Logic vs Live on a Mac with 512 mg RAM

[jsearing]

Hello,
I know, I know! What am I doing with only 512 mg of Ram? Here's the story in a nutshell......
I purchased my computer (G5 Dual 2) with it's stock RAM of 512 about 4 years ago. At that time I was using Logic Pro 7 and I didn't have any more money to upgrade my RAM at that time. So I just worked with what I had at that time. And it worked for me. Seriously! I only used Logic's plug ins. Any other 3rd party plugs didn't work well on 512 megs of RAM but I got by with Logics plugs. I did full productions with it. It worked.

For personal reasons I decided to stop music altogether. Well 2 years later I am itching to get back into it and I fell in love with Ableton Live at a music store.

So I purchased Live Suite 8. I install the software everything seems great until I open up a Drum Rack and BAM!!! Everything just stops! Any instrument Live loads samples into seems to hog up my small amount of RAM. I tried different variations and all produce the same sluggish results. Then I get an idea to opened up Logic and see if it would work like it used to. And it did!
I opened up 6 ES2 inst, 4 sculptures, 5 EXS samplers with giga-samples loaded up. It worked great! I could have kept going with it too. I still think Live is a better app than Logic. I just need RAM. But this raises some questions...

Has Apple done something to their software to make it run smoother and need less RAM on their OS?

why does live eat up so much RAM and Logic doesn't? Is 4 gigs going to be enough for Live?

Is it something else in my set up that Live doesn't like?

My specs:
G5 Dual 2, 512 mg RAM
OSX 10.4.11
Logic Pro 7
Ableton Live Suite 8
Presonus Firebox

P.S. I have ordered 4 gigs of RAM and its on its way.......


Thanks,
Johnny

[GUY SMILEY]

did you use EXS24 much in Logic ?
any thing which fires samples usually uses up a lot of RAM.
64bit Operating systems have been introduced in order to increase maximum RAM beyond 4GB, and this is thought to benefit Garritan virtual orchestra and stuff like that most of all.

In other words, stop using Drum Racks and you should be OK

[ghostly]

How is your CPU holding up?

[MartinOM28V]

Then I get an idea to opened up Logic and see if it would work like it used to. And it did!
I opened up 6 ES2 inst, 4 sculptures, 5 EXS samplers with giga-samples loaded up. It worked great!

[GUY SMILEY]

ah ok, well I'm wrong there then aren't I ?
someone else better wade in and advise

[Hidden Driveways]

I use Live 8 with a dual 1.8 gHz G5 running Tiger 10.4.11 with 2.5 GB of Ram. I think you'll see an improvement with some stuff in Live by upgrading to 4GB, but these old Macs still have their limitations. I remember beta testing Live 8 and running into this problem when I was testing out the presets and built-in content. Every once in a while I would load an instrument preset and it would swamp out my computer. I would only have this one instrument running, I would press some keys to play a chord and all I would hear is static and noise.

At the time the Abes said they were considering putting some kind of labeling system in place for presets that were more CPU consumptive. I don't think they did that, but I haven't had this problem since because I usually don't go fishing through the presets like that.

There will be limitations using Live on an old Mac running Tiger, but look at it as a good thing. I've found that I kind of like the creative challenges that working within limitations brings.

[Tarekith]

The OS alone is probably using more than 512MB of RAM, so you're already constantly hitting the swap file just turning the computer on. I think when you get your new ram all your problems will disappear.

[jsearing]

did you use EXS24 much in Logic ?
any thing which fires samples usually uses up a lot of RAM.
64bit Operating systems have been introduced in order to increase maximum RAM beyond 4GB, and this is thought to benefit Garritan virtual orchestra and stuff like that most of all.

In other words, stop using Drum Racks and you should be OK

I used a lot of EXS24 samples in the test song. It didn't slow down at all. I guess it would eventually. Garritan, Juno 106 and other samples were used in the test and Logic ran smoothly.

Live on the other hand slowed down to the point that I couldn't not work with it. I tried different variations with other Instruments like Bass and Piano. And all of them made Live come to a halt.

I want to use Drum Racks. I don't want to use Logic anymore. I want to use Live for everything. I am going to be getting more RAM and hopefully Live will work. But it is still weird that Logc would work alright on 512 but Live can't.

Thanks for the reply.

Johnny

[jsearing]

How is your CPU holding up?

Yeah I forgot to mention that in my original post.

