Quote:
Originally Posted by upsidedown
I’m running GarageBand on an older iMac and run into latency issues almost every time I record. Also “slow disc” error messages. Until I inevitably(?) have to get a new machine. Maybe your method would help with my problems.
How exactly do you use the external drive with GarageBand; is it simply a matter of storing all its files there, or are you running GarageBand .. I’m so computer illiterate that I can’t properly frame the question! So, “how do you do it?”
|
I hope one of our more knowledgable members will respond to you with better info than I can provide (as I've only been doing computer-based recording for about 6 months) but I'll mention a few things I've learned about recording latency while working with Garageband:
First, the quality of the recording interface is important. Some of the cheaper ones have inherent latency issues. I'm using a Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 which the manufacturer claims has close to zero latency.
I've seen mentioned in other forum discussions that using a lot of high CPU draining plugins in Garageband can contribute to latency issues. One suggestion I saw was to inactivate those plugins in your project when recording to lessen or avoid latency problems.
The amount of RAM that your iMac has will play a large role in how quickly recording data can be processed. From what I've read at least 8MB of RAM is needed for adequate recording performance in Garageband.
Finally, if your iMac's internal hard drive is above 80% of its capacity its speed will start to decrease significantly, thus creating latency and other issues.
An external hard drive such as the Glyph that Cory mentions can take some of the burden off of your iMac's internal HD and give you better performance. With Logic Pro you can store all of the library sounds and loop library data on an external drive to free up space on your internal HD, thus potentially improving performance. I'm not sure if you can do that with Garageband, but I think there's a chance given it's basic similarity to Logic.
I just checked out some of the Glyph HDs, and they seem to be designed specifically for things like audio and video recording. The ones I saw all had 64MB of RAM which should allow for very quick processing, and would allow you to avoid "slow disc" messages. The Glyph HDs also have backwards compatible Firewire, USB and eSATA connectivity so you can plug them into any port of that type that your iMac has. The downside to the backward compatibility is that if your iMac has a USB 2.0 port even though the Glyph HD can work at speeds up to USB 3.0, you will be limited by the iMac's slower USB 2.0 port speed. Also, the specs on the Glyph HDs that I looked at mentioned that they were compatible with OSX 10.4 and above. If your iMac is running an older OSX version the Glyph HD may not work.
I hope some of that makes sense and is helpful in some way. It might help other members to respond with specific suggestions to your post if you can mention what OSX version you are using, how much RAM your iMac has and what type(s) of connectivity ports you have available.