Key Of Grey

December 24th, 2009 – I remember when I bought Logic 7. I had tried out Logic 5, learned on Logic 6 and had finally saved enough to actually buy a Powerbook and Logic. I tested it by sequencing about 3 tracks, and 8 bars total of sampled instruments. My processor maxed out causing a core audio overload. For a first test, and after I had saved up all that money, I was quite disappointed.

I imagine many of you had similar problems when you first used a DAW. We got so excited to use all those fancy effects, that we slathered them on like butter on theatre popcorn. My mistake was using so many instances of the Space Designer reverb unit. That plug in sounds fantastic but is extremely processor intensive. The little G4 never stood a chance.

Very quickly after I encountered my first core audio overload, I started to optimize my projects to save processing power. I became very creative about how I effected and routed audio and in the end, I was able to create, mix, and master projects with a few dozen tracks. Now, as I upgrade to newer and more powerful machines, I can leverage the extra processing leeway to produce efficiently and effectively.

If you’re interested in conserving processing power, Joe Gilder over at Home Studio Corner has written a 3 part series that documents different methods you might try. He’s a Protools user, so some of the tips are more Protools-based, but many of them can be applied regardless of what DAW you’re using. If you’re a Logic user, I can add one more tip to his posts, and that is to freeze tracks once you’re happy with them so your computer doesn’t have to constantly render the effects real time.

Preserve Processing Part 1 – Bus Several Tracks Through the Same Effect
Preserve Processing Part 2 – Commit to Plug-in Settings
Preserve Processing Part 3 – Offline Processing