Which: Optimization or realistic expectations

[SteveInChicago]

Hi,

So, I have been bringing this project over to DP. it's 30 minutes long and consists of one QT movie, 4 tracks of audio, 2 stereo, 2 mono. and many soundbites, maybe 150 that I dragged from the Finder. These are 2 to 30 second audio files.

Project is 44k.

I would like to know if what I'm experiencing is within the range of normal expectations considering my gear, see sig.

I like to use the transport controls to shuttle back in forth- using 4,5,6, and + on the numeric keypad. Performance is sluggish, as in I have to wait a second for a response to a keypress sometimes. Things improved slightly after quitting other apps I was running which made me wonder if it was a ram issue.

Thanks,

Steve

[sdfalk]

Dual core processors should be able to run far more tracks then that..
4 tracks of audio is nothing (If DP can't do that then Dp developers
should be fired)..4gb is definitely fine on your macbook.
Is the Movie an uncompressed HD movie or something?

[Shooshie]

Hi,

So, I have been bringing this project over to DP. it's 30 minutes long and consists of one QT movie, 4 tracks of audio, 2 stereo, 2 mono. and many soundbites, maybe 150 that I dragged from the Finder. These are 2 to 30 second audio files.

Project is 44k.

I would like to know if what I'm experiencing is within the range of normal expectations considering my gear, see sig.

In the year 2000, when Native was really just first taking off with the new G4 PowerMacs, I was able to do about 88 tracks with automation and effects. That's 88 channels of audio, not 88 stereo tracks. That was fairly comfortable. While the faders were not completely smooth in their graphic representation, they did accurately record my moves in real time. For larger projects I found it expedient to break my mix down into stems.

OSX set us back a lot in terms of speed, but that was on the same computers. Our computers now have left those sitting in the dust of Moore's Law. That was, after all, 11 years ago! It has been years since I tested the efficiency of our current Mac Pro's, but to give you an idea, I opened one of those projects recently, from 11 years ago, and instead of using the recorded audio, I used virtual instruments on each track which rendered in real time. We're talking about the difference in playing recorded tracks vs. CREATING them, live. And I'm talking about giant VI's like Ivory II.

So, yes. Your computer should be able to handle what you mentioned without much more than a blip in the cpu meter. If you're having trouble, you may have a memory leak in one of your plugins. I mean, it may be many other things, too; that's the trouble with the greater complexity of today's DAWs. But I just went through a round of troubleshooting that identified one plugin (Magnetic, by Nomad Factory) as the likely source of a memory leak. I'm using their latest version which seems to have solved that, but causes other problems. I'll probably dump it for a while after my current project is over.

I hope you get this figured out. Oh… one other thing. You might consider a larger sample buffer. I've been tracking at 128, but I'll go up to 1024 for mixing, to more easily accommodate plugins.

Shooshie

[SteveInChicago]

I rarely push my mac to the limits with audio, glad to know my expectations are correct.

The movie is small.

The problem was pretty specific, using transport controls to shuttle back in forth - (4,5,6, and + on the numeric keypad). I have to wait a second for a response to a keypress sometimes. This could also be related to the key repeat speed set in the keyboard control panel.

Another thing that happened is when zooming in full horizontally there would be a pause, or an apparent freeze, requiring a force-quit.

I have no plugins installed aside from what came with DP. I forgot what the buffer was at, though it might have been low since I had played in some MIDI parts. I'll check it next time.

I have to go back to Cubase for the time being so I can quickly do my work, I'll come back to DP when I have some time to play around. The DP paradigm is very different from Cubase. Aside from the broad common stuff about MIDI and digital recording the approaches are different as night and day. I'll still be hanging out here though...

Thanks again,

Steve

[sprout]

Steve-
I'm running a dual 2.4 GHz MacBook Pro with 4 GB RAM, and routinely use the number pad keys 4, 5, 6, and + for the transport with no issues.

The project I'm on at the moment is a 60 minute documentary film at 48k that has about 40 tracks enabled, a mix of mono and stereo, tons of soundbites, and a Quicktime movie in the Motion JPG A codec.

I do notice that the first time I use one of those transport keys, it says "analyzing movie" for a few seconds before responding, but once it's analyzed the movie there's no lag until I close the project and re-open it.

As SDFalk pointed out, the codec of the quicktime movie could be a culprit. I get very smooth results with the Motion JPG A; since each frame is rendered as a complete frame it saves a lot of CPU power that would otherwise be required to decompress and render frames. DV codec is also supposed to give good performance.

It's also recommended to stick with the normal size, half size, or double size settings for movie window frame size (in the movie window mini-menu), since resizing by dragging the corner of the window can create odd sizes that take more horsepower to display.

Good luck and welcome to the 'nation!