Configuring A Workhorse, Separate user account for Logic? Options

[KingBarbarossa]

Hello everyone,

My question to all you tech wizards:
My computer G5 dual is being used really heavily for graphic design, communication of all sorts and... well, of course music.

I am encountering often many problems when I start Logic. Often configurations seem to be not remembered correctly, audio or midi has to be re-configured - almost every single time when I want to start any work in Logic. This is frustrating and time consuming. These things occur randomly and can never be tracked down or repeated for proper troubleshooting. (I am running numerous hardware synths, as well as plugins and a Kontakt2 in addition to Logic., I also use an Emagic mt4 midi-interface and a Presonus Firebox)

My plan is to get a new Mac Pro in a few months to move all the music production over to a seperate machine.
But in the interim, to reduce some of the problems or at least stabilize the work environment I thought it might be advantagous to make a seperate user for the music production. This way the machine could be booted without all the fonts and extra drivers etc. which are needed for graphics applications.


So my questions are:

Does it makes sense (and to what extent and why) to maybe use an extra harddrive to put the music apps on? maybe even a complete additional system installation on an extra drive?
Does separating out the music apps to a different user account on the computer help at all - will it be beneficial in attempt to gain stability for Logic etc., free system memory or even speed up certain things?
If this is advisable, how do I get a third internal harddrive into my G5 dual (i already use an external for sample libraries)?

What is your advice, how would you solve this?

[KingBarbarossa]

so, if i understand this right then, it does not matter that i have about 300 installed fonts as long as i am running logic only which does not access these fonts and therefore the fonts are dormant and do not interfere into the system resources?

i just remember this from 5, 10, 15 years ago that you always tried to keep your system as lean as possible.

btw. i am using fonts here only as an example. you can think of all kinds of different things in the system instead...


it is just that i am looking for ways to prevent further problems in my system, trying to figure out what is wrong at the moment is probably nearly impossible, especially just through a forum because what is happening is random, i cannot repeat it, or logically narrow it down.

so, what i am doing for now is trying to get my system as clean as possible. a couple of days ago i used idefrag, which proved to be a good thing - i learned that even a mac osx system denefits from occasional defragmenting.

clearing caches etc with onyx will be the next thing i will try out. thanks for this hint.

there might be a slight issue with my presonus firebox maybe. a couple of times i had no audio and i was wondering what was going on. then i simply launched the firebox mixer and closed it again and suddenly audio was back (this is just one of the weird things i had happen).
but again, i cannot say when it is happening, i cannot repeat it on command - with such vague facts even the support team of presonus would not be able to get much of a clue.

my emagic mt4 midi interface sometimes has to be unplugged and plugged back in to work properly...

[lepetitmartien]

so, if i understand this right then, it does not matter that i have about 300 installed fonts as long as i am running logic only which does not access these fonts and therefore the fonts are dormant and do not interfere into the system resources?

It is of no importance as long as the fonts Logic needs have no ID conflict with the one you have installed. But now, the only problem would be on screen. Garbage instead of text that is (I've had it in some apps, I found the offender and got rid of it.)

If you want to keep the fonts out of the way, install them in the user/library/font folder, so another user would be clear of this eventual problem.

i just remember this from 5, 10, 15 years ago that you always tried to keep your system as lean as possible.

And it was the case and a good thing to do, but the system was completely different. Now, you can have nearly everything on the same system, and some do it. I personally don't think it's a good idea to mix a professional set up and the fun aside but you can. The real culprits eventually are in the background services, the pref panels.

btw. i am using fonts here only as an example. you can think of all kinds of different things in the system instead...

Do you use a font manager? From my personal experience, none right now available is 100% full proof (I'd even say, it's mostly a bag of bugs in the system).

Font manager are the plague…

Some software do have conflicts, some Unsanity software haxies don't do well with some others, it'll be cleared one day (both softwares are ok, they just don't behave well together, I don't remember wich other one.)

it is just that i am looking for ways to prevent further problems in my system, trying to figure out what is wrong at the moment is probably nearly impossible, especially just through a forum because what is happening is random, i cannot repeat it, or logically narrow it down.

If it's a plug-in you don't load or use all the time, or a conflict in core audio happening in some peculiar conditions…

so, what i am doing for now is trying to get my system as clean as possible. a couple of days ago i used idefrag, which proved to be a good thing - i learned that even a mac osx system denefits from occasional defragmenting.

Yep, but OS X defragments files of less than 20 MB by itself a a good BSD U*IX. Note that it does not optimize. But if you keep you drives relatively uncluttered you're ok. Mind that defrag software disables the journalling you have to set back on after, it's IMPORTANT in case of crash.

clearing caches etc with onyx will be the next thing i will try out. thanks for this hint.

Service

Sometimes it's stupid cache files which are the problem. At least it'll be out of the way.

there might be a slight issue with my presonus firebox maybe. a couple of times i had no audio and i was wondering what was going on. then i simply launched the firebox mixer and closed it again and suddenly audio was back (this is just one of the weird things i had happen).
but again, i cannot say when it is happening, i cannot repeat it on command - with such vague facts even the support team of presonus would not be able to get much of a clue.

my emagic mt4 midi interface sometimes has to be unplugged and plugged back in to work properly...

Have you tried to trash the audio MIDI preferences ?

There may be something fishy there, and check your presonus drivers are up to date. They had versions with some issues they corrected fast, but you may be still with a bad number.

And try without your plug-ins, it's the main source of nightmares…

Macdaddy, please, follow the links in my post before this one, you'll found your posts in separate threads which do not belong to this one, thanks.