# Logic 1 Core Curse with VE Pro



## dcoscina (Mar 2, 2011)

I'm running 64 bit but I noticed the same thing on my 32 bit Logic Express 9 on my Macbook....


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 2, 2011)

While I'm not sure why you'd need to run 52 busses, guayalex, can't you put some plug-ins on individual tracks to distribute the load?

And have you tried redistributing the load to different Kontakts/VE Pro instances? I'm pretty sure you'll be able to balance it so you don't just spike a single processor.

As to your other question, I think the Kontakt memory server is not unloading when you quit VE Pro.


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## José Herring (Mar 2, 2011)

guayalex @ Wed Mar 02 said:


> :? I just build a huge Template (1 PC with 8 GB and a Mac Pro 3 Core early 2008 with 16 GB from which I use about 12 gigs) which took me like 2 month and everything seems fine besides the fact that Logic's CPU hits the limit VERY quickly. It's mostly the 7th core. The VE Pro's are mostly filled with Kontakt Instances. When I switch the Effects inside logic on I can't even play one instrument without overload messages. So I integrated a switch in my Environment which switches all FX off while I'm working and than make an offline bounce. Sad enough. But EVEN with all FX off after a while I get those overload messages at some point of the Arrangement. In this situation (with FX off) when I play an instrument the CPU is doing almost nothing but when I hit play (only play without any instrument playing or recording) The Activity Monitor in OS X already shows 300 % and more CPU Power needed and Logic's CPU is used like 50 % and more (only hitting play!)
> 
> I'm using about 53 Busses in logic. Knowing that all Busses are forced to be processed in 1 core I reduced so many Multi-Out Instances to simple stereo ones in order to just have the minimal routings and at least being able to have the Reverbs inside logic.
> 
> ...



I'm not quite getting from your post how you have VEPro setup.

Do you have VEPro running on the same machine as Logic or just on the PC? Also, what buffers are you running? What is your latency set at in Logic and what are you using as a buffer for your VEPro instances? Also, how many instances of VEPro do you have running?

Seems to me like you maybe could set it up a little better. But, I can't tell from the info.

best,

Jose


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## Gerd Kaeding (Mar 2, 2011)

guayalex @ Wed Mar 02 said:


> :? I just build a huge Template (1 PC with 8 GB and a Mac Pro 3 Core early 2008 with 16 GB from which I use about 12 gigs) which took me like 2 month and everything seems fine besides the fact that Logic's CPU hits the limit VERY quickly. It's mostly the 7th core. The VE Pro's are mostly filled with Kontakt Instances. When I switch the Effects inside logic on I can't even play one instrument without overload messages. So I integrated a switch in my Environment which switches all FX off while I'm working and than make an offline bounce. Sad enough. But EVEN with all FX off after a while I get those overload messages at some point of the Arrangement. In this situation (with FX off) when I play an instrument the CPU is doing almost nothing but when I hit play (only play without any instrument playing or recording) The Activity Monitor in OS X already shows 300 % and more CPU Power needed and Logic's CPU is used like 50 % and more (only hitting play!)
> 
> I'm using about 53 Busses in logic. Knowing that all Busses are forced to be processed in 1 core I reduced so many Multi-Out Instances to simple stereo ones in order to just have the minimal routings and at least being able to have the Reverbs inside logic.
> 
> ...




Hi guayalex

No matter how many Cores your Mac has , Logic assigns all tasks from all Busses and all Auxes to_ one_ single Core .

So , as soon as you add a Bus ( containing one or more Effect PlugIns ) and / or an Aux Out for a SoftwareInstrument , Logic routes the tasks that arise from these Busses/Auxes to one single core .

If you have a large number of Busses/Auxes this fact alone actually increases the CPU Load for this one particular core , even when all Effects in these Busses/Auxes are switched off.
So , in your case this is one reason why you get core overloads .


The more Busses/Auxes the more likely are this wicked CPU spikes on one core .


Best wishes 


Gerd


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## JT3_Jon (Mar 2, 2011)

josejherring @ Wed Mar 02 said:


> At anyrate, don't forget guayalex that VEPro is a very capable mixer on it's own. And it uses all cores effetively. All the routing and FX that you are using in Logic can be done if VEPro (unless you are only using Logic plugins). But, you can assign busses and input channels in VEPro, the input channels allow you to use multiple audio outs from one instances of Kontakt. So effectively you can split out every patch from an instances of Kontakt to it's own input channel and the outs from the input channels can be routed to a buss all within VEPro.



