How do I keep plugins loaded in ram and how do I keep them loaded even when I switch between projects?

Hey, I've got two connected questions that have been bothering me for quite a while:

tldr: How do I keep plugins loaded in ram and how do I keep them loaded even when I switch between projects?

 

1. There's this annoying thing regarding loading of plugins. For example waves Grand Rhapsody has a huge library. When I, for example, go to safari, check something or basically do anything that requires ram, logic automatically "unloads" the library and what I need to do is smash all the keys for like 5 minutes for the library to load again. Restarting the project is slower as the plugin itself loads these 5 minutes + the time it takes for the project to load.

2. The second thing is that sometimes I like to have two projects open and switching between the windows sometimes takes even 5 minutes. I can't do anything about the speed of my machine temporarily so I am trying to fix that in some way. Especially annoying is the fact that plugins like the aforementioned grand rhapsody has to load extra 5 minutes to work. This is seriously stifling my creativity as I have to constantly wait for everything.

 

I know about the dynamic plugin loading setting but it doesn't help here.

 

So the two questions are:

How do I keep plugins loaded in ram and how do I keep them loaded even when I switch between projects?

Thanks!

The way the Film/TV guys handle this is to not have the plugins loaded in the DAW, they use external machines hosting the instruments, which stay loaded all the time.

 

(You could fake this in software by using a different host running for the plugins to Logic, if it's that much of a problem for you.)

From what I can tell this solution requires more paid software and isn't that convinient. I wish there was a solution that was built into logic like a weird keyboard shortcut "cmd-shift-f7 click on a plugin to keep it loaded and it changed the color to green or something" or some hidden setting found in a pllist file etc. Is there anything free that I could implement easily for au plugins without much hassle? Are there any other solutions that could help with at least one of the issues? Edited November 19, 2021 by 0record0

there are a dozen threads here reminding people NOT to have more than one project open at a time; terrible things can (and do) happen. that's the thing to do here; only open one project at a time...

I did notice some strange stuff going on once and didn't think much of it. Good to know that it's not something that I should be doing

I did notice some strange stuff going on once and didn't think much of it. Good to know that it's not something that I should be doing

 

some here have had horrific glitches, data loss... etc. anyway, this, in it's way, solves your issue. have fun!

When I, for example, go to safari, check something or basically do anything that requires ram, logic automatically "unloads" the library and what I need to do is smash all the keys for like 5 minutes for the library to load again.

 

Wait a minute, you have a project open, you switch to Safari, and your plugins get unloaded? (!)

 

Or are you saying you're using a large amount of RAM so your computer is swapping to disk, so when you load other applications, your computer slows down because it's RAM starved and has to swap to disk hard? How much RAM is in your machine, and how much are you using? (See the "Memory Pressure" graph in Activity Monitor.)

 

If your problem is basically that you are out of RAM resources and swapping to disk, then trying to store *more* plugins in RAM isn't going to speed up your workflow.

 

Really, the better solution to speed things up is use a machine with more available RAM, or find ways to reduce your RAM usage (less plugins, smaller libraries, less sounds loaded at once, run less apps at once etc).

reboot. make sure no apps are set to open on logic. open ONLY logic, and work. come back to safari (or anything else) when you're done working. just... a suggestion...

des99:

I know my machine doesn't have enough ram but the thing is that:

If I started a new project, put let's say a grand rhapsody AU with its massive sound library, the library would load after a while and after that everything would be working smoothly. The activity monitor would say that there's way too little actual RAM in my machine and a lot of swap was used but that wouldn't change anything as everything would be smooth and lag, stutter etc. free. Then let's say I did something (that isn't in Logic) that would require some of that precious RAM/swap that Logic is using to have the GR sound library loaded in a usable way. That act of using anything other than Logic results in, the sound library, when I come back to logic, to be unusable as there's a lot of stuttering etc. Basically Logic is moving that library probably whole to swap which is slow on my machine. I would love for a way to tell Logic/macOS not to do anything to that beautifuly loaded sound library, leave it as it was and just if there's a need - starve other processses that want to fight for that RAM. I don't want to have to smash all the keys to load the library again. There's a way to refresh the library but it's a bit slower actually and less stress relieving So anyway is there a way to, I don't know what to call it, "prioritize Logic's or certain plugin's ram ussage over different processses or other plugins"?

With the ram I have Logic can in fact work smoothly because it does until something takes that ram. There's plenty of junk swap to be used so why isn't MacOS taking that and instead it is offloading that library that's been loading for such a long time. I would like safari or anything basically to be forced to use the slowest of the slowest swaps there are just to leave logic alone if I need to use something for some reason.

 

fisherking:

Well that solves one problem but creates a dozen. I often need to collaborate on projects, actievely exchange files, use google docs to mark changes etc. I can't just not use anything other than Logic or use a different device. What I need is a solution that just changes the way ram is handled on my machine when something other than Logic appears and fights for ram. These processes should just use the slowest swap there is just to leave logic alone.

 

In a year I will move to a different machine but for now I am stuck with what I have and I would love to know what I could adjust for it to better suit my needs.

Excuse the grammar it's like 4:30 am here and I am really tired.

Well, you're basically using a machine that doesn't have enough RAM to work smoothly for what you want to do. You can't tune how the system uses swap in low memory situations.

 

Are you disk streaming your samples, or loading them into RAM? Disk streaming can help to reduce RAM requirements, and most system that support it can be tuned a little bit, including Sampler in Logic, Kontakt etc...

 

At least you know the cause of the problem, and the potential solutions to improve it.

 

4:30am here too... (!)

Why not try using another piano that doesn't take 5 minutes to load? You could always print it later if it's that much better sounding. The piano in Logic Sampler is pretty good.

 

Steve

Taking 5 minutes to load would drive me batty. There's obviously something you need to comes to grip with: either your workflow needs adjusting or your computer is underpowered for your requirements or perhaps its a bit of both. At the end of the day only you can choose what the best plan of action is.

So anyway is there a way to, I don't know what to call it, "prioritize Logic's or certain plugin's ram ussage over different processses or other plugins"?

 

I think this is actual question you're asking, and the answer, from a user perspective, is no. Apple, as far as I know, haven't provided anyway for us, as users, to adjust how Logic resources are handled by the OS.

 

I would ask this: are your samples running off a spinning disk or an SSD drive? I'm not a big sample library user but one of the issues using these sample-based instruments is "how has the developer decided to handle seamlessly reading all these massive files". If they bring it all into memory, and you don't have enough memory to load it all, the application/OS will need to use disk again (as you already appear to understand). If your disk is a physical spinning disk, the performance of that memory 'expansion' will be atrocious compared to regular memory. If your disk is SSD, your experience should be far more fluid and uninterrupted.

 

That might be a reasonable, cheap, quick-fix for your current environment; buy an SSD disk and install all your sample-based instruments on there.

Until you have more physical memory you don't have that many options.