Hi everybody,
when using Superior Drummer 3.1.7 as an instrument plug in within MOTU Digital Performer 10.13, my 2018 MacBook Pro 15 (32GB /1TB) gets very hot.
The internal fans start blowing really loud, DP’s position wiper (to see where I am in the song) gets sluggish and sequence start stop command is delayed, sometimes for a second or longer. Depending on the song’s length and how many bars Superior Drummers midi parts are going on it get’s more and more sluggish. If I understand correctly all of Superior Drummers sounds are loaded into memory most drum sets are under 4 gb, I have 32 GB, so that should not be a problem.
I am using SampleTank, Spectrasonic’s Onmisphere and Stylus, MOTU’s Ethno 2, East West instruments and many others with no such problems.
Whenever I create a Superior Drummer ‘instrument’ I have to disable all other instruments and all other plugins and dedicate all the computer power to be able to just run Superior Drummer, nothing else except a few of ‘naked’ audio tracks can be running.
Without Superior Drummer, my MacBook easily runs 20 or more audio tracks full of plug ins and up to 16 midi tracks in SampleTank and stays very responsive without the internal fans kicking in.
I like Superior Drummer a lot and was hoping to use it more, I really would like the flexibility of keeping the program’s drums in midi running along to be able to make changes to drum parts until it is time to mix the song.
My workaround at the moment is having 2 versions of each song I use Superior Drummer for:
one using Superior Drummer with a bounced version of all the other tracks so my MacBook Pro can keep up with the high demands of Superior Drummer, then I make a stereo audio track of Superior Drummer’s midi drum part, load the other version of the song using that audio drum track so I can continue working on the song.
When it’s time to change some of the drums, I have to make another bounce of the song in it’s current state go back to the other ‘Superior Drummer only’ plug in version, import that current state of the song, change the midi of Superior Drums, make an audio track of the drums again, switch over to the other version.
Having to go that route several times until a song is ready is a very time consuming way of getting things done.
I wonder if there is a setting in Superior Drummer I don’t know about, to not dominate my DAW so it cannot do anything else?
Does anyone know if updating to 3.2.8 will be easer on CPU (I worry that 3.2.8 might need even more power and might want a newer Mac OS)
I don’t want to update my Mac OS Mojave yet, because it runs everything else really well and some of my plugins are not up to Monterrey yet.
Hi,
the 3.2.8 update has got OS 10.10 as minimum, so there’s no need to update your OS. There are other advantages to updating, so I recommend doing it.
I am not so sure it will get your heat and fans down, though. I am suffering from that myself with my slightly newer Intel MacBook Pro but for me it’s definitely not tied to SD3 but I have that problem with most of my VI:s. I am resorting to 3rd party software to keep Turbo Boost, Hyper Threading and Process Throttling in control to keep heat and fan noise down.
One thing you can try besides updating is to go into he Settings in SD3, then Performance and see if there’s any difference going from 1 (Default) to 2 or 3 cores.
BR,
John
John Rammelt - Toontrack
Technical Advisor
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