Poor Logic Pro X performance on a decent spec Macbook Pro

[Matt Ress]

Hi all. This is my first post here, but I'm hoping to stay for longer. For a bit of a TL;DR I am having performance issues with Logic on a decent Macbook pro, can't record using amp sims as it stutters, glitches, stops and then goes back to the beginnig of a bar.

Now for more details, last year I bought a 2017 Macbook Pro 13" (i7, 16gb, 512 ssd) and UAD Apollo Twin Duo to replace my old and trusty Mac Mini 2012 (i7, 16gb, ssd) and Focusrite Scarlett interface. Since then I am no longer able to make music like I used to as it seems my mac can no longer handle Logic. On my Mini I was running bigger projects that were easily over 100 tracks (10-20 amp sims, tons of synths, vocals and drums with processing on them etc) and still be able to add more guitar tracks and record (or jam). Currently Logic is struggling A LOT with Logic Drummer and couple of guitar tracks. It is damn near impossible to double track guitar as it glitches, stops and goes back to the beginnig of a bar/sequence. It is very strange as having 4 tracks in a project should not be an overkill.

I obviously tried to do research, update OS, drivers, Logic etc. Not long ago I decided to wipe my mac, install everything from scratch (not a restore), update to Catalina (as UAD says it's ok to do so), install all latest updates etc and... nothing changed. Logic behaves exactly the same.

Here's a link to a short video showing the issue during playback. Same thing happens when recording.

https://imgur.com/a/CrLZ0Az

 

[Ritsuka]

That's weird, stuttering a thing, but randomly jumping back is a something else. Did you already tried another audio card or with the built-in audio?

 

[ctrlzone]

this is very strange, something is wrong.
Did you change your sample rate, buffer, etc?
Depending on the stuff used, Audio can bring any machine to its Knees easily, but from the looks of it your not a Beginner and know that.
Even then, only a handful of Tracks should still be doable fairly easy.

-was this happening before Catalina?
-Cpu load/temps?

 

[Matt Ress]

That's weird, stuttering a thing, but randomly jumping back is a something else. Did you already tried another audio card or with the built-in audio?

Unfortunately I am not in a position to test with another card. I did not think of trying with the built-in audio as my goal is to record guitars and can't do it without an interface. I will test it however as part of troubleshooting.

this is very strange, something is wrong.
Did you change your sample rate, buffer, etc?
Depending on the stuff used, Audio can bring any machine to its Knees easily, but from the looks of it your not a Beginner and know that.
Even then, only a handful of Tracks should still be doable fairly easy.

-was this happening before Catalina?
-Cpu load/temps?

Sample rate is set to 128, switching to 256 doesn't change much. If I set it up even higher then the latency makes it unplayable.

Yes, this was happening before Catalina. I updated the OS hoping to fix the issue. I haven't checked CPU loads or temps because fans don't speed up when using Logic, so I'm guessing CPU is not sweating.

 

[0128672]

How very frustrating! Another Logic troubleshooting idea I use sometimes is make a copy of the file and delete a track and retest to isolate what might be causing the issue. I hope you'll let us know when you've narrowed it down. Good luck.

 

[ctrlzone]

CPU is not sweating

double check to be sure, if you overload 1 thread/core you get glitches, even if the rest is idle.
open activity monitor and doubleclick cpu load at bottom center to bring up the core displays

128 is pretty low, set it to 512 or more just to see if anything changes
this also depends on your sample rate, a higher sample rate gives lower latency but needs way more cpu
try with 48 khz,

but still, a couple tracks should be doable even with the highest quality/lowest latency...
your hardware is at the very top, it should perform excellent

are this older tracks you loaded or does this happen even if you start with a blank one?
try to make a new Song and use only native plugins, it could be an incompatibility issue with a specific plugin

does your machine have issues in other Apps/OS in general ?

do you have a healthy Amount of free Disk space available?

also try to disconnect any external hardware, literally everything besides the Apollo.

have you done all the steps mentioned here:

macOS 10.15 Catalina Compatibility Info

Note: If using a different version of macOS, see the Latest OS Compatibility article. Overview The latest UAD software is tested and compatible with macOS Catalina. With Catalina, macOS system s...

help.uaudio.com

 

[ctrlzone]

also try to look at the logic cpu/Hd meters, while this is happening.

 

[nebojsak]

also try to disconnect any external hardware, literally everything besides the Apollo.

I'd try this, along with plugging your instrument directly into MBP, no matter the latency, to isolate the problem (if that matters, try with checking Low Latency Mode, but this is all for test purposes).

Some years ago I've been struggling with sudden latency out of the blue, and the reason was forgotten usb flash stick.

I love Logic, but it is proven prone to issues induced by common peripherals and stuff.

 

[ctrlzone]

i just noticed the Playhead is always jumping back exactly at the Loop start-point.
this could also be a faulty control surface/key binding etc, activating they play button/spacebar etc.

 

[Matt Ress]

Thanks for your input. How do you think I could fix this?

I have been playing around with options and managed to sort of get it to a slightly better place but the playhead keeps jumping back to the loop start point.

 

[ctrlzone]

remove all control surfaces in setup, if the issue is indeed a received "play" message, it could be something like the logic remote

 

[Matt Ress]

I don't use any control surfaces, there isn't any listed. Last time I used Logic Remote was years ago.

 

[ctrlzone]

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i think you should should start a thread there