Can having too many instances of a VST or Plugin cause it to crash?

S

Suprarick

New member
Hello,

I am still trying to figure my work-flow with Logic Pro and Producing/Mixing. I think I may have been over-doing it, but perhaps not. I was recording, producing, and mixing down all in the same project file. I had a few instances of a mixing plugin and it started causing crashes. Logic Pro specifically came up with a message saying Logic crashed due to a 3rd party plugin (that was used alot and is cpu heavy). I had to turn off the plugin for my project to open up and work properly. Could this be a reason why some people produce, mix, and master in different project files as opposed to one big project file? Thanks. I do have 16 gig of Ram, a 2.3ghz i7 2011 Macbook Pro, and a 1TB hard drive so I should be fine as far as performance.

Rick
 
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I guess it depends on how the (DAW) software is programmed to handle plugin crashes or and/or overload situations - some perform better than others.

I also doubt there's an unified reason to why some people want to work with separate project files, but managing CPU load may well be one of them.
 
Yes, it can. I don't know about LP, but Ableton has a freeze function that 'freezes' a track and disallows any modifications to it. The result is lower CPU load.
 
I had that problem with my old PC. What is important for a fluid workflow is the memory and a good processor. I bought a new rig just for that, with a pentium I7 8 core processor and 16 gigs of ram. ever since, I have had very, very few crashes.
 
yes too many vst'sm / plugins cause projects to crash.. i would take the the audio file and export it and mix it separately..
 
I had some idea that when you have used up all your available memory then, it will/might crash. Not certain of this however and I think it applies more to the operating system.. Or they go hand in hand (obviously the daw won't work without it)

Someone will most likely correct this ignorant post. :-)
 
no, spot on

the questions to always ask when confronted with sort of issue is:

is the program (daw) allocated a slab of memory that it cannot exceed (fl does this)? or is memory dynamic based upon needs (cubase does this)?

what is the maximum RAM available after the os has taken its share?

when I add each new plug-in what is the net increase in ram usage?

what size is my virtual memory (aka paging file)? most sys admins recommend at least 1.5 times actual ram so that there is always space to page in and page out active vs dormant apps (that there is swap space in excess of the actual ram available)

Am I trying to use 32 bit plug-ins in a 64 bit os and what RAM overhead is generated as a result of that?
 
Look at your cpu usage on the DAW. If that is showing that you are using all the cpu, try temporarily deactivating some plugins that aren't essential whilst you are mixing
 
I wouldn't say the plugins themselves, maybe if the ram and processor is overloaded for a relatively long period of time then yes.
4gb can handle quite much of plugins, but if playing back in realtime then processor matters too if it's a midi track.

It's either save disk space or cpu. Most desktops don't even need the bounce method but it's so dam convenient but loses the flexibility of midi.

Audio interface takes load off cpu
Some daws is 32bit some is 64 bit[32bit 4gb?64 bit is 128gb limit I think]

 
KonKossKang said:
64 bit is 128gb limit I think]
Click to expand...

The theoretical RAM limit for 64-bit systems is more or less insane, at 16.8 million terabytes. Of course, this is physically impossible (someone calculated that this would need a motherboard about 4000 miles long), and more practically the current crop of CPUs can't actually handle that much, putting a more realistic (but still fairly mental) cap at 8TBs or so - which, of course, is still very much out of reach because the biggest (commercially) available RAM chips are 32Gbs - so that might be where the 128Gbs comes from. But it's a limit of what can be fitted in the case with the current available components rather than that of the OS itself.

More on-topic: a well-written DAW shouldn't really crash, of course. It should "realize" it's running out of RAM or CPU cycles and maybe stop playback, shut down plugins to keep recording without dropouts, or just simply tell you that you're gonna run out of resources soon & disable some stuff to keep going. Not really sure how well different DAWs handle crashing plugins, but at least Bitwig has a modern implementation where a single plugin going awry doesn't interfere with the DAW itself at all but rather just crashes on its own. Other DAWs will probably follow suit.
 
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