Garageband Performance Issues With New Macbook?, Newbie needs some help optimizing garageband Options

[nebdrof]

Hey all! Got a new mac user here with some questions about the CPU hog that is 'Garageband'. Either I've selected some memory heavy track options, recorded something improperly, or have other unknown system issues that I could use some help sorting out.

Hardware: New Macbook with 2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo and 2GB Memory (1067 Mhz DDR3) with about half of the hard drive filled with pictures/music etc. 121G of 256G

Software: Gb that came installed on the machine and no other plugins/add ons.

Recording: 6 track/2:00 min song, 2 mic tracks (guitar,vocal), 3 Gb instrument tracks (bass and 2 keys), and 1 Drumbeat loop from the Gb loops (effected drumkit 08) all relatively light on effects

Issue: "Part of Project was not played" - Too many real instrument tracks to be played in real time. To optimize performance...blah blah blah. I've followed most of their optimizing tips to no avail. I've uploaded a screenprint of garageband, the warning and current CPU usage monitor which does not seem to be maxed...

Question: Anything else I should be doing to make this thing work? Is there another program that is not as resource intensive that has similar functionality. I do have Adobe Soundbooth as part of the Adobe Production Premium package but use that mainly for video/photo editing.

Thanks in advance for everyone's help!

Attached File(s)

 Screen_shot_2011_01_13_at_11.23.04_AM.png ( 347.79K ) Number of downloads: 11
 Screen_shot_2011_01_13_at_11.23.04_AM.png ( 347.79K ) Number of downloads: 5

 

[manchoa]

that's certainly not too much for your machine to handle, i'd guess.
before you try a third party audio interface or external hard drive, however, please make sure you've set your buffer size higher. it's in the preferences.
it's possible that your midi tracks have extraneous data, like tons of continuous controller data, (pressure or pitch bend). that can clog things up. even a huge pile of notes can be a problem. an old midi trick is to slide each midi track a tick or two left or right of the beat grid. very small increments, of course.
i also wonder if you've got a bunch of effects on top of each track. more cpu stress there.
i can report that with GB 8 on an intel dual laptop i've easily run more virtual and audio tracks than you're having trouble with here.

Actually - couple of audio tracks and one-two realtime effects is too much for the internal soundcard and will cause dropouts :-( You can run multiply audio tracks, but not realtime effects. They need realtime rendering processeor...