Boggin' Down, my mac can't handle it Options

[aquaman]

I am using an eMac with a 700 MHz G4, 768 MBytes of ram, and have a music project in Cubase that has about 20 tracks. Every track has eq., and one or two plugin effects. This appears to be way too much for my Mac to handle because what is heard when it plays is just clicking....lots of clicking. I have to turn off most of the eq. and effects and mute most of the tracks to listen to anything. This means I can't mix this project properly. Does this sound reasonable? I suspect the bus speed is too slow because it happens every time I play the song back (i.e. not just the first time). I find it hard to believe that this relatively simple project is already sapping my mac. Certainly there are many people, on this web site alone, that are using comparable systems and doing more complicated things. Input would be greatly appreciated.
-Thanks

[xingu]

For comparison's sake, I have an iMac 700G4/584 RAM and hardly ever run more than 8 audio tracks (Logic Audio 6). Loading all 8 up with EQs plus 1 or 2 plugs has caused overloads for me in the past, so if you have 20 tracks, that wouldn't surprise me. Are there some tracks that you can take as is and bounce them together to free up some power?

[lepetitmartien]

Bounce bounce

And then some bounce

[darrenMclaud]

Your Mac's performance is going to be affected by several factors. Your Mac should be able to play back 32-40 plus (mono) tracks of 24bit 48k digital audio (without plug ins or mix automation). Unfortunately, it is difficult to troubleshoot without specifics, but here are some suggestions.
1. Make sure you have disabled any unneeded extensions (if you're running OS9.xx-you didn't say). Check your Cubase manual, it may tell you which ones it needs to run.
2. You should be recording and playing back multi-track audio from a second, dedicated FAST drive (ATA160, 7200 rpm or faster). If you are recording to the system drive you're slowing the whole shebang down (and jeapardizing your settings)
3. Your audio hardware driver settings must be optimized for recording and mixing. Buffers must be large enough to stream the audio of the drive without breaks.
<if you know a certified "Mac Geek" you might want to hire them to make sure your computer is optimized>
4. The good-sounding plug-ins hit processors hard. If you have to use lots of them, you'll need to learn to subgroup audio through the busses for dymamics and EQ (just like the guys who mix on "real" consoles do) and use the Aux Send feature to route your reverbs and time-based effects. In general, it is wasteful and unnessesary to have reverb/delay/chorus plug-ins opened on individual tracks. If you need to do this for special effect reasons, commit the sound to disk and then turn 'em off.

Good luck

[Synthetic]

also remember some plugs are much more CPU intensive than others... for example reverbs are some of the most demanding plugs... I like to use only one reverb plug for this reason and bus tracks to an aux track with a reverb to keep from using multiple reverbs.... and as lepetitmartien said... bouncing tracks may sometimes be the only way around the CPU usage issue.