Input lag in Logic 11, M1 up to the job?

[Paul Woodward]

Starting a new topic as there is lots of talk about new features in the Logic thread. Anyway, updated to Logic 11 and opened my last track. Keyboard lag from the Grandstage was unbearable. Tried changing latency settings in audio and ‘low latency monitoring’ in recording but no good. Decided a new track was the way to go and voila, no lag at all.

As I built up a track the lag crept back in, and by the end is was getting bad again. Tried with my Keystage and the same. Bear in mind this was just eight tracks but included one drum session track, the studio piano and studio bass with Chromaglow on the drums as well as the mastering mode activated.

Watched the activity monitor and there was no real stress on the CPU.

So, I’m wondering if there is some bug in the new version (never had lag before), if the AI stuff is just causing this and if an M1 with 8gb is up to the job now. I only ever fire up the Mac mini to use with Logic once in a while so don’t really want to upgrade if there are any settings or tweaks to improve this, I don’t believe the M2 is a substantial upgrade anyway…that just leaves a 16gb upgrade I guess.

Anyone else noticed similar issues in Logic 11?

[J.F.N.]

Wow, how is this possible in 2024???

[Jonathan Hughes]

The mastering assistant uses lookahead processing. Using any plugin that uses lookahead processing will give you a delay when playing from a keyboard.

[Paul Woodward]

1 minute ago, Jonathan Hughes said:

The mastering assistant uses lookahead processing. Using any plugin that uses lookahead processing will give you a delay when playing from a keyboard.

I thought it only did that when you first run it as there is an option to ‘reanalyse’ afterwards. Will try disabling it next time and see the results. Can’t recall if the lag crept in before I ran it as I tend to do it last.

Im pretty sure M1 is more than capable and that 8gb is capable of handling such a few tracks. 

[J.F.N.]

If you have plugins on the master, disable them while recording, known fact that the latency compensation is effing things up else.

[ElmerJFudd]

What do you mean when you say keyboard lag?  Do you mean MIDI in to audio out from a plugin?  Which plugin exactly?   A stock logic plugin or a third party plugin?  Are you running in Rosetta because some of your plugins aren’t Apple Silicon native? Do you have PDC (plugin delay compensation) turned on?
 

Or do you mean audio in from your keyboard to monitoring audio out through Logic’s mixer? 

[Jonathan Hughes]

"I thought it only did that when you first run it as there is an option to ‘reanalyse’ afterwards"

No. Many compressors and limiters have a lookahead feature so that they can make adjustments before they need to happen. I assume that the analyzing is just for the overall EQ and compressor settings, but the compressor still needs to be able to look ahead as you're playing the track.

[Paul Woodward]

29 minutes ago, ElmerJFudd said:

What do you mean when you say keyboard lag?  Do you mean MIDI in to audio out from a plugin?  Which plugin exactly?   A stock logic plugin or a third party plugin?  Are you running in Rosetta because some of your plugins aren’t Apple Silicon native? Do you have PDC (plugin delay compensation) turned on?
 

Or do you mean audio in from your keyboard to monitoring audio out through Logic’s mixer? 

I just read about the Crtl I to disable Rosetta, will try that.

Sorry if it wasn’t clear, meant midi input lag when playing internal instruments from an external keyboard. Perfect at first, gets worse as the ‘song’ develops. At one point, so bad it sounded like a ping pong delay. Only noticed since upgrading to Logic Pro 11 and mastering assistant was already in Pro X…

[MartinLeo]

Same Mac M1 8GB Logic 11 (Sonoma) and I have no lag since I enable “low latency” under the record tab. I also go to project management and delete all the unused recordings….

[Paul Woodward]

Quite a few tips here I can try to avoid the lag, thanks. On a side note, while looking to ‘clean up’ my mac, I discovered remnants of the Rhodes V8 trial and some GarageBand content was well over 30gb of my system data despite no applications being installed. That’s gone now along with a load of free plugins I never used.

[Stokely]

On 5/20/2024 at 12:11 PM, MartinLeo said:

Same Mac M1 8GB Logic 11 (Sonoma) and I have no lag since I enable “low latency” under the record tab. I also go to project management and delete all the unused recordings….

I just started using a 16GB M1 MBP and I *have to* enable low latency mode (or else it was low latency input monitoring, iirc it is on the 2nd tab under Audio).   If I don't, no matter what the sample setting is or the reported latency being very low in milliseconds, I'll feel latency.  I don't remember needing to do that with older versions of Logic.   

In any case, it works fine when I do that.  And overall, it's much snappier to use than my Intel 2016 MBP.    Some of my newer Kontakt instruments like Lores and Fable (both from Native Instruments) were unusable with that machine.    I did take the opportunity to weed out a lot of plugins I wasn't using, but I'm not sure that really matters much if they aren't in use.

[Paul Woodward]

Did you try any of the suggestions above such as turning off mastering assistant and deleting unused recording, freezing tracks etc?

[Stokely]

In my case, it's on a brand new project, no recorded tracks.

I'm not using the mastering assistant, but I also didn't check it yet, so it might be enabled.  Whatever the default is, that's what I am using   I just very recently upgraded from 10.8.   I'll take a look when I'm back on the mac.

[Al Whynottwoletters]

I have the problem on both, Logic and GarageBand on a  M1 MBP with 16GBs RAM and 180GB SSD: When I want to play Midi – even on the internal virtual Keyboard they both lag in a way they're completely unusable.

[ElmerJFudd]

On 11/2/2024 at 1:12 PM, Al Whynottwoletters said:

I have the problem on both, Logic and GarageBand on a  M1 MBP with 16GBs RAM and 180GB SSD: When I want to play Midi – even on the internal virtual Keyboard they both lag in a way they're completely unusable.

Mentioned above includes turning off plugins on your master bus, output 1-2.  Especially any plugin that uses look ahead processing.   For performance you’ll also want to use low latency mode, a low buffer setting in audio preferences.  

[Stokely]

Just wanted to chime again--apologies for anyone who read this in the Apple m4 thread--I found what was causing my latency issue.

Stuff on the master bus.

My mistake was that I simply disabled it, vs setting "no plugin".  That made all the difference.   Since I did that I haven't needed to use low latency mode for doing midi tracks, though granted it's only been a couple days.   But it immediately cleared things up when I removed Ozone from the bus.  Before Ozone I had various other things on there at different times.

Low latency of course is still there as an option, but it's a bit of a PITA because it disables some things (sends among them) and it's just something you have to go in and toggle (not sure if there is a key command for it).   I now find that at 32 or 64 samples I'm fine, I don't feel any lag.

[Paul Woodward]

Some good tips here and will be sure to follow them with the new M4 mini...

[synthdogg]

I've been using Logic 11 on an M1 MB Pro...no latency issues at all, either using Rosetta or not. I've just started using VI Labs Modern D in live settings and it's been fantastic. 

 

8MB is a little low, but not sure why that would cause latency...I would think there would be other issues that would show up there.

 

I do agree with what people are saying about the master bus. I'm not sure why anyone would keep anything on there until they get to a mixing stage, but to each their own I suppose. It's definitely good to have awareness of which plug ins do add latency in your system, but I'm not sure from your post if you are even using other plug ins outside of  the instruments you are playing. 

[DroptopBroham]

Maybe time to upgrade to the new Mini with the M4. it's not an expensive upgrade, especially if you have a student discount. Mine has been pre-ordered.