Thanks for all the responses and I have a lot of updates. I have done so many tests and spent the last 3 days doing nonstop tests and isolation patterns. Apple Logic Team is waiting on my answer but I am giving my results here first. By the way before we start, let it be known that this is NOT a VIENNA issue as it may have appeared to be in the original post depending on how you interpreted it. This is either a Logic problem only or a Logic problem with OS X contribution. I will respond to each of your posts first, then present all my tests.
Felipe,
Your laptop is pretty much the exact same as mine. The varying difference is that you have a few other applications that I do not have loaded and your soundcard is different. I only have Logic Studio (8), and Vienna SE (Vienna Instruments v2, didn't load Ensemble 3 this time) at the moment. Prior to everything I just went through over the last 3 days I used to also have Kontakt player 2, Logic 7 (from the upgrade to studio leaving it there), Sibelius 5.2, GPO, M-audio Firewire Drivers (spare soundcard in case of multiface 2 crapping out mid project) and every possible software update from every manufacturer. I only use my laptop for music production. I do not email, browse the web (unless it's for driver/software updates) or anything else. I use an external USB 2.0 drive for my samples compared to your Firewire, you have me beat severely in this category after the research I did based on Steves post. I really hope all the information I provide below will help your situation as well.
Steve,
Thanks for this info because although I knew USB 2.0 is 480mbps compared to Firewires 400, I learned a lot about how they actually work (after researching more) and realized that the firewire protocol itself is just more effecient for long file transfers and continuous disk reads. USB has a slightly better small file BURST speed, but is quite literally almost 2 times slower then firewire 400 in long continuous file transfers. With that noted, I will be changing out my USB drive for a Firewire. Now if I could have my dream world at the moment, it would be to take my Ultra320 300GB 15000RPM seagate cheetahs I have sitting brand new next to me and drop them in an external enclosure that converts to firewire 400. Does anyone know if such device exists? I started looking but not thoroughly yet, I needed to get this information to you all. I also had no idea that Vienna was streaming from the hard drive (I have no idea where I got the information that said it didn't, I must have misread something somewhere). Yes, the idea of how you final mix your midi is what I will try next time. After I try everyones ideas I will have come up with my own favorite way by then (I hope).
Jasen,
Yes you are correct with the assessment and stating that something had happened between that time. You will see exactly what happened and the fix I did below in my testing results. I never use this laptop for anything but music composition as I have learned that the hard way in the past but thanks for the advice, you never know. Some people might read that and go duh, and realize their problem is from abusing it with oodles of software and garbage browsing etc. I really like your idea about the sub mixes. I can easily do that with my strings, brass, percussion etc and submix them with their own individual plug-ins. The nice part is that they are now audio files so I don't have to worry so much about all the huge file transfer problems of live playback mode which I am doing now. I should be able to get away with more plugins that way and make the sound more realistic without taxing the machine. I appreciate the information. All of these ideas are great.
Now we are up to the analysis, testing and results.
Analysis: Originally I was working with Logic 8 and Kontakt player/Sibelius and having no issues what so ever for a few months. I was completely glitch free and never seen this OVERLOAD message in my life (not even in my days of Logic 7). After a period of getting frustrated with the sound quality I decided to hit the Vienna Venue. This is when things went hairy so of course my mind wants to jump to conclusions that it's the software I just installed. Common sense would tell you this. I did some google searches and realized I had hit something that was an enormous problem, world wide with what seemed to be Logic (based on what I was reading). So ultimately, what could have happened, what actually did happen and how did I get to this point in such a short time?
Testing: I began my testing by opening up old orchestrations and noticing that for some reason they all played just fine using Kontakt player (full orchestrations using GPO). I then tried Sibelius with GPO and again same result, it worked just fine with no overloads, pops or clicks of any sort. I then loaded a bunch of EXS intruments up and played them all back and again it worked perfectly without overload. Of course at this point I was thinking, great, It's only when I load Vienna instruments. The second I loaded up the same projects with VI it would overload. I was so certain that there was no way I was using to many resources but it would constantly spike to 100% CPU when using VI no matter how many instruments I had loaded. I had to now prove out who was the culprit very painfully because Activity Monitor and Logic weren't lining up properly resource usage wise. I decided at this point I was going to need to wipe the box and start from scratch. Just before doing this I went back to the apple genius desk and spoke with the Logic Pro guy (he makes film scores etc using Logic 8 and Vienna Orchestral Cube). I remembered that specifically because he is the one who sold me on Logic in the first place. During our discussion he said he didn't have these problems on his Macbookpro. We pondered a while and I said you know I think I am just going to wipe the box. He said give him some time to research and talk to a few more people and get back to me. Well when he did, everyone one of them said the same thing, wipe the box and start over. Great, just great. So begins the building.
