logic pro x massive filesize issue

[QQQ]

i'm having an issue in logic that i could really do with some help with:

my project files are bloating to insane levels for seemingly no reason. they're clocking in around 80–100gb by the time i've finished making a track. i've made sure to delete unused audio files, clear any backups, etc, but the file size stays the same.

digging around inside the files shows me that audio files are becoming huge – i'm looking at a bunch that are 4.26gb in this project (different instruments recorded on different tracks but all exactly the same size).

i've tried saving as a folder instead of a project, but both end up the same.

i can fix things by saving as a new folder and importing the audio files, sampler instruments, etc, into it once i'm done with the project. doing this brought the 89gb file down to 302.5mb, but nothing should have changed?

i'm using logic pro x (10.0.7) on macOS catalina (10.15.6). i'm half assuming this is because of FUCKING CATALINA, considering it's the worst upgrade to hit the macOS in uh idk ever

pls help google is useless. ty

 

[Grain Bastard]

I don’t have a direct answer for you mate but I seem to remember the undo files can spiral out of control on some projects I have used Logic.

 

I think you can chose to not save that in the ‘save as’ option. Might be worth a look.

[QQQ]

i have undo steps limited to 50 and have tried clearing those too, no dice. thanks for your suggestion though.

[user]

Weird. Could it be that Catalina is misrepresenting the filesize?

Or are you making Big Beat?

[thawkins]

Totally spitballing here, but could Logic have something where it renders some audio to flatten-freeze or print stuff ?

Because 4GB is the maximum size for a WAV file (maibe AIFF too), and could it be that you have some routings that feed back into each other so if you do the freeze/render, the engine will just keep writing this audio into a file even though it should not.

I know for a fact that I once managed to crash Live by doing some very "clever" routing that fed into itself, caused a stack overflow and poof. That might have been MIDI, but the point is that I don't think DAWs are smart enough to know that there is a loop like this going on.

Can you listen to these huge files somehow to see what the hell is going on?

And like for all this kind of problems, it might help to back the project up, then start eliminating tracks or devices from it one by one and see at which point the file size drops back to normal.

[ignatius]

weird. i wonder if you're saving and resaving samples used in sampler instruments? i know you can choose to save all the included samples with the project which i never do unless i'm going to move it around somewhere. 

my logic projects are never that big.. i'd be surprised if they were over 7 or 8gb. but my projects are max like 16 tracks. 

[QQQ]

On 2/4/2021 at 6:41 PM, user said:

Weird. Could it be that Catalina is misrepresenting the filesize?

Or are you making Big Beat?

this could be a possibilty?

also: big beats are the best, get high all the time

On 2/4/2021 at 7:22 PM, thawkins said:

Totally spitballing here, but could Logic have something where it renders some audio to flatten-freeze or print stuff ?

Because 4GB is the maximum size for a WAV file (maibe AIFF too), and could it be that you have some routings that feed back into each other so if you do the freeze/render, the engine will just keep writing this audio into a file even though it should not.

I know for a fact that I once managed to crash Live by doing some very "clever" routing that fed into itself, caused a stack overflow and poof. That might have been MIDI, but the point is that I don't think DAWs are smart enough to know that there is a loop like this going on.

Can you listen to these huge files somehow to see what the hell is going on?

And like for all this kind of problems, it might help to back the project up, then start eliminating tracks or devices from it one by one and see at which point the file size drops back to normal.

i don't have anything frisky going on in the projects, just audio going through stock logic plug ins, some external MIDI channels, and usually the EXS sampler with a few short samples loaded into it ... that's about it. i don't use or have any softsynths or external plug-ins that could fuck anything up.

