Kontakt/ProTools 7.3.1/MacPro

Hey guys,
Im having some issues with Kontakt 2.2.1.010 running on a macpro 2.66 quad in protools M-Powered 7.3.1cs2.

Heres the deal.

When im in protools using kontakt (running 5 instruments) protools will constantly tell me my CPU is overloading...Which its not....My cpu is (pretend) spiking because of kontakt though.

It came to the point where im waiting about a minute for protools to start playback and when it does finally start...either it runs fine untill I stop playback and ry to start it again or the cpu spikes instantly and playback stops before it starts.

I know that this macpro can take just about anything I can throw at it.....Im definitly starting to think that NI didnt get the universal binary update right....and kontakt UB is just buggy.

Im curious to hear what everyone knows about this issue....Because I ran kontakt on a single amd athlon processor in windows runiing over 20 instruments at a time with no issue....So in my mind this macpro should make kontakt its B1tch.

Kontakt is suppost to be the center of my softsynth rig,And with this kind of issue it makes it real hard.

I just think they didnt get it right for a UB quad processor machine.

Advice?

MacPro 2.66 intel xeon quad
OSX 10.3.9
ProTools Academic 7.3.1cs2
M-Audio Firewire 1814

 

I've had/am having the same trouble, exact setup as you.

first, how much ram do you have in the machine? I used 1gig and it did that constantly, upgraded to 3 and now it rarely does... but it does still at times when I have a lot loaded.

other things to try... if you find your instruments are taking up a lot of ram change the preload buffer in the dfd tab to your liking... or if you have plenty of ram and it could be taking the hard drive time to stream then increase the preload buffer.

that said, I do still feel that my "cpu is running out of power" message are bogus because I"m staring that the cpu usage meter and its only 20% up. I don't know if this is a kontakt or a pro tools issue...

 

Same here!

Justed wanted to add that I have the exact same problem. Seems to me that NI need to fix their program!

 

Thanks n8,
Im going to bump up the ram to 5 gigs and I just bought 2 500gig sata drives and installed them into my mac pro,I did the striped raid configuration and im going to copy my kontakt library to that and see if its gets any better also.

NI does really need to fix this crap.....With the money we pay the software should at least be what they say it is.

HEY NI....I WOULD LIKE TO USE KONTAKT ON MY MAC PRO PLEASE!

 

same here. But Kontakt has always been unstable with PT on a Mac so I'm not sure they plan on fixing this soon.

BTW - I think you can grab a beta file of the new PT sampler at the digi site. I've been using it for a few weeks and it's way more stable that Kontakt...and it's not ever released yet.

 

joestrange, thats gonna be a smoking system. Let me know how the raid configuration works. i kept my separate leaving 1 drive for samples and the other for my audio. Not sure if this or the raid is better...

 

I havent got the ram yet n8, But that striped raid configuration loads samples WAY faster.....Smokin! Kontakt still wont work properly though...Im buying that 4 gigs of ram from trans international for 468.00 out the door.

Im still using my external lacie drive for audio scence PT doesnt support raid configurations.

 

Remember that PT can cause so many issues on its own.I've given up on PT cause of stability problems that steinberg doesntt have.Stable recording app =stable VSTi's!!!

 

Greg thats true to an extent...Actually usually when you think its protools messing up its some other conflict with the computer.

Most people dont want to take the time to troubleshoot problems...they will just say "screw it,Im going back to what I know and what works for me" Which if it works for you,then more power to ya.

But me personallly,I have been using protools scence 5.1 and havent had stability issues untill now...8 years later....when I bought the MacPro.

You know NI hasent got kontakt right yet....For PC,PPC OR UB,My issues are Ram and UB is still so new that all these companys just havent got it right yet....MacPro users are living in the future and waiting for the software developers to catch up to the technology were using.

When I first got this computer I loaded up protools and everytime I tried to open it my macpro would kernal panic....I was like damn! ProTools is doing this! Digidesign screwed up bad in 7.3.1.

But I come to find out that my new mac pro will not run protools while im using firewire 400 and 800 at the same time. I could have eaisly said "F protools,it doesnt even work....It just crashes my computer everytime I try to open it" But instead...I troubleshot the problem till I got it working....Now its stable....BUT KONTAKT ISNT....Read what n8 wrote....He upgraded his macpro to 3 gigs of ram and kontakt still doesnt run right somtimes, and im about to go to 5 gigs of ram to see if that works.

Making a platform stable is all about sticking with it and making it stable....If you just want a 100% stable DAW out of the box then trash the computer and buy a roland VS1880 or whatever their making these days.

 

Joe

Did your additional RAM alleviate any of your Kontakt issues?

I've been using Kontakt with Pro Tools since it came out...it's always been problematic for me.

However, it seems like some people do use it in PT systems which makes me want to stick it out.

hopefully Digi's sampler is an answer...or at least a better option.