Well, not quite. VE pro does not have latency compensation for plugins. I.e. if you try to use parallel compression on drums you will get nasty phasing. 

Seems us VE pro Logic users are stuck between a rock and a hard place. However, I dont think its true that ALL busses are loaded on a single core. Its just all busses from a single instrument (be it a single EXS or a large multi instrument with multiple aux inputs) are loaded on a single core. So you can still use multiple busses, you just need to make sure they are not all coming from a single source (i.e. one VE pro).


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## guayalex (Mar 3, 2011)

Thanks for all that support guys! 

@ Nick:

Is 52 Busses really that much. I just have 1 Bus for every Library, Section and one version for short vs long articulations. For the Reverb I use 12 Aux tracks. (4 Early Reflections, 4 Tails, 4 alternative Reverbs) than I route Everything to 8 Aux tracks called Strings dry, Wooddwinds dry, Brass dry, Percussion dry and a wet and 4 more Busses called Strings mix, Woodwinds mix etc. all those Orchestra Busses (inspired by Alex Pfeffers Template) routed to one Orchestra Bus and all the "Guest stars" as Syntheziser to a Bus called Pop. I tried to use the minimal Busses as possible and reduced my previous 80 to 52 Busses and wonder if these are to much Busses asked for in a huge orchestra template? Regarding the redistribution see "Gerd Kaeding" … (-;

@ josejherring:

I'm running 4 VE Pro Servers, a 32 Bit and a 64 Bit one on each (the PC AND localy on my Mac) the PC filled up with 7,5 GB and 12 GB (of 16) on my Mac. In my Mac 64 Bit server there are 26 VE-Instances + 1 32 Bit Instance. It's too much maybe? (The problem is the 16 Midi-Channels AU-Limitation here) I've like 350 or so Midi Channels in my Template.

Ah I already routed much of the stuff inside VE Pro in order to reduce th Logic Busses needed. But doing the Verberation inside VE Pro is so &%$?! Because this would mean I have to use many many Altiverb Instances in every of the 26 Instances where as in logic I just use the send Bus routing the single tracks to the one reverbs for everything. Wow this would be a tough one to reconfigure =( IF VE Pro just would have an Extra Mixer where every of the Instances can be routed to like in logic. One more point is that in order to be flexible and quickly change Reverbs it would be so brilliant having the Reverbs inside logic realy.

@ Gerd Kaeding:

This I heard. There are some guys who therefore took again there Kontakt Instances out of VE Pro and inside logic again. I wonder if this really helps and am afraid I'll have to try that out. Unfortunateley this doesn't reduce ths Bus-count but at least the Kontakts Inside seem to be not so heavy as the VE Pro AU's inside?! Some people reported that. 

@ JT3_Jon:

Yeah. I noticed that Logic is in fact using more than one core. But the overloaded one is the classical 7th core I think. Anyway the problem seems to be that Logic seesm to no distribute the load of the one big WE Pro 64 BIt Server (containg 26 Instances). This would again mean that it would help to get some Kontakts inside Logic therefore or put some of the load on a second slave because this'd be a second "thing" for logic right? 
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## guayalex (Mar 3, 2011)

I made a quick test. And the Problem is in fact the VE Pro stuff being all processed with 1 core, no matter from were it comes. It makes no big difference when if I eliminate all FX (including 8 Instances of Altiverb and 4 of Aether) from my template or if I just Bypass them. So Bypassing the FX works excellent to save Performance. No neccesity to really delete the FX. What makes THE BIG Difference was eleminating 16 of the Ve Pro Plug-Ins in my Template (which holds 19 VE Pro Au Plug-Ins). So the VE Pro Plug-Ins are the big Performance eater on the 7th core which makes all the overload problems and NOT the FX nor the Busses. Seems that even another slave wouldn't help here but instead hosting at least half of the Kontakts in Logic and not in VE Pro. :| o/~ I hope this'll help and not cause performance problems in another way. Lets see ...


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 3, 2011)

guayalex, that bussing scheme makes sense. But I think you need VE Pro to make it work.


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## José Herring (Mar 3, 2011)

AU is limited to 16midi ins? Damn!!! You have your work cut out for you.


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## guayalex (Mar 3, 2011)

Nick Batzdorf @ Thu Mar 03 said:


> guayalex, that bussing scheme makes sense. But I think you need VE Pro to make it work.