On 2/4/2021 at 7:59 PM, ignatius said:

weird. i wonder if you're saving and resaving samples used in sampler instruments? i know you can choose to save all the included samples with the project which i never do unless i'm going to move it around somewhere. 

my logic projects are never that big.. i'd be surprised if they were over 7 or 8gb. but my projects are max like 16 tracks. 

i have started to resave audio and sampler instruments in the folder, but only after this started, and it definitely doesn't change anything.

i started work on a new track today. all i've done is load up a new project, add some MIDI note data, and recorded some one-shot drums to load into a sampler instrument. this is what the project looks like:

very early stages, nothing unusual going on – no plugins other than a channel EQ on 2 currently empty audio tracks, no audio other than the one-shots shown there. this is what the audio looks like in the finder and in system information:

they're actually showing 2 different file sizes this time – regular in the finder, and 4.26gb each when going to about my mac > storage > manage

[thawkins]

Some ideas I found here:

https://www.gearslutz.com/board/newbie-audio-engineering-production-question-zone/1301604-need-help-20-second-wav-recording-4gb-size-2.html

https://www.gearslutz.com/board/apple-logic-pro/1218190-logic-pro-project-file-size.html

 

From the first discussion the posted updated their Logic version and this fixed the issue. Maybe you have something similar or at least get some inspiration.

[mcbpete]

2 hours ago, thawkins said:

Some ideas I found here:

https://www.gearslutz.com/board/newbie-audio-engineering-production-question-zone/1301604-need-help-20-second-wav-recording-4gb-size-2.html

From the first discussion the posted updated their Logic version and this fixed the issue. Maybe you have something similar or at least get some inspiration.

Yeah it definitely sounds like the same thing, I notice that the filesize is EXACTLY the same in the screenshot above as this post here for the wav files (4.26gb) - https://www.gearslutz.com/board/showpost.php?p=14590151&postcount=34

[thawkins]

I would not focus too much on 4.26GB because that is also eerily close to maximum WAV file size (4 GiB - 4.29GB).

[QQQ]

3 hours ago, thawkins said:

Some ideas I found here:

https://www.gearslutz.com/board/newbie-audio-engineering-production-question-zone/1301604-need-help-20-second-wav-recording-4gb-size-2.html

https://www.gearslutz.com/board/apple-logic-pro/1218190-logic-pro-project-file-size.html

 

From the first discussion the posted updated their Logic version and this fixed the issue. Maybe you have something similar or at least get some inspiration.

i'm not able to update without buying a new copy of logic, and £200 is a bit much for a bug fix that might not actually work. it definitely sounds like he's had the same issue though.

the size issue is real rather than a false representation (like people have mentioned in those threads), my mac keeps running out of storage space and chugging until i sort these files.

cheers for everyone's suggestions so far.

Edited February 11, 2021 by QQQ

[mcbpete]

Well that's why I'm thinking it's probably the same bug - For some reason Logic is writing to the FAT (or whatever the equivalent is on a MAC) that each media item is the maximum file size that this file-type can be rather than the *actual* file size

[thawkins]

Just now, QQQ said:

i'm not able to update without buying a new copy of logic, and £200 is a bit much for a bug fix that might not actually work. it definitelty sounds like he's had the same issue though.

the size issue is definitely real rather than a false representation (like people have mentioned in those threads), my mac keeps running out of storage space and chugging until i sort these files.

cheers for everyone's suggestions so far.

You can try out the trial version of the new Logic to see if it fixes your issue, no?

 

1 minute ago, mcbpete said:

Well that's why I'm thinking it's probably the same bug - For some reason Logic is writing to the FAT (or whatever the equivalent is on a MAC) that each media item is the maximum file size that this file-type can be rather than the *actual* file size

Yeah this sounds logical.

[user]

1 hour ago, thawkins said:

You can try out the trial version of the new Logic to see if it fixes your issue, no?

 

Yeah this sounds logical.

I see what you did there...

 

[Squee]

6 hours ago, QQQ said:

this could be a possibilty?

also: big beats are the best, get high all the time

i don't have anything frisky going on in the projects, just audio going through stock logic plug ins, some external MIDI channels, and usually the EXS sampler with a few short samples loaded into it ... that's about it. i don't use or have any softsynths or external plug-ins that could fuck anything up.

i have started to resave audio and sampler instruments in the folder, but only after this started, and it definitely doesn't change anything.

i started work on a new track today. all i've done is load up a new project, add some MIDI note data, and recorded some one-shot drums to load into a sampler instrument. this is what the project looks like:

 

That is a very old version of Logic. Maybe try updating it?