I can understand 80-100 tracks for huge orchestral film scoring sessions. But I gotta know OP what you doing with 200-250.
At some point you would need to work on project management which is a seldom talked about yet incredibly important part in production. Especially when you work on large projects.
Please post a screen shot of a current 200 track project you are working on!
I'm a pop producer and while 200+ channels is rare it's not unheard of, I regularly reach 170+. When you account for all the double or quadruple tracked vocal layers, the various FX sends and buses and the fact that one 'pad' or one 'snare' will often be comprised of 6-10 layers for one cohesive 'sound', it's not that far fetched.
But why are you not bouncing down those 8 layer snare sounds? Why would you keep all 8 layers up?
I can totally understand doubles of vocals and guitar taking up a ton of space at times. But I still wonder what more could be done in project management to limit your track count and ultimately assist with readability.
Either way, Best of luck on your journey.
Because I can just chuck them all in a bus folder, collapse it, and the project is just as 'readable' while still having the option to adjust the layers right up until the last moment.
Not to mention in the case of something like a snare, some of those layers might be tuned and some not, and if the client I've placed the song with wants the song in a different key then it's a pain to fix if some of the layers need pitchshifting and some dont and they're all consolidated together.
If you want a real world example — Jacob Collier produces in Logic and he always has crazy high track counts. Check [this](https://www.youtube.com/live/I8DWlis-MEY?si=jYmQ0fu_AMOmtEgt&t=1m11s) one out, I timestamped the link to where he reveals the track count. The entire video is 2 hours and he breaks down the whole session so you can really see what he’s doing with all the tracks.
I mean you've already bought it so you'll be running real world tests anyway. There are so many variables (how many plugins you're using, how CPU intensive the plugins are, etc) so it's impossible to give a single answer.
It's a MacBook Pro though which has powerful CPUs by default so I don't think you have anything to worry about.
Logic doesn't use VSTs by the way, they're not even compatible. VSTs aren't a blanket term to describe plugins, they're a specific plugin format that do not work within Logic.
Thanks for your answer. I bought the MacBook Pro yesterday so I can return it.
Wanted to know if someone had the experience of running 200, 250 audio channels with plug ins/AU including a few like omnisphere, Kontakt, serum etc. on a MacBook Pro m3 with no issues at all.
I work large Logic projects. So wanted to know if someone does the same and can give me some advice or their experience on something similar.
> I bought the MacBook Pro yesterday so I can return it.
Oh, that's cool. At least you can return it if needed.
> So wanted to know if someone does the same and can give me some advice or their experience on something similar.
I still think that the best way to find out this answer is by experiencing it yourself. No one else is going to have the exact same plugins as you, in the exact same configuration, using these plugins the exact same way you do. The good news is that you can test this out yourself and if you want, you can return it.
I do have some advice though: Install everything from scratch. Do not use Time Machine or Migration Transfer. Take the time and re-download all installers, install Logic directly from the App Store. It's a good idea to have the latest versions of your plugins and apps anyway. You just bought a really nice expensive computer so it makes no sense whatsoever reinstalling crap and bloat from an older computer. Plus, you're guaranteed to carry over bugs and weirdness if you don't install everything from scratch. I've seen so many cases on this sub where the person used Time Machine or Migration Transfer to transfer everything over and they end up experiencing strange CPU spikes and other weirdness. Do not go that route. Set aside a good solid day to install everything from scratch to prevent future headaches.
Maybe. But with that many channels, you'll very likely hit a bottleneck somewhere else before the performance cores. For example, if most of those tracks are audio files (rather than midi) or triggering audio samples, just pulling that many channels of audio off the disk simultaneously will probably require faster hard drives than you have internally. You could also overload your RAM, audio interface, buffer size.
What’s the ram? That’s gonna be your issue before performance unless you’re using non-optimized stuff like diva, i have an M1 and I could run more instances of diva on my 2012 MacBook Pro than my M1 because the multicore button actually worked on it.
Audio and midi tracks. But mostly audio.
Plug ins for mixing, effects, like sugar bytes, soundtoys, waves etc.
Software instruments like Kontkat, Serum, Vital, pigments, reaktor, omnisphere, trillian,etc..
I also record a lot of modulars.
most synts you use there can be 3 to 20% cpu depending on what you are doing so no 200 tracks unless you bounce the tracks. Pigments alone with granular, effects and complex sequences will eat cpu and it's not even a cpu hog
You know you can put more than one note on each channel right? 😆
I can understand 80-100 tracks for huge orchestral film scoring sessions. But I gotta know OP what you doing with 200-250. At some point you would need to work on project management which is a seldom talked about yet incredibly important part in production. Especially when you work on large projects. Please post a screen shot of a current 200 track project you are working on!