Yes I need VE Pro but I'm forced to a hybrid-solution cause besides needing VE Pro I need to put half of the Kontakts back in logic on Top and I'm allready praying that it helps.


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## guayalex (Mar 3, 2011)

Aus limited to 16 Midis (but VE Pro can help out opening many instances) no folder tracks (yeah I use logics region folder tracks) there are work arrounds to stay with logic but this 1 core thing ... 

A little history for those ones with some Xtra time: 

I suffer from Logics 1 core spiking stuff since many years. In those days I once used a big template only with exs24 Intsances which are still the most efficient BUT just to find out that the performance was better when I DEACTIVATED the other 7 cores with a Program called CPU-Pallete (where the Mac uses only 1 Core after restart which significantly increased the performance :? I posted that docmented with pictures in many forums and wrote to apple of course. 

And now after many years with true 64 Bit OSX (with grand central dispatch) 64 Bit Kontakt, 64 Bit VE Pro and now even 64 Bit Logic I setup this big template to be stuck with basically the same problem again. Because even when I choose a "non-life-input track" (choosing a not armed dummy audio track) with just a few (let's say 10) Midi-Instruments recorded the Song is yet *not even playable* cause of the 7th core spiking. :mrgreen:


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## guayalex (Mar 3, 2011)

dcoscina @ Wed Mar 02 said:


> VSTs have always run lower on CPU than AUs or MAS or RTAS.



Another important fact. With the 1 core problem a better Format than AU would help out cause in the meantime we have "Vst 3" but still "Au v1"

I have Cubase here since quit a time and asked myself always why I don't switch. People say that Logic is much better optimized for the Mac and Cubase for the PC. (In the vsl forum someone documented that Cubase used 3 times as much performance than logic) That's why i choosed logic again. But as it seems though Cubase eats up more summed up performance it's vst Format seems to be better in some ways. 

Anyway I'll tell the results of putting some Kontakts back into logic and see if it helps.


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## José Herring (Mar 3, 2011)

Cubase supposedly works better on PC, but it's been recoded in Apples' native language so the Mac version is almost as efficient as the PC version these days. I use the PC version an it's very, very good with CPU management. 

I'd look into it again. That core spiking problem is too much to live with. Until they get that fixed Cubase may be a good alternative.

Because what it seems like to me is that Logic never fully made the transition from being a single CPU app to being a multicore app. In spite of their many claims that they utilized multicores, it seems like they are only partially being honest.


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## JT3_Jon (Mar 3, 2011)

Instead of loading a few large VE pro's housing a multitude of instruments, try loading single STEREO VE pro's in logic and loading a bunch of them. In theory logic should see these as different instruments and should load them on different cores. 

If you're willing, I'd LOVE to see the results of such a test with your template. This is how I personally use VE pro, and though I still sometimes get big spikes on that 7th core, its seems to be much more balanced overall. BTW, I have VE pro set to use one thread per instance, 2 audio ports per instance, and 1 midi port.


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## guayalex (Mar 3, 2011)

JT3_Jon @ Thu Mar 03 said:


> Instead of loading a few large VE pro's housing a multitude of instruments, try loading single STEREO VE pro's in logic and loading a bunch of them. In theory logic should see these as different instruments and should load them on different cores.



Wow. I didn't think about that option!! That's a great idea. It takes some more work than just taking the Kontakts into logic but is worth a try really because this would be the more elegant solution. I don't think that logic would distribute the VE Pro's better (as you said in theory but I believe not really) I think it's an excellent hint though because I have the hope that the multi-out plugs (my ve pro is setup to 8 Stereo Outs) have a unproportional big impact on logic compared to simple stereo plugs. How many VE Pro AU's do you have in your template btw ?


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## guayalex (Mar 3, 2011)

JT3_Jon @ Thu Mar 03 said:


> Instead of loading a few large VE pro's housing a multitude of instruments, try loading single STEREO VE pro's in logic and loading a bunch of them. In theory logic should see these as different instruments and should load them on different cores.



Wow. I didn't think about that option!! That's a great idea. It takes some more work than just taking the Kontakts into logic but is worth a try really because this would be the more elegant solution. I don't think that logic would distribute the VE Pro's better (as you said in theory but I believe not really) I think it's an excellent hint though because I have the hope that the multi-out plugs (my ve pro is setup to 8 Stereo Outs) have a unproportional big impact on logic compared to simple stereo plugs. How many VE Pro AU's do you have in your template btw ?

edit: Woooooow you were right in this distribution-guess. I just switched all VE Pro's to stereo only and have been able to see all cores of logic used! It seems i need a 2nd slave PC though because al cores were at like 80 percent but the point is that somehow all were used when transforming those ve pro's to stereo only. If The VE Pro Server runs at 2 outs per instance it'll sureley save much more power. Hmm I#ll keep on experimenting with your GREAT Tip JT3_Jon!


