, bogging down your CPU. The answer to this is to use V-Racks for as many of your VI's as possible. In V-Racks, the same instance of a single VI can be used for all your chunks which require that particular instrument or set of instruments. Load your Vi's into a V-Rack, and then you won't have to have multiple instances of them. The CPU drop from this act alone can be as much as 90% or more! Plus, once you get the hang of V-Racks, using VI's is as simple as using rack gear. Just create a track and assign it to that MIDI output. You can even create a "similar" track with a single keystroke, making a copy of a given track without data, ready for recording.

I hope I've shed some light on lowering your CPU load in DP. There may be other things I'm forgetting. Such as keeping the soundbites window closed when you're not using it. That's another CPU drag. Perhaps others will have more tips.

Shooshie

[Stuartfox]

Hey - Thanks for all the tips - thanks Shooshie for that comprehensive post.

I will work through those tips and see how it goes, however I've noticed that my CPU does not spike at all when I have these problems, and more recently DP has just been quitting without any errors... Frustrating as I spent all this money to change to Mac from PC to get away from all this:-)

I have been getting dongle errors with 2 dongles now so I've connected them directly to the mac (although they never gave any problems plugged into a hum on the PC).

My Audio interface is a motu 2408 mk 2 with the PCIe424 card. And I have the latest os updates now as well.

If anyone's interested this is my new set-up http://www.goodsounds.co.uk/studio.jpg - it would be great (or will be when DP settles down).

Thanks again - I'll work through the suggestions made and see how I go - any further ideas very welcome.

[jlaudon]

Not sure if it was suggested, but I found that all my sample based VIs keep DP much happier when I've checked 'always run in real time' - this is found when you open the plugin, and on the top right corner. there's an arrow next to the sequence name with a pull down menu. I've even resorted to checking this for now on all my VIs. Much more stable.

I've also noticed that 6.01 has worked very stable for me when mixing (lots of plugins, all audio tracks), but once I start using VIs, it's been quite unstable. I'm hoping this will be worked out in a future update sooner than later.

[Stuartfox]

Well after a couple of scary syncrosoft errors followed by DP freeses I've connected the dongles directly to the mac (not easy as I have 3) and [touch wood] all seems well so far this morning.

Wish me luck - I have 18 minutes of music to write and produce before next week - 5 minutes complete After I finish this I'll have a better play and work through the tips.

[jlaudon]

Those dongles always seem to get us in trouble

Glad to hear things are working - one tip that can't wait - just remember to keep saving ALL the time

[Stuartfox]

UGH! Got into trouble again when I tried to load Hypersonic 2 - threw up another bunch of syncrosoft errors and took DP down with it I'm saving every few changes though so nothing lost

... anyone else had problems with syncrosoft - I'm on all the latest updates and drivers.

[Frodo]

... anyone else had problems with syncrosoft - I'm on all the latest updates and drivers.

Yep, unfortunately. Not all the time, but enough to bring a day's work to a grinding halt.

The only thing I can suggest (small potatoes) is to keep your Syncrosoft dongle plugged directly into the computer and not on some sort of USB hub, including the monitor or keyboard.

[tyronehowe]

Hello

I have some good (although odd) news for you.

I have two Syncrosoft dongles, one for my Steinberg stuff (such as Hypersonic 2) and one for VSL. I have had exactly the same problems as you. It’s not a DP problem, I see the same errors in Logic and Cubase.

I’ve never had these problems on a PC and I don’t think I’ve ever had them in Tiger. My guess this is just a ridiculous Leopard thing. After Leopard installation I even started seeing exactly the same problems on my MacBook – previously I’d not had a single problem on my MacBook, not ever.

Anyway, a few months ago I decided I really needed to solve this problem and spent hours testing it.

The bottom line is that if the dongles are on the same “USB High Speed Bus” then you will have problems. At any time during a project. You can check this in System Profiler.

The trick is how does OSX determine if a USB bus is High Speed or not? That’s the bit that had me stumped for ages. It seems that just by plugging in a High Speed USB device (including a High Speed hub) OSX treats that port as High Speed. Hmmm. So if you have two Syncrosoft dongles plugged into a High Speed hub, you will be in trouble.

I’ve no idea as to the ins and outs of why it is like this, but trust me it IS like this. I spent hours loading and reloading projects that alternately contained VSL and Steinberg instruments until I understood what did and didn’t work.

Frodo’s suggestion will definitely work – if the dongles are inserted directly into the computer then it works. Because no two dongles will be on the same USB High Speed Bus.

Trouble is that’s not very practical for three dongles.

So … you have to find a NON High Speed USB hub. Luckily, I had one in a cupboard from ages ago, I don’t know if you can still buy them. If you can, then buy two and keep one for spare.

I now have my two Syncrosoft dongles (and two iLok dongles) plugged into a non-powered non-high speed hub that, in turn, is plugged into my Mac. I’ve not had a single problem since I did this.

As I said, I can’t explain why this problem exists, but I have a strong suspicion it is Leopard.

Good luck!