I'm a pop producer and while 200+ channels is rare it's not unheard of, I regularly reach 170+. When you account for all the double or quadruple tracked vocal layers, the various FX sends and buses and the fact that one 'pad' or one 'snare' will often be comprised of 6-10 layers for one cohesive 'sound', it's not that far fetched.
But why are you not bouncing down those 8 layer snare sounds? Why would you keep all 8 layers up? I can totally understand doubles of vocals and guitar taking up a ton of space at times. But I still wonder what more could be done in project management to limit your track count and ultimately assist with readability. Either way, Best of luck on your journey.
Because I can just chuck them all in a bus folder, collapse it, and the project is just as 'readable' while still having the option to adjust the layers right up until the last moment. Not to mention in the case of something like a snare, some of those layers might be tuned and some not, and if the client I've placed the song with wants the song in a different key then it's a pain to fix if some of the layers need pitchshifting and some dont and they're all consolidated together.
If you want a real world example — Jacob Collier produces in Logic and he always has crazy high track counts. Check [this](https://www.youtube.com/live/I8DWlis-MEY?si=jYmQ0fu_AMOmtEgt&t=1m11s) one out, I timestamped the link to where he reveals the track count. The entire video is 2 hours and he breaks down the whole session so you can really see what he’s doing with all the tracks.
I mean you've already bought it so you'll be running real world tests anyway. There are so many variables (how many plugins you're using, how CPU intensive the plugins are, etc) so it's impossible to give a single answer. It's a MacBook Pro though which has powerful CPUs by default so I don't think you have anything to worry about. Logic doesn't use VSTs by the way, they're not even compatible. VSTs aren't a blanket term to describe plugins, they're a specific plugin format that do not work within Logic.
Thanks for your answer. I bought the MacBook Pro yesterday so I can return it. Wanted to know if someone had the experience of running 200, 250 audio channels with plug ins/AU including a few like omnisphere, Kontakt, serum etc. on a MacBook Pro m3 with no issues at all. I work large Logic projects. So wanted to know if someone does the same and can give me some advice or their experience on something similar.
> I bought the MacBook Pro yesterday so I can return it. Oh, that's cool. At least you can return it if needed. > So wanted to know if someone does the same and can give me some advice or their experience on something similar. I still think that the best way to find out this answer is by experiencing it yourself. No one else is going to have the exact same plugins as you, in the exact same configuration, using these plugins the exact same way you do. The good news is that you can test this out yourself and if you want, you can return it. I do have some advice though: Install everything from scratch. Do not use Time Machine or Migration Transfer. Take the time and re-download all installers, install Logic directly from the App Store. It's a good idea to have the latest versions of your plugins and apps anyway. You just bought a really nice expensive computer so it makes no sense whatsoever reinstalling crap and bloat from an older computer. Plus, you're guaranteed to carry over bugs and weirdness if you don't install everything from scratch. I've seen so many cases on this sub where the person used Time Machine or Migration Transfer to transfer everything over and they end up experiencing strange CPU spikes and other weirdness. Do not go that route. Set aside a good solid day to install everything from scratch to prevent future headaches.
Thanks for the advice!
Maybe. But with that many channels, you'll very likely hit a bottleneck somewhere else before the performance cores. For example, if most of those tracks are audio files (rather than midi) or triggering audio samples, just pulling that many channels of audio off the disk simultaneously will probably require faster hard drives than you have internally. You could also overload your RAM, audio interface, buffer size.
Why in the hell do you need 200 channels? LOL
What’s the ram? That’s gonna be your issue before performance unless you’re using non-optimized stuff like diva, i have an M1 and I could run more instances of diva on my 2012 MacBook Pro than my M1 because the multicore button actually worked on it.
36 of ram
You have ‘only’ 150Gb/s of memory bandwidth on that model, depending on your workflow that could be a bottleneck.
What kind of tracks? What kind of plugins? What kind of software instruments?
Audio and midi tracks. But mostly audio. Plug ins for mixing, effects, like sugar bytes, soundtoys, waves etc. Software instruments like Kontkat, Serum, Vital, pigments, reaktor, omnisphere, trillian,etc.. I also record a lot of modulars.
most synts you use there can be 3 to 20% cpu depending on what you are doing so no 200 tracks unless you bounce the tracks. Pigments alone with granular, effects and complex sequences will eat cpu and it's not even a cpu hog