Scenerio 1 - I pain stakingly took the next 12 hours backing up my data, backing it up again, comparing folder sizes etc, triple checking and finally being sure to back up my data (did I say I backed up my data?). Once I felt comfortable that I had everything (I was never 100% but I knew I had to move on) I threw in the Tiger restore disc from my MacBookPro, rebooted and began the install. I decided to do a fresh wipe and clean install (not an Archive). After the OS finished loading I immediately did all the updates for Tiger. I did not load any software yet. only OS X updates. After those were done, I loaded my most updated Multiface 2 drivers and got it working. Once I had a perfectly stable brand new machine I threw in the Logic Studio Disc and began my install. For my install, I chose to install Logic, Logic node, Main stage, Soundtrack Pro and Waveburner. I did NOT install any of the demo content, audio content or plugins etc. None of the additional material at all. This would speed up the process and if it didn't work, I didnt stand around for 6 hours waiting on complete installs. I did not do ANY logic updates at all. I simply installed from the disc, then moved on(which gave me Logic 8 Pro Version 8.0.0 (1473.23). Once this finished I took out the disc and immediately did my Syncrosoft elincenser, followed by VI v2 (just downloaded from the web). Once those two were up and running I started sweating and decided to give it a try. I opened up Logic, setup my audio environment (only thing I did was change internal soundcard to my hammerfall Multiface 2) and then loaded my orchestration test which had 5 solo parts in it. After it finished loading I hit play, and it played through the entire orchestration without any glitches. No overloads at all. I almost curled up into the feetle position and cried of happiness. I then opened up my projects and viola, they worked just fine. however, I knew I wasn't done yet. I still didn't have an answer. So I thought well first off, lets go ahead and load all the Logic Updates etc and get it updated. After a few reboots and sessions with Apple updater doing prokit paks etc yada yada I decided ok lets try it now. I opened up Logic, opened my project and BOOM. The second it hit the first note it crashed. I decided to re-install Kontakt player. It was crashing so bad now that I couldn't even get Kontakt player to work without overloading. I said well that's it then. It is one of the updates. Problem was, which one!? So back to the drawing board.
It was also at that moment, that I realized something. When I got off the phone and was done doing business and rounding everyone up to come over, I had run the updater and did all the updates in boredum while waiting for their arrivals...
Scenerio 2 - I did exactly the same steps as in scenerio 1, installed OSX, updated OSX only. Then installed Soundcard. Then installed Logic Studio (DO NOT DO UPDATES). This again left me at Logic 8 Pro Version 8.0.0 (1473.23). Then my Vienna SE. From here I re-tested all my orchestrations and they all worked again. I decided to study the actual updates (by reading what the heck they were actually doing). I hit the update software button and 6 came up.
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Prokit Update 4.5 24.2MB
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Logic Pro 8.0.2 135MB
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Pro Applications Update 2007-01 1.0 850KB
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Pro Applications Update 2008-01 1.0 31.2MB
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Mainstage Update 1.0.2
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PluginManager 1.7.3
At this point I chose to install numbers 5 and 6 (by UNCHECKING #1, 2, 3 and 4) because they had nothing to do with Logic. Once those finished I rebooted. When I came back in, I relaunched the updater. This time it brought in a new one:
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Soundtrack Pro Update 2.0.2
I went ahead and did that one as well since it had nothing to do with Logic and again, NOT installing the original 4 we passed up already. When I got back in all that was left was the original 4 we left alone. I opened up Logic and ran my orchestrations (with VI) and they all still worked perfectly. This was without using LEARN MODE.
At this moment I am sitting here staring at my machine, Software update window, and deciding if I want to venture into those 4, one at a time to find out who is the problem child(ren). I also need to re-introduce Sibelius 5.2 into the mix but for now I will leave well alone for a few days. I have run for 1 full day now without glitch or overload but I still have a few more things I must note.
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It is obvious to me that either OS X or Logic has a serious issue with multi-threading this application and spreading the load equally between the two cores (unless its nothing but a graphical reporting error or mismatch). Even with things running fabulously, the core on the right (logics CPU meter) is ALWAYS significantly higher then the core on the left. I was able to max out core 2 (right) to 100% by loading 15 violins all playing at the same time but the left one never went beyond 20-30%. I didn't overload, once in a while it would drop a note or too audibly, but it wouldn't stop and overload.
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The Demo from Christian is extremely taxing on my machine. I loaded it up (optimized mode version because my machine can't even handle the non optimized version). It played back the optimized version (25 intruments, all with plugins, EQ's etc) however, the right core was pegged at 100% and the left at 50% the whole time. It did not overload etc, just simply dropped a note here and there. I also only had 21MB of ram free during this playback. It gobbled up my entire free memory. Now I suspect this to be normal behavior, it's a very large orchestration with tons of bells and whistles and it simply is more then my machine can handle without some serious effort involved. This is not a glitch or problem with applications, more so a resource issue at this point. I would suggest at this point, if you want to HEAR the demo do as the amazing guys before me said, BOUNCE the track and listen. If you want to study what he did come back to the demo and LOOK at the plugins etc but DO NOT sit there letting your machine go at 100% CPU playing this thing or you will fry it. Processors do not like constant loads over 80%. If you are reaching that point and need more, then you need a better machine then what you have(or upgrades to your current).
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I did not get to try this setup with something like a Firewire 400 drive compared to my USB 2.0 so I can't give any results from that however, from what I have learned and the actual hard specs, you should get much better performance and perhaps even more samples at one time from moving to a FireWire sample drive. If you aren't using your expresscard slot (macbookpros) or have an available PCI-X slot in your MacPro, you could do a SCSI or SATA solution which will provide even better performance if you spend the bucks for the fast spinning drives. I myself am using my slot so I am limited to my USB or FireWire port.
I also highly suggest you disable your Bluetooth, Airport wireless, Internal Network card, Screen savers, fancy background fading schemes etc to free up resources if you do not need them during recording/playback. I sat there and watched them in activity monitor moving, taking memory, moving packets of data etc. May not be much but I got myself some more free ram out of it. For people like me on the MacBookPro we don't have many options once were maxxed out, so you need to find resources to dump if you need more for something else.
Well I am going to be passing all of this on to the Apple Logic Team in California and seeing what they can do about it as well as see if they can look into the poor thread per core distribution. This may not be addressable but I am going to try anyway. I hope I was able to help someone with this information. Hopefully someone knows of a way I can get my SCSI Ultra320 Drives into a single drive enclosure/converter to FireWire 400.
Maestro2be