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 3, 2011)

> AU is limited to 16midi ins? Damn!!! You have your work cut out for you.



Logic is limited to one MIDI port per instrument track. But for instance Kontakt still has four MIDI ports - it's not an AU thing.


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## guayalex (Mar 5, 2011)

Meanwhile I tested 2 solutions

1) Making all VE Pro Instances just stereo 
2) Putting as much Kontakts as possible (half of the load) inside logic before hitting the
32 Bit Logic Ram limit

both didin't work CPU-Wise. It's just too much for Logic having streamed about 10 GB of Samples on the Master (Mac) and 7 Gb on the Windows 7 PC via VE Pro. 

So my last hope is buying a second 8GB slave PC. I already ordered one and will keep you up to date if it helps. (Fingers crossed) cause I'd still love to stay with logic with this huge Environment Template which took so long to configurate (it's much more ambitous than if I'd just have setup it in Cubase) ...


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 5, 2011)

guayalex, I've lost track of this, but what buffer do you have your audio interface set at?

Are you running Kontakts with heavy scripting? Sometimes that can cause the issues itself, regardless of all else.


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## guayalex (Mar 5, 2011)

@ Nick Batzdorf: 

Thx for getting back to me Nick. The Audio Interface is the standard Mac On Board Audio. I set Logics Buffer to 512 (didn't try 1024 yet because that may be very noticable I imagine) and all VE-Pro AU's to 2 Buffer units. 
Do you think it's too much to have 36 VE Pro AU's opened in Logic? (Most of them are simple Stereo but there are some Multis involved as well with VE Pro limited to 8 outs per Instance) I'm running some heavy scripted Instruments! That's true. Specially Sample Modelling might cause trouble here because I used them as Ensemble in the 1st Test-Songs. I'll check that out now!


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## guayalex (Mar 9, 2011)

I'd like to THANK YOU guys for the great tips. What helped the most was the idea of using many Stereo VE Pro's instead of Multitimbral once. This way one may waste a little more CPU resources BUT one I reached a much better DISTRIBUTION of the coreload! (As can be seen on the picture: 

For the 1st time I've been able playing a song with some Brass+Strings+Percussion which was absoluteley not possible before. The Picture beneath shows the new better core distribution after replacing ALL VE Pro Multis in my Template which Stereo Instances WITHOUT sacrificing any routing of course which means using more Instances of Stereo Units instead of less Multis: 





Uploaded with ImageShack.us

1st I didn't want to believe that this Stereo Ve Pro thing would help thaaaaat much. 

Therefore o-[][]-o


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## toddkreuz (Mar 9, 2011)

Great news Guayalex!!

Happy to hear you're sorting it out. Cheers!!

TK


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## stonzthro (Mar 24, 2011)

Wait - so you use 1 VE Pro for 1 instrument? Like 1 VE Pro for the LASS violin 1 legato only, then another VE Pro instance for LASS violin 1 staccato?


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 24, 2011)

What stonz is asking - do you just mean stereo VE Pros rather than having multiple outputs; or do you also mean having one Kontakt instance in each stereo VE Pro; or do you mean something in between?


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## guayalex (Mar 24, 2011)

Hi stonzthro & Nick!

Oh Don't worry. Luckily I didn't have to use one VE Pro per Instrument but only eliminating Multi-Out Kontakts. Sometimes it can get confusing i know.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As an explicit Example:

Instead of 
1 VE Pro Instance hosting 1 Kontakt Multi (let's say containing 8 EWQL Brasses and 8 Symphobia Brasses) therefore routed inside VE Pro to EWQL and Symphobia Buses channels and inside Logic to 2 Auxes (EWQL and Symphobia) 

I now use 

2 VE Pro Instances containing 1 Kontakt Multi Each. 1 VE Pro hosting 8 EWQL Brasses and the other hosting the 8 Symphobia Brasses. Inside Logic I know need 2 AU's.

