Logic Express 7.1/G4 Dual 450/828mkII/much crackling

[workshed]

So I recently upgraded my 2408 mk1 to an 828 mkII. Last night, I tried doing some very basic tracking at 88.2khz and with just one track, a guitar DI'd via my MP20, I was getty crazy crackling sounds when I had the AUMAtrixReverb plugin enabled on that track as I recorded. Turned off the reverb and the crackling disappeared, for the most part. No problem tracking at 44.1khz, but the higher sample rate seems to be taxing something in the chain. And this also happened when I tried some other reverb plugins.

Is this a limitation of my CPU, or is it something with how I have my Firewire HD and 828 hooked up? Buffering is set to 512k.

I know that some interfaces recommend you don't have your Firewire HD plugged into the same FW card as the interface, so I am wondering if that is the problem. it's not clear in the manual if you can plug a firewire drive into the extra port on the back of the 828. It seems like it's just there for chaining another 828 to it. I am using a LaCie D2 Extreme 200 GB drive. Both that and the 828 are plugged into the G4's factory firewire card. I have a second FW card installed in a PCI slot, but it's a very basic card, so I am not sure it will serve this purpose much better.

Any help would be much appreciated. I upgraded to the 828mkII largely so I could take advantage of the higher sample rates, so I'd like to get this working. If I need to upgrade to a G5, then I guess that's something I've been needing to do for a number of reasons, but I'd like to eek by on my G4 as long as I can, as the tax man is not going to be nice to me this year.

-Bret

[thearnicasync]

One track at 88.2, even with reverb, shouldn't be that dramatic. How much RAM do you have? That's one less expensive way to get more performance. Also, check to see what your latency setting is, and whether or not the motu has a dsp mixer (i think it does) that will allow you track with much higher latency. You simply set your latency high, mute the track in Logic, and monitor directly through the motu mixer software.

But yeah, if your latency is set anywhere below 256, and you're using reverb, and have like 512 mb or ram, you're going to struggle with this.

If it makes you feel any better, I have a G5, and I still struggle with crackling...even when the system performance says I shouldn't be.

Best of luck, and write back when you get it solved!

[workshed]

One track at 88.2, even with reverb, shouldn't be that dramatic. How much RAM do you have? That's one less expensive way to get more performance. Also, check to see what your latency setting is, and whether or not the motu has a dsp mixer (i think it does) that will allow you track with much higher latency. You simply set your latency high, mute the track in Logic, and monitor directly through the motu mixer software.

But yeah, if your latency is set anywhere below 256, and you're using reverb, and have like 512 mb or ram, you're going to struggle with this.

If it makes you feel any better, I have a G5, and I still struggle with crackling...even when the system performance says I shouldn't be.

Best of luck, and write back when you get it solved!

Yeah, I have about 1.4 GB of RAM, so I'm thinking that's not the issue. The MOTU does have the Cuemix DSP mixer, which I've not messed around with enough yet. I probably should look into that. Actually, I just did a bunch of reading and now understand that I should not be monitoring through Logic anymore and now that Cuemix works with my interface, I should be using that instead. Also read through the manual and found out some settings in Logic's Core Audio preferences box to make things run a little more smoothly. I'll have to give those options a whirl. Now I get to learn how to run Cuemix. Yet another thing to configure when I do a session!

Thank for the help and information!

-Bret

[workshed]

Okay, follow up. I spent some time tonight checking out how everything is hooked up and realized that, like a complete ninny, I had plugged the 828 into my cheap PCI firewire add-on card. Duh. Moved it up to the built-in FW card, swapped out with a heavier duty cable and the same track that was crackling like a bowl of rice krispies suddenly sounded much cleaner. I think (and am hoping to high hell) that was the problem. Thanks again for the help.