My CPU is holding up great in Live. According to the CPU meter in Live. It stays around 10-14%. I guess it's also because I really don't have much audio tracks playing? It's just the instruments that load up samples in Live that make the program run slow. I loaded up around 12 audio tracks in the arrangement page and all was well. I guess that doesn't use up RAM?

[jsearing]

I use Live 8 with a dual 1.8 gHz G5 running Tiger 10.4.11 with 2.5 GB of Ram. I think you'll see an improvement with some stuff in Live by upgrading to 4GB, but these old Macs still have their limitations. I remember beta testing Live 8 and running into this problem when I was testing out the presets and built-in content. Every once in a while I would load an instrument preset and it would swamp out my computer. I would only have this one instrument running, I would press some keys to play a chord and all I would hear is static and noise.

At the time the Abes said they were considering putting some kind of labeling system in place for presets that were more CPU consumptive. I don't think they did that, but I haven't had this problem since because I usually don't go fishing through the presets like that.

There will be limitations using Live on an old Mac running Tiger, but look at it as a good thing. I've found that I kind of like the creative challenges that working within limitations brings.

That is exactly what happens to me. I sometimes just load 1 instrument and I get static, slow reactions etc.

Do you think updating to Leopard will help?

[jsearing]

The OS alone is probably using more than 512MB of RAM, so you're already constantly hitting the swap file just turning the computer on. I think when you get your new ram all your problems will disappear.

Boy that would be awesome! I have my fingers crossed!

But you have to wonder how Logic runs better than Live on 512 mgs of RAM.

Thanks!

[Hidden Driveways]

Do you think updating to Leopard will help?

No. I'm of the opinion that upgrading to Leopard will eventually make things worse. There are Apple users that will tell you otherwise. I've seen many people who use older Macs like ours load Leopard and eventually have problems. It's not officially documented anywhere that Leopard is malignant for PPC and G4 era Macs, but I think it is. I think it has something to do with the fact that Leopard doesn't have the Classic OS 9 mode, and that its mainly geared for Macs with Intel processors.

There are people that will tell you otherwise, this opinion is from someone running 10.4.11 on a 2003 G5 running Live 8 and Final Cut Pro and still able to work on creative projects with my machine. Leopard = bad news.

[jsearing]

Do you think updating to Leopard will help?

No. I'm of the opinion that upgrading to Leopard will eventually make things worse. There are Apple users that will tell you otherwise. I've seen many people who use older Macs like ours load Leopard and eventually have problems. It's not officially documented anywhere that Leopard is malignant for PPC and G4 era Macs, but I think it is. I think it has something to do with the fact that Leopard doesn't have the Classic OS 9 mode, and that its mainly geared for Macs with Intel processors.

There are people that will tell you otherwise, this opinion is from someone running 10.4.11 on a 2003 G5 running Live 8 and Final Cut Pro and still able to work on creative projects with my machine. Leopard = bad news.

Thanks for the heads up. I'm not going to install it after all. Don't need anymore problems. How much RAM do you have? How is your system running? How many tracks can you play? How many Live instruments? Thanks!

[Hidden Driveways]

How much RAM do you have? How is your system running? How many tracks can you play? How many Live instruments? Thanks!

Ram: 2.5
Runs: Runs okay
Tracks: Usually not tons. Depends on the project. I generally don't go over 16 tracks for the most part. Not out of a limitation, just out of a work flow habit.
Live instruments: Don't use a ton of these. I use mainly Pluggo instruments. A couple of drum machines and a couple of synths for the most part. I usually use a lot of Live's effects and utility plugs too. I have Reaktor but I use it sparingly. Pluggo usually gets me there.

PS > Pluggo was discontinued and a lot of its instruments were coded into Max 4 Live

[jsearing]

How much RAM do you have? How is your system running? How many tracks can you play? How many Live instruments? Thanks!

Ram: 2.5
Runs: Runs okay
Tracks: Usually not tons. Depends on the project. I generally don't go over 16 tracks for the most part. Not out of a limitation, just out of a work flow habit.
Live instruments: Don't use a ton of these. I use mainly Pluggo instruments. A couple of drum machines and a couple of synths for the most part. I usually use a lot of Live's effects and utility plugs too. I have Reaktor but I use it sparingly. Pluggo usually gets me there.

PS > Pluggo was discontinued and a lot of its instruments were coded into Max 4 Live

Pluggo sounds good. Too bad its discontinued.