That's it.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Btw. those 2 AU's know use slightly more CPU Power than the one before BUT the load is better spreaded! So in the end the 2nd solution is MUCH better in Practice. I made "real world" tests as explained above.

After having that done (as you can see) the load for my Mac is MUCH better but still to high hosting that much and being Master at the same time. I'll inform you very soon if (and how much) it hopefully helped to get much of the samples on a 2nd slave PC.


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## guayalex (Mar 24, 2011)

In other words (more simple and better explained before 



JT3_Jon @ Thu Mar 03 said:


> Instead of loading a few large VE pro's housing a multitude of instruments, try loading single STEREO VE pro's in logic and loading a bunch of them. In theory logic should see these as different instruments and should load them on different cores..



I followed this Theory of JT3 and it was right! o-[][]-o


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## stonzthro (Mar 24, 2011)

Thanks - that's what I figured, but I wasn't totally sure (always looking for ways to squeeze more out of my system, of course)


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 24, 2011)

Got it. Thanks.


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## Ashermusic (Mar 24, 2011)

I have been posting that Logic is non-multi-timbral friendly and that in general you should use more instances with fewer instruments in one as everything within that instance goes to 1 core for years here.

That also applies to VE Pro instances.


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## jlb (Mar 24, 2011)

Hi Jay, Mike on the other thread says that the recent Kontakt spreads a single instance across cores? I must admit I haven't tried, but I am not keen on all the other hassle with having one big Kontakt instance like having to create a load of auxes in logic.

jlb


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## JT3_Jon (Mar 24, 2011)

guayalex @ Thu Mar 24 said:


> In other words (more simple and better explained before
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Yeay! I did something!! :lol: 

But seriously, glad I could help.


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## studioj (Jul 16, 2011)

Would like to resurrect this thread again...

Having terrible problems with processor spikes in Logic 9. Latest version of Logic, VE Pro, Kontakt, etc... Mac Pro 8 core 2.93. 

Mac Pro dual quad 2.93
32 gigs RAM
VE Pro (version from April) local 64 bit server, 7-10 instances
Logic 9.14
LASS, cinebrass, symphobias, vsl, etc...

Upon initially opening a demanding project everything is fine, but after working with it for a bit, or if its the 2nd or 3rd project I've opened without rebooting, processor spikes all over... sometimes just one, sometimes many at a time. thought it might be memory related so I upped to 32 from 16, still same issue. Still happens when I solo a single track (like a drum in Drums of war... even if the track is not playing through VE Pro (kontakt loaded in Logic), or if I have NO tracks playing at all. Only thing that stops it is if I disconnect my VE Pro instances. So it seems it is def VE Pro related. All my VE Pro instances are Stereo. they each have a single instance of kontakt, and none of them are handling much polyphony on their own .... and again when the problem creeps up, i doesn't matter if I'm playing back material or not... I can throw Logic into solo mode with NO tracks selected and I'll still get the processor spike after 15-20 seconds of playback, so it can't be disk related, right?. Rebooting clears it up temporarily. This wasn't really happening 6 months ago... all that has changed is more recent versions of kontakt, Logic, and VE Pro... 

I do have everything feeding a single bus... but the load is actually spread pretty well most of the time... processors floating from 5-20%... maybe one has a little more... but spikes don't seem to be related to load.. often they happen on 5 cores at once. and they shoot up from that low value. 

also when its not spiking, why am I getting so much processor usage when I'm not playing back ANY tracks? I'm used to Logic sitting idle pretty much unless something is being processed. If VEPro is connected its sucking juice whether playback is happening or not I guess. 

have tried switching kontakt betwen no multi core usage and other settings.... 

The vast majority of my projects are fairly simple in nature as far as computer load so it hasn't been an issue much but the last couple weeks I've had some more involved things come through and its been a real pain. 

All I can think is that one update from kontakt or VEP broke something... Anyone have any suggestions? Thanks so much.

j


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## NOX (Aug 1, 2011)

@ JT3_Jon
@ guayalex
@ Ashermusic

I was currently setting up a (larger) orchestral template in Logic
and soon bumped into the (dreadful) "Logic 1 Core Curse with VE Pro"...

So i googled my "situation" and found your solution here... and quite a solution it is !

I had the 7th core overflow with 8 instances of MULTIOUT VEPRO using tons of
Auxs in Logic...while all others cores remained silent at nil position...

now everything is spread evenly around the 8 th cores using VEPRO STEREO.
with very few Aux's in Logic...

Did the trick ! i am very thankful for your help !


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