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Finally: disable/enable tracks (load/unload memory) in Logic – with an auto-function!

Vik

Vi-k


About dynamic plug-in loading in Logic Pro X

Logic Pro X 10.4.5 only loads the plug-ins and software instruments needed to play the project, which helps projects open faster.


Dynamic plug-in loading helps projects with a lot of plug-ins and software instruments open faster. When you open a project, Logic analyzes the project and makes only the tracks needed for playback active. Here are the types of tracks Logic makes active when you open a project:

  • Audio tracks that have audio regions (not including frozen tracks)
  • Software instrument tracks that have MIDI regions (not including frozen tracks)
  • Tracks with input monitoring turned on
  • Tracks with plug-ins that generate sound without requiring any input (such as the Test Oscillator)
  • Tracks with external or ReWire inputs
Tracks with plug-ins and software instruments not needed for playback are inactive and dimmed in the Mixer.

When you select an inactive track, Logic loads the plug-ins on that track. Logic also loads plug-ins on an inactive track when you do things like add a region to the track, unfreeze a frozen track, or add a plug-in to an inactive track.

Manually make tracks inactive and active
You can manually make tracks inactive to save system resources. Press and hold the Option key, then click the On/Off button in the track header in the Main window. If you don't see the On/Off button in the track header, choose Track > Configure Track Header, then select On/Off.

When you make a track with audio regions inactive, you also make turn off the track’s audio regions. If you close then reopen the project, the whole track remains inactive until you manually activate it.

To manually activate a channel, click the track header On/Off button in the Main window. In the Mixer, click an empty Audio Effect slot, then choose Activate Channel.

Turn off dynamic plug-in loading
You can turn this setting off for each project:

  1. Open your project
  2. Choose File > Project Settings > General, then deselect "Only load plug-ins needed for project playback."

    (From https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT209636)
 
Holy cow ... I gotta test this out. This could be a game changer.

EDIT: wow, this is very promising. Just tested it on my MBP's busking template (which is limited in size). I don't know if the project really loaded any faster, but it appears that it does indeed refrain from loading samples in Kontakt on empty tracks. When I click on such a track, it immediately pops up the Kontakt "loading samples" dialog for the instruments on that Kontakt instance. Seems like this could work ... I'll have to wait until later this afternoon to try it with my full orchestral template in the studio though.
 
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Seems to be back. And holy cow ... I gotta test this out. This could be a game changer.
Well, it means that you can load a very large template in little time. Each of the tracks won't be enabled until you click it.

And, even better: if you freeze a track, the memory that track uses is also unloaded. Furthermore, if you select all or or some of your tracks, you can enable/disable all of them by Alt-clicking on one of them.
 
Game changer it is!
I just found a little quirk: if I freeze a Kontakt track before I have saved a project, it will unload the track when I freeze it.However, when it reloads the track after unfreezing it again, it opens Kontakt but doesn't load the library I used. It works fine if I saved the project first: unfreezing the track will then reload the library I used and its samples.
 
Game changer it is!
I just found a little quirk: if I freeze a Kontakt track before I have saved a project, it will unload the track when I freeze it.However, when it reloads the track after unfreezing it again, it opens Kontakt but doesn't load the library I used. It works fine if I saved the project first: unfreezing the track will then reload the library I used and its samples.
This might be a stupid question, but to make sure I understood you, does this mean that users must always save right before freezing and unloading, or does this only occur in new projects that need to be saved for the first time?
 
Don't know yet - I just discovered it. But regarding new projects, it always makes sense to save a project even before you have found a title for it, just as a temp. "Untitled 1" project... My guess is that the above could be a bug.
 
Still not seeing the update here in Switzerland - only showing 10.4.4 in the App Store (10.4.5 is listed in the version history, but no option to update or install, unless I'm missing something?). I think it will be rolled out sequentially, so maybe tomorrow... gives me another day to play with my non-template template!! :unsure:
 
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Still not seeing the update here in Switzerland - only showing 10.4.4 in the App Store (10.4.5 is listed in the version history, but no option to update or install, unless I'm missing something?). I think it will be rolled out sequentially, so maybe tomorrow... gives me another day to play with my non-template template!! :unsure:

have it already in my appstore and iam from germany. youre not running sierra,right?
 
have it already in my appstore and iam from germany. youre not running sierra,right?

I'm on Mojave (10.14.5). This is what I see right now: no install option yet (even though 10.4.5 is showing in version history), just 'OPEN' as the only option. Could be different in Switzerland, as we have different App Stores. Screen Shot 2019-06-13 at 11.01.21 PM.png
 
I'm on Mojave (10.14.5). This is what I see right now: no install option yet (even though 10.4.5 is showing in version history), just 'OPEN' as the only option. Could be different in Switzerland, as we have different App Stores.

Ditto here, in US. Mojave, and App Store shows 10.4.5 in Version History, but no actual install link.
 
Something else you can try -- I had to click on "Updates" in the App store's sidebar, then select "Reload Page" (Command-R) from the "Store" menu in order to get it to show up here.
 
Wow, very solid point update. Lots of optimisations, UI is definitely snappier. Track load/unload works like a dream. Works across multiple tracks simultaneously without any hiccups. User defaults for the mixer window...hurrah!
 
The new “Only load plug-ins needed for project playback” feature seems similar to making instrument track plugins inactive in Pro Tools. It's a great way to reduce the RAM used in a session. I wonder if this new Logic Pro X feature works better at releasing RAM during the process than Pro Tools does.

The problem in Pro Tools is that it lets go of some but not all of the RAM when you make the plugins inactive (after having already been active). For example, I can open a big template with all of the plugins inactive and Pro Tools memory meter reads only 10%. As I activate plugins and then deactivate them, the memory usage creeps ever upward in a two steps forward (make active), one step back pattern (make inactive). After activating and deactivating instrument track plugins over and over again, the same state I began with at 10% memory usage may read at 40-50% memory usage. Closing and reopening the session doesn't help, but quitting Pro Tools and restarting it with the same session finally returns RAM usage to its original 10%.

Has anyone tried using the new feature in Logic enough to determine whether it releases every bit of the RAM after unloading a plugin? If so, I may start using Logic Pro X more often again.

Thanks, in advance, for any feedback.

Best,

Geoff
 
Don't forget to use Option-Click on the on/off button on the track to unload a plugin from RAM. Empty tracks start without loading into RAM, but once loaded, they do not unload out of RAM if you just click them off - you have to option-click them off, and then it offloads the RAM too.

This update is amazing. Never could have imagined this 400+ track template I've now built, running on a single machine, loading/saving in <10 seconds, using <2Gb RAM on startup, but here it is. I'm truly amazed and how much this changes things.
 
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