Instantly Audible Edits

mk3

mk3

Logician
It seems to be that it's about time (sic) that Logic edits would be instantly audible.

Something as simple as muting or soloing a track or region does not instantly produce the desired result. There is often a delay of seconds before the change is audible! Similarly for moving or editing regions and other edits. Why is this so? In other programs (to remain unmentioned) the results are instantly heard.

This problem persists even if the Track Mute/Solo option is set to the misnomered "fast".
 
horselesspaul said:
These things you mention do not occur here. Mute, Solo and edit functions are instantaneous. What's your setup?
Click to expand...

Power Mac G5 dual 2.3
OS X 10.5.6
- all Apple and Logic updates installed

MOTU PCI-424 card
MOTU 2408mkII
(with latest MOTU driver)

I'm glad to hear that the problem is not universal. Maybe it's something specific to the MOTU drivers?
 
You may well be right but I hope someone else with MOTU gear can confirm or deny. I come across people with issues of latency with MOTU gear professionally from time to time but have none myself.
 
I'm not sure I could have my cake and eat it too in this case. My mixes usually consist of 24-32 tracks more more, and I max out my dual-1.733 GHz G4 every time (3rd party CPU) with a minimum of 60 great plugins. My buffer is set to maximum to allow the biggest DSP capacity. So right then and there, a delay on mute and solo is produced. Add to that the additional buffer delay introduced by my UAD cards and the delay compensation that manages that, plus the delay compensation for any other buffer-hog plugins which are also compensated for, plus Logic's attempt to manage this all in the most CPU-efficient way possible, and you are left with significant delays for mute and solo. I'm not sure if this is avoidable. If it means I would have to suffer hiccups on playback as my box tries to recalibrate all the delay compensation and CPU optimization, I'm not sure I would be happier that way. This response is constitutes my theory on the 'why?' at any rate. Personally, I rather expect this lag due to how far I push my system. I suspect that people who don't suffer this mute/solo latency have their buffer set to 256 or shorter and do not push the limits of their setup like I do each time.

PS: I'll be moving to my MacBook Pro as soon as the UAD Xpresscard Solo comes out. I've already tested and and know for a fact (tested it) it gives me 200% DSP over my G4.
 
mk3 said:
IThere is often a delay of seconds before the change is audible! Similarly for moving or editing regions and other edits....This problem persists even if the Track Mute/Solo option is set to the misnomered "fast".
Click to expand...

It is misnomered, but not for the reason you think. The real purpose of the "fast" option is to link the channel strip solo/mute and track solo/mute. There are lots of reasons to do this: if you generally configure one track for each channel strip, this insures that there are never any disconnects between tracks and channels playing; etc. However, it does mean that if you have multiple tracks all going to the same channel, muting one means you can't switch to another track, they'll all go silent.

When you solo/mute a channel strip, the audio track is not actually unloaded from memory; it remains "live" so that you can unmute/unsolo on the fly and get your audio back. A track that is in "CPU saving mode" that is muted is not loaded into memory, as it assumes that it will not play at all, or in solo, everything else is unloaded. So "fast" mode is certainly faster but really, the speed is secondary to the technical connection of channel/track solo and mute functions.

That said, when I switched from PowerPC to Intel-based Macs, the first thing I noticed was that the GUI of Logic was far snappier. And my initial move was from a 2GHz G5 to a 2GHz MacBook Pro, so it wasn't a CPU-speed difference. Also, I think having 4GB of RAM for Logic is important as well. That may not answer all your problems (I don't know about MOTU drivers) but I believe you'll find that Logic is far more responsive on an Intel Mac with 4GB+ RAM.

Orren
 
Hello, all....
Following up on this thread, as I still experience this latency. With some projects, the delay to hearing a mute, solo, or edit of a region, can be 5 seconds or more! Yet these delays do not occur with the same project through Apple's built-in audio. Is this something specific to the MOTU hardware/drivers + Logic combination?
I hope there is a way around this. I now have an Intel (8 core 2.8GHz 2008 model) with much RAM (18GB), the lastest version of OSX, Logic, and all MOTU drivers.

Any advice would be appreciated....or just to know whether other users with similar combination have the same problem.

mk3
 
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