Let's take this one step at a time, starting with...
I really don't know what you mean about TB drives being "a good start"... frankly it comes off a little condescending... hopefully unintentional on your part but that's how I'm receiving it. Feel like I'm being goaded into a pissing contest where I tell you I've been an IT professional for 20 years, and that I too have multiple RAID arrays... one for off site backup, one for recording/tracking, one for Time Machine. I too have Apollos and a Satellite connected to my TB3 dock. Do I go full nerd and include CCNA and A+ certified in my signature? Where do I upload my resume?
I'm going to put a pin in your ego right from the start. What does an A+ and CCNA certification have to do with audio production? In one word
nothing. It has nothing to do with how Logic works, or how the Mac OS works for that matter. In fact, the only thing your Cisco knowledge does is bolster my side in what I have already known for 35+ years of serving the technical needs of rocks stars through some of the best technical minds in the business, is that audio production is not about speed, but about bandwidth.
If you feel the facts are condescending and feel you have to start a pissing contest, that's totally a you thing.
Look, the only thing I'm having problems with is CPU utilization in conjunction with UADx plugs. No, I didn't migrate. No, I'm not having font problems. Yes, I too have maintained clean systems in the past. I believe this one is clean too, with the exception of my UADx-related problem... which might not be a problem... for all I know, it maybe expected behavior. Or something on my system is f*cked and it's only impacting Logic when I use more than 35 UADx plugs?
Just out of my own curiosity, I just uglified` a mix with 20 extra instances of Hitsville Chamber, which is rather resource heavy, on top of the 19 other UADx plugins. This is the result:
Logic's performance meter is not a cpu meter, but a CoreAudio meter which shows just how much the CPU is processing in relation to CoreAudio. Higher numbers not only mean more plug-ins. It's also means something else is causing the CPU to work harder with CoreAudio. Disk spikes and background processes will drive up this meter. The fact that I just took 22 hungry hippos of a plug-in across 12 cores means very little is getting in the way. I'd probably agree that 22 of these might cause an overload on an M1, since the specs of the M1 reveal 4 performance cores.
But you don't have 22 hungry hippos... in fact, your previous message reveals you to only have 4. That should not trip the M1 in this case. The studers, compressors, etc., aren't enough to `trip the M1. Thus, it is not unreasonable to conclude that something else is eating up your bandwidth.
Again, I have no problem working in projects with exponentially more plugs and tracks with stock Logic and Waves plugs. So it's possible the UADx plugs are so much more intensive that I should expect to hit a wall on my system on projects such as the one I'm working on... pointing to the limitations of my plain M1 system... ie the proverbial "something" is the nature of the UADx plugs hitting the CPU harder than other plugs hit it.
I don't use Waves plugins so I know nothing about them. Logic plugins don't count because they are not AUs and thus don't play by CoreAudio rules. Yes, I will agree that the UADx plug-ins require more CPU power by comparison. However, you only had 4 resource hungry plug-ins.
And in an effort to clear up some terms... when you suggest 16 GB RAM as a possible issue... if that were the case (and I don't think is), it's a moot point as far as I'm concerned because the RAM is soldered into the laptop. So in order to address that theoretical problem, I'd have to upgrade both RAM and CPU. At which point my Perf Mon screenshots would look a lot more like yours.
Not enough RAM is just that: not enough RAM. Your IT experience could have told you that one. Mine did. Who cares about how you would need more? But I will agree with you in that in order to get more RAM, you probably would need a more capable CPU only because the M1 seemed to have a 16GB limitation. The fact of the matter, however, is that if your unit is paging, it's eating CPU. If it's eating CPU, CoreAudio is going to vomit.
The plain and simple fact is that when it comes to Logic, you have a 4-core system with 16GB. Logic is reserving 13.5GB of RAM leaving 3.5GB for the OS and everything else. If Logic can't let go of the RAM that it has reserved, it's going to page your memory in order to run various background tasks of who knows what you have in there. You're probably going to need to go through your system with a fine tooth comb and check to see what daemons are running and stop from the loading. You will also have to look at other background processes. If you don't have the bandwidth to run everything in your computer, an M3 isn't enough to save you.
Whether you consider what I am saying or not, it doesn't matter to me. I'm not the one experiencing CoreAudio issues, and with good reason. Take it however you want.
jord
