BBCSO Logic Templates and dynamic plug-in loading

Beppe

Hello, I have watched the video about the BBCSO templates which shows that the instruments are not loaded into memory, I mean their "button" is dimmed, but at my end all the "buttons" are not faded. Dynamic plug-in loading is turned on, I checked and the option "Only load plug-ins needed for project playback" is selected.

Is there a change in the template from the release fo the video or is it a problem at my end?

Thank you!

aldous

Hi @Beppe - I feel your pain :-) Logic's "load when required" generally works pretty well for real projects, but for templates I find it's too eager to load plugins to be a reliable memory-saving feature. I think Logic has just become a bit more eager to load plugins compared to when templates were produced. For example, by default, simply selecting a track will load its plugins, whether or not there's any midi on the track. If you select a section's track stack, it can load all the plugins in that section - quite a high price to pay for a stray click!

I've tweaked my template so that all the instrument tracks are explicitly turned off by Option+clicking the "on/off" button for each track. (You may need to change your settings to display the button: see this Apple Support page for details.) Even faster, option+click the on/off button for each section's track stack which will disable all the tracks below. If you're using the full routing template, there are some hidden FX tracks that you may want to re-enable afterwards, just so they're ready. Save that out as a new template, and the job's done. When you want to use an instrument, just click its on/off button to enable and load the plugin.

Hope that helps.

P.S. I find the Apple terminology a bit unclear: by default, the On/Off button is more like an advanced mute button so that "turning a track off" just saves a bit of processing during playback. Clicking the button while pressing Option makes it behave much more like a real On/Off button, i.e. unloads the plugins; that's the version described in the "make plugins inactive" section of the support page linked above.

Beppe

Thank you very much for your very detailed reply. I was a bit puzzled because I believe that when I was using the free version, Discover, and tested the template, the behaviour was different and everything was off. I too am in the habit of turning tracks down.

aldous

Hi @Beppe - I think Logic's load-on-demand behaviour has been updated a few times over the past year or so... perhaps it's that? I just downloaded fresh copies of the Discover and Pro templates, and in both cases the project opens will all tracks "on" - i.e. the on/off button is lit in blue (I'm on Logic 10.7.7.) Each track's instrument's slot is dimmed, but as soon as you select one of those tracks it starts to load the plugin. It takes BBCSO a little while to start-up, but the plugin will un-dim after a few seconds.

In my own template, the project loads with all instrument tracks' on/off buttons dimmed (i.e. grey), and the instrument slot remains dimmed even if I select the track.

Beppe

I am on Logic 10.7.4 ... waiting to finish up a project before updating... hope in a few days.

Anyway I opened an old project with a plugin instrument and I had to click on it to load it, so the mystery is on.