Pro Tools "CPU Overload" Screwed my Night Up

So I don't know if many of you have found yourselves in a similar situation:

750 seat theater, pretty full with all out production of a popular season-themed musical.

I was/am running sound through the establishments Pro Tools TDM rig with an HD card.

running 2 mic busses into pro tools and back out to the 7 time aligned speaker arrays

Also Running the Backing music tracks from Pro Tools.

Well the show is going fine, everything A ok....till right about the end of the show, great big scene with dancers and a choir and the lead female vocalist. .....

right in the middle of a song!!! Pro Tools takes a big Poop.

The music stops, the lead has a deer caught in the headlights look and the dancers are like fish washed up on the beach. and there I am looking at the screen of Pro Tools saying "CPU OVerload!"

Using all TDM plugs with external Glyph hardrive and cpu max set to 90%!!!!!
What I don't understand is why? TDM is all on the card and I wasnt using any RTAS!!

So thanks for letting me Bitch for a minute. I just wish I could have prevented the whole experience.

So this holiday...make sure to be safe!

Ouch!



  not a good look . . .


     

Sorry to hear that !!
Had a couple of similar problems this summer, some audio stems coming from a macbook pro using
Logic on a VERY bouncy stage and we had two stops .... luckily during intro's which we extended
by playing stuff and starting the hidden count in / click track ... we got through but it was a major
"bummer" !
No one apart from us knew anything

MM.

I think the most important question here is why rely on DAW's ability to do anything real-time? You clearly have a mission critical setup so why not just print ALL AUDIO to files and use protools for playlist and playback duties only.

Do anything else and you are playing with fire and will get burned, again.

Yes, It is a risky business....Last show tonight...I'm going to increase the buffer size a bit and hope and pray for the best...

> print ALL AUDIO to files

Or a simple audio CD and an audio-only CD player to a $99 mixer which can quickly be patched into the front speakers. Mike gains pre-tested. CD well-tracked so you can quickly go to the head of each piece or any notable point in any long piece.

Won't be 7-channel time-align and you can't adjust stems live. But it beats heck out of an extended re-boot and possible repeat CPU-poop while Santa scratches his crotch and the Wise Men pass a bottle around.

abechap024 said:

Yes, It is a risky business....Last show tonight...I'm going to increase the buffer size a bit and hope and pray for the best...

Click to expand...

Sorry to hear about your troubles.  I wouldn't be comfortable in any way with your plan to increase the buffer.  It's very unlikely that what you had last night was a real CPU overload caused by real real processor demands, it sounds like a bug to me.  If it is a bug of some description all of the extra buffer in the world won't help. I used to have a version of Altiverb that would cause an overload when I opened the GUI, regardless of buffer size. 

If I were you I would get Pro Tools out of there for tonights  show - the only thing worse than what happened last night is having it happen twice.  Explaining buffer sizes to directors is not my idea of fun.  A simpler cd (with extra player and extra disc backup) is the order of the day.

Best of luck,
Ruairi
 

Yea, thanks to the post I decided just to use protools as a glorified CD player, was able to time align the the backing tracks and just ran all the mics through the board to the center speakers.
Still sounded just fine and sure less noticeable the the whole rig pooping out!

Got through the show last night without a hitch, and it was the last show so I'm happy.

Thanks and Happy holidays!

abe

Yay!


  alls well that ends well!


    Now go enjoy Xmas!


  ANdyP ;D

Result!!

It's so nice that the run ended on a high rather than a disaster 

Incidentally, I didn't want to labour this last night but I trust nobody's rig but my own in mission critical gigs.  I've used buggy rigs in major studios and everywhere else that were set up badly and treated badly, laden with Kracks/porn/unauthorised plugs you name it.  I've even used rigs from Avid's own stock that were buggy.  My own HD rig has quirks but I know them...

Anyway glad it worked out. 

All the best,
Ruairi

Oh! the nightmare scenario! anytime I see a rig in a live situation, my heart is in my throat, anxious with the knowledge of ALL the things that COULD go wrong.

redundant systems are a must in live shows!
if the A system fails switch to the B system.

working for a german band since 2000 I have build systems for several world-tours.
two errors so far in 10 years (but hundreds of shows)  :'(

1st time:
human error (the drummer accidently switched the system from 48kHz to 44.1kHz)
this was noticable for the audience - but hey, the band just started the song again (with corrected SR)

2nd time:
band did a rearrangement without telling the light / pyro / kinetic crews ;D ;D ;D
hey, my system is TC master - and if the TC stops there are loads of red blinking lights everywhere ;D ;D ;D

I have been watching that show, and realizing the "red light alert" nearly gave me a hard attack ...
however, the audience didn't notice

if multitrack playback is a musgt, then look for an alternative that is non pro tools like a harddisk recorder. Can get a tascam 2424 on the inexpensive these days and they are solid. or consider the newer version the x-48(I have yet to use an x48). In my experience with the 2424 never had a single audio glitch. In fact only issue I had was those stupid dvd ram back ups. bit that is a whole other story...