System Overload messages worse since upgrading setup
Oct 29th, 2009, 01:43
I have recently upgraded my system to S.L. (10.6.1) using the upgrade option rather than a clean install and added a second external firewire drive, a G-Tech G-Drive, for all my EXS samples. I did this to optimize my system because I understand it is best to have 2 external drives, one for audio and the other for samples. I have been working on a piece of music which has quite a lot going on in terms of tracks and effects and I was getting the occasional "Disk is too slow or System Overload (-10010)" error with the accompanying halting of playback. This was happening under Leopard as well. This prompted me to get the second drive as I thought it would improve performance. Not so. Now the track grinds to a halt about midway through every time I play it and will do the same multiple times while trying to work on the mix. Very frustrating.
I've installed the latest drivers for my ULN-2 audio interface as well as Logic 9 (which produces the same error). I have the 2 drives daisy-chained via firewire, the audio (Seagate) one being first in the chain. They are connected to the computer via an adaptor which does not allow power to pass from the fw bus. As far as I know that is its only function and it allows the data to pass both directions in the same way as a normal cable would. The drives of course each have their own power supply. I moved all the samples from the EX Samples folder in Application Support onto the G-Tech and erased the originals. Now while the track is playing that drive (as well as the audio one) is active a lot of the time so Logic is drawing a significant number of samples from it directly as the track progresses (rather than placing them in RAM, it seems).
I have narrowed the problem down to the fact that in this piece I am using a particular sampled drum kit from Analogue Drums. I have divided the midi track containing the drum performance into separate tracks per drum and there are 2 sets of these, a room set and a close set. Each drum track is routed to a separate aux channel by using the version of the EXS which allows for multiple outputs, with various effects on each drum, and then back into a single aux track for further processing as a whole. Standard practice I understand. With this arrangement the sample drive visibly and audibly gets very active during certain sections of the song which inevitably leads to the error. It seems to be working very hard at those times to keep up with the demands being placed on it. To test things I have stripped out this whole drum setup and replaced it with a simpler kit in the EXS on just one midi track and the error doesn't seem to happen through several passes. So I have to conclude that something in the drum setup or its group of samples is causing the overload, bottleneck or whatever. Or perhaps something in the way the data is being processed.
I wonder if anyone could shed some light on what is going wrong here. Have I reached the limitations of my humble iMac by asking it to do too much re. this song/drum setup or is it more likely to be a problem in the way the computer is interfacing with the external drive(s)? Bear in mind that the error was happening before I installed the 'sample' drive and when I had all the samples in their default location on the internal drive. It wasn't nearly as bad then but this 'upgrade' has really highlighted where the problem seems to be. Finally, am I right in thinking that this 3-drive setup (OS, Logic etc. on internal drive, audio on external drive 1 and samples and Apple Loops on external drive 2) should be the optimal way to set things up?
What I've tried so far: Changing the I/O buffer to 1024, resetting Logic's memory, plugging the firewire cable directly into the computer thus bypassing the adaptor, running the song without the ULN-2 (internal speakers only), trashing Logic's preferences and repairing permissions, switching all audio inputs off. All to no avail. I have some other things to try.
System: Intel iMac 2.16 ghz Core 2 Duo with 3 gb ram, Metric Halo ULN-2, Seagate and G-Tech external drives, latest versions of Logic 8 and 9.
I'd really appreciate any help with this.
Mark
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