Please help me optimize my project and settings for realtime

[HCMarkus]

https://caig.com

[HCMarkus]

Yeah... if money were no object, I can see why some people sink a LOT of money into ProTools HD systems. I found this YouTube video interesting where this guy, Colt Capperune, sold his Apollo and invested heavily in the HD system. It's the only way around the latency issues that are part of the trade off of using a native DAW.

The time the Pro Tools HDX is great is when tracking an entire band live... everything you add to get the mix during the recording is exactly the same on playback. Especially nice for multi-mic'd drum kits. If budget allows and the project calls for a band sound, I'll take it to Pacific Beat in Pacific Beach and have Alan Sanderson handle tracking drums, bass, guitar and keys. That way, I can play keys without having to wear the engineer hat at the same time.

Once the basics are down, using a hardware mixer like that found in the MOTU gear is, IMO, perfectly satisfactory, as we are then usually working with at most a couple of simultaneous sources, usually just one while overdubbing... lead and back vocals, additional keys and guitars., etc. The only time I lust for HDX is when tracking drums, when I have to get a decent monitor mix together, then set up the actual playback mix in DP. I still manage, but hair loss is a potential side effect.

[Dark Goob]

As far as noisy cables is concerned. Really? Dude, fix them. Just do it.

We don't have any noisy cables.

I think you do.

Monitoring what the DAW is recording live while we're playing also helps to avoid the situation we've had happen several times where one of the finicky cables or direct outs decided to cut out and needs to be wiggled, or where for some reason some channel or another got punched out on the DAW. It sucks to get through a session and then realize somethings was ••••ed up and now we don't have a usable recording.

The issue with the cut outs is an issue with a couple of our channel strips on the Delta 200. If you unplug and replug the cables, it wakes them back up, and they're fine. It's something to do with leaving the cables connected to the line ins while the keytar is unplugged from the other end. One of the line ins goes to sleep. It's not the cables themselves.

Probably need to send some strips to Jim Williams.

[Dark Goob]

Just as an update, I did reach out to MOTU tech support and they were able to repro the issue locally using my project file. They had the same pattern of two cores being used while hitting the Realtime clipping in Live Performance Mode, so it does not seem to be related to anything particular to my specific MOTU hardware setup.

I also found that Logic Pro would allow adding EQ & Dynamics to a similar number of channels without hitting the wall.

So it definitely seems to be an issue with how DP is optimized currently, and they are doing an investigation to gather info on plugin performance.

I'll reply with any updates here.

[mikehalloran]

The MOTU MW plug-ins are old and have major overhead issues in the last few macOS. I have demonstrated this to MOTU in real time and no longer use them in anything.

Many of my collaborative projects begin in Performer Lite which has plugs on nearly all the tracks. I have asked my people to change all plugs to None (right-click in the Mixer and select None) before starting anything. Otherwise, I can open a project up in DP and wait an hour or more for Background Processing to finish.

[bayswater]

I have asked my people to change all plugs to None (right-click in the Mixer and select None) before starting anything. Otherwise, I can open a project up in DP and wait an hour or more for Background Processing to finish.

IIRC, you can do this quickly by going to a new mix, which will have no plugins.

[mikehalloran]

I have asked my people to change all plugs to None (right-click in the Mixer and select None) before starting anything. Otherwise, I can open a project up in DP and wait an hour or more for Background Processing to finish.

IIRC, you can do this quickly by going to a new mix, which will have no plugins.

Thanks, I keep forgetting about that.