-CV

 

Kontakt CPU Spike

Be sure to really manage your sustain pedal action when using kontakt in Pro Tools. I mean going as far as to manually atomate sustain in front of notes in 64th note and 32nd not dips to allow the kontakt engine time to drop notes and pick new ones up. If you don't have a lot of ram this will help you bigtime. I've found it to be the main cause of my problems and the convolution verbs tax your systme hard core as well. Having an external reverb like an M-one XL will make your life a lot easier and free up a lot of DSP for more plugins. It will sound a lot better to having a dedicated set of chips working for you on the verb. Plugin verbs just don't sound the same to me.

As far as fixing things goes NI needs to warn people about upgrades that don't always work with your daw like 2.2.1 which has caused me to now reinstall my rig 3 times in an effort to fix a routing problem brought on by the upgrade which I now call an oops-grade.

 

I have been having a pretty average time with a similar setup in the last day or two.
Mac Pro/7.3.1cs1 etc.

For me its just been playing back very unreliably. Notes being cut, not playing properly. The CPU use look fine, but it took me about and hour or so to get a 1 min bounce to play through with out some not or part not playing right.

very very wierd.

It seemed fine yesterday..

 

PS. I have 5 gig of RAM.

 

Hey this is serious.
NI, what's the deal?
Speak up please.
Kontakt 2.2.1 and ProTools 7.3.1 (HD or LE) are not friendly
I would hope you all would be pretty aware of this by now.
Is anyone there checking this out?

Hello?

Thanks,
Rob

 

update

Well alot has changed scence I created this post...Heres an update for you guys about where im at with kontakt and protools.


So I ended up upgrading to 3 gigs of ram, not 5....I installed the ram into the second card of the macpro so now both cards have ram slots occupied. I noticed an instant performance boost in my entire system that I was very pleased with.

I ended up reinstalling my OS downgrading from 10.4.9 to 10.4.8 and also downgrading protools back to 7.3 from 7.3.1cs2.

I reinstalled kontakt,symphonic orchestra and Ra and went right to seeing how stable kontakt would act with these extemely large instruments being loaded up. I was also instantly pleased to see that 99% of my trouble with kontakt had gone away.

It still cant handle lots of large instruments from symphonic orchestra but it can handle enough to make me happy and its semi stable....I dont have alot of problems with kontakt now unless its from loading alot of large instruments which creates the textbook clicking,poping and cutting out.

Now what did I do?

1. I reinstaled OSX 10.4.8
2. Upgraded ram to 3 gigs
3. Installed 2 500 gig hard drives in a striped raid configuration and put my librarys on that.
4. Reinstalled protools 7.3 and didnt update to the latest version.


What made this system stablize? I dont know? Could be a combination of all the things I did or it could be 1 thing I did.

I also filled the 4th bay of my macpro last week with another 500gig hard drive....So that puts me at about 1.75 Terabytes of internal storage now

 

JoeStrange,
I also had problems with K2 & PT, and finally came to a fairly workable system using OS10.4.8 & PT7 (the install version, no updates) & K2.1.1.
I have not updated Kontakt & Reaktor since they started their disService Center confusion, because I think it's more important to make music than to beta-test confusing protection schemes. Good luck with your work.
aip

 

Just curious why you guys decided to go backwards on your versions of PT, OSX, and Kontakt...

I havent read anything anywhere that suggests that any of these earlier versions would be more friendly.

Thanks,
Rob

 

Good Question,
At this point in time digidesign had a bulletin up saying they were not supporting OSX 10.4.9. and some people who were using protools on 10.4.9 were having problems. That was the reason for downgrading the OS.

Pro Tools was a whole nother issue....when I was in 7.3.1 cs2 I was having some issues that couldnt be resolved. Apple+G (create new group) was not working....Apple+K (export selected region) was not working among other things.

I was having major problems with kontakt at this time....I figured hey...this could be some conflict between protools and OS 10.4.9 making kontakt run so bad.

So what you read above was my fix.

 

blastula,
For me, the answer is simple. I never update as a reflex, I test some updates on my laptop before my music computer, and if all is well, I update. When I see flags thrown up - for instance, a HUGE number of complaints about the disService Center and losing authorizations, I wait for the dust to settle. With PT, the most stable of all my software, I usually wait until I finish the current project before updating anything.
R5 is stable as is, and I don't need the aggravation of trying to prove I am legitimate for the update, since I've been onboard for years. R5 & Kontakt have always had problems in PT, so when the miracle combination of versions came up, I started working with no thought of future updates. I have never backtracked updates, since I only install what is seen to be stable by forum members.
aip

 

thanks joe strange and aip,
so i'm curious...with your setups now, have you found a limit with Kontakt...have you pushed it to see at what point it starts to crap out?

rob