DP freezing when recording

[jim2b]

Hi Folks,

I’m having a problem that I have never had before.

I’m on a mid-2010 cheese grater. 6core 3.33 with 16 gb of ram.
OS 10.12, DP 8.07.

I can change between files, play any sequence, copy and paste from one sequence to another and load Virtual Instruments.

However, when I try to record a virtual instrument, DP freezes up and I can’t access the mouse, or keyboard to stop the recording.

I know it is an old system, but it has been very reliable.

Can anyone point me to the possible problems?

I have 4 hard drives in the computer. I’m thinking that one might be going, and I should try recording to a different drive.
Or, it could be a much bigger problem.

Anyhow thanks in advance,

Jim

[HCMarkus]

Good thought re: had drive failure... perhaps the one holding your VI Samples. Have you tried recording using an external MIDI sound module? Is the computer performing perfectly otherwise? You can check your drive stats, your RAM, reinstall DP, etc. There are so many potential points of failure here...

But nothing wrong with using a 5,1 Mac Pro; many, including me, rely on similar machines for daily studio use.

[jim2b]

Thanks!

Will try all of above.

Jim

[mikehalloran]

I’m on a mid-2010 cheese grater. 6core 3.33 with 16 gb of ram.
OS 10.12, DP 8.07.

Not enough info.

SSDs or HDDs? What kind, size, where and what do you have stored on each?

Absolutely solvable but take some money. Good news: Not nearly as expensive as you may think.

[jim2b]

Thanks Mike,

Thanks for responding. They are all 7200 spinners.

System and apps on one drive(1TB, 3yrs old), DP files on one drive(1TB, 10yrs), and Sample Libraries on two drives.(1TB, 10 yrs)(2TB 3 yrs).

What is weird is that I backed up the system drive, and now everything is working well.

I’ll put everything through it’s paces tomorrow and report back.

Thanks for everyone’s help.

Jim

[mikehalloran]

Old drives can be brought back to life for a short while —hours to months—but when they start going bad, all the reformatting will not save them. The symptoms you describe are not If, they are When. The time to do something is past.

If staying on Sierra and DP8, one of these replaces all of those.
https://smile.amazon.com/Blue-NAND-4TB- ... ref=sr_1_3

Install everything in the default location—yes, the MAcOS has a default for your VIs. You will be amazed how much faster everything happens.


For even more speed (3-4x the above), you can go to a 2TB NVMe blade ($200) in a PCIe card for All your apps and active DP projects plus a 2TB 2.5" SSD for your VIs and DP projects you aren't actively working on. It would require you to upgrade the OS to High Sierra and DP to 9.5 or 10.13, however.

Every argument you've ever read for separate drives hasn't been true since SATA was introduced in the G5. With SSDs, don't partition or you'll waste drive space — and there's no reason to do it anyway. Except one: If you need to boot from more than one MacOS, you will need a separate partition or drive (everything changes with High Sierra and APFS).

Have a separate HDD or more for Time Machine.

[jim2b]

Thanks Mike,

Good info!