Tuning a mac for Pro Tools

[poserp]

Hi! I am somewhat new to Pro Tools (decided I ought to at least try it... Now we're good), but not new to computers -- I've been doing various kinds of programming for 20 years or so. Anyways, at times I get a message that Pro Tools can't do something because there aren't enough resources. I know that this is not true. What makes Pro Tools think it doesn't have enough resources on a Mac? I have yet to really dive into the settings in Pro Tools, because this doesn't happen very often and (thankfully) it's just me doing music in my music hidey-hole so nothing is really lost, usually it'll just shut down an insert effect or something similar. I got the permanent license version of Pro Tools new about six months ago, so it should be (mostly) up-to-date. IIRC, the Mac Mini is a 2016 model, 16 GB RAM and two SSD drives. It's barely doing anything above 10% w.r.t. resource utilization. I don't run a gazillion tracks nor do I use plug-ins all that often, most of the time I'm doing maybe a BF-76 on guitar and bass tracks, and sometimes I use the Waves TG Mastering plug-in on a mix. So, basically, Pro Tools is mostly a glorified tape recorder. I provide these details to demonstrate that, AFAIK, I'm not "stressing" my system in any way, so it seems like I'm missing something that might be obvious to someone else who's worked more with Pro Tools.

 

Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

[Geoff Grace]

Your Mac sounds fine to me. Avid gives good guidelines on how to setup your computer for optimal performance. Things tend to run the smoothest if you set things up their way. Go here for more information:

 

Computer Optimization Guides â Mac and Windows

 

You also might try increasing the sample buffer if you still have problems.

 

Best,

 

Geoff

[Dr Mike Metlay]

If you have a current license for Pro Tools, you can also contact Avid tech support directly, assuming the website FAQ doesn't have an answer to your query buried in some submenu. It will also help if those error messages have any kind of numerical code or particular language associated with them (forgive me, I don't use PT so I don't know how errors are reported).