CPU Overload

Hey guys,

so I was going over the dutch house tutorial and remaking everything everything exactly how Phil does it in the vids, but my CPU Meter was getting around 80% when all the elements come in. And I notice in the vid that Phil is around 20%.

I need to reduce this amount. I tried freezing, consolidating, adjusting buffer size, but I still get crackling and slowing.

Are there any other suggestions you guys may have?

Can the amount of free space I have on my hard drive affect the CPU?

I never used to have problems w/ my CPU overloading on this comp b4 and I can’t put my finger on why it’s doing it now.

Whats you system specs?

Oops sorry, forgot to include that:

Mac Pro

2 GHz Inter Core i7

8GB Ram

500 GB Hard Drive w/ 180GB Free Space

What sound card and buffer settings you using?



I have a quad core 3 ghz i7 iMac which is pretty powerful.



I do get issues and cpu spikes if i have wifi turned on.

i actually am just on my laptop w/ no external soundcard at the moment. I left my sound card at a buddies house. That must be the problem, duhhh :hehe:. I have an audio kontrol 1 sound card though.

My buffer setting is at 600 samples. overall latency at 29.2 ms


guys.



any suggestions to help us in this issue???



I got just 1.83 mac book with 2gb ram.



I struggle when any project gets medium size…



i have done a lot freeze, but i think we can do something else

The core duo 1.8ghz mac book is 6 year old now which is a long time in computer terms.



It makes sense for me. To use a mid level computer to do the tuts as i dont want to restrict techniques based on cpu power.

Okay, so i got my audio kontrol 1 sound card hooked up and the CPU meter is still goin to 80% during the dutch tutorial. Even after i’ve frozen a ton of stuff. I’m struggling to figure out a way to reduce CPU, any ideas?

Are you using Aether 2C? That can be a bit of a CPU hog. If so, try replacing it with Aether Breeze if you’ve got it.

yes i am using aether, only on a few return channels though. When I play the first 9 bars of the dutch tutorial, my CPU is already hitting 80%. I gotta figure out how to remedy this.

Mate, have you tried soloing things?

Just find the one that takes up the most of your CPU. Got a few vst’s that use a lot of my resources as well, and when I notice that, I bounce it to audio as soon as possible (not before I’m content with the automation of course :wink: ).

I know it’s an obvious one and not the best solution, but raising the buffer size works.

I have to do this all the time as I am using a four year old pc laptop which is slow as hell.

Freezing tracks works as well

@Daniaan: Thanks for the advice. So before you flatten your midi, do you save a new copy of your project just in case you want to go back and change things? Also, what’s the best way to go about flattening a track if it has a side-chain compressor?

I even stoll have to use a different buffer size depending if im tracking or mixing.



Tracking (recording midi etc.) i use 124

Mixing ill go as high as 2096 sometimes if its. Really big project.



Also check activity monitor… Some apps especialy safari with the flash plugin can eat a lot of memory and cpu resources.

[quote]P-Shot (24/04/2012)[hr]@Daniaan: Thanks for the advice. So before you flatten your midi, do you save a new copy of your project just in case you want to go back and change things? Also, what’s the best way to go about flattening a track if it has a side-chain compressor?

[/quote]

Not necessarily. I usually duplicate the to-be-frozen track, then freeze one of 'm. And, as you said before, you cannot one that contains side-chain compression, so loose that from the track.

Then I don’t delete the midi track, but simply turn the devide off. You should see a significant drop in the CPU meter.



The side-chain compressor is put on the frozen audio track.

Thx! I just did that for all the CPU hogging tracks and it definitely makes a big difference. It’s kind of a pain to do this, but if this i the only way, then I guess I better get used to it.

Actually i just went back to some of my old projects, which never had any CPU problems and now none of em can play bc the CPU is so high. I have a 2GHz intel core i7, and I used to be able have safari, wifi etc. running and never had CPU problems. I really don’t know what’s goin on but it’s preventing me from working on any tracks bc I can’t hear any of my sounds w/o them stuttering. Should I have my computer checked out? Anyone ever experience this?

You should switch over to a Microsoft PC :smiley:



Not sure what you’re Apple is doing there m8. Maybe you can install a tool that lets you investigate what is running in the background and using up all your CPU and memory…



I know there are tools for that for PC. Maybe for Apple as well.



Otherwise, a format of your Apple might do the trick… But again, I’m a complete noob concerning Apple’s.

Try turning off wifi. Sometimes it can do weird stuf.

Yea, I’ve tried wifi, buffer settings, freezing etc…but i still get CPU overload like I’ve never experienced before. I tried to contact ableton today but their support page is down for maintenance :frowning: