I've had similar issues with Ableton. Unexplained reasons that it is slow sometimes and not others. It is OSX related somehow. I've been using Mac's for 10 years. Usually there is some consistency.. Not this time.
Just downloaded v3.52 hoping in vein for some improvement but it seems exactly the same. Just ran another scenario to check it is not the streaming of the audio which is causing the high CPU load, simply added 30 empty tracks to a project and pressed play and sure enough with the project window and mixer displayed the performance meter reads 30%. Is there any word in weather this is being looked in to at all?
Well, now you've done it. I think you're going to "disappear" in the middle the night under mysterious circumstances. That'll teach you to nose around and ask questions.
P.S. Write your name on you arm in indelible marker, for ID purposes.
__________________
Success is just one more plugin away! And happiness is as close as your next upgrade. (On the interweb: www.rolandk.ca / www.auroraskypublishing.com)
running reaper only i get high cpu load, just put up 30 tracks and dropped the same wav file into all of them, no plugins and performance meter says total cpu: 35% RT CPU: 4.3%. can anyone tell me the difference? also is there anything i can do to optimise my system for reaper?, apart from the sleep settings i mean.
Loving reaper by the way, i've found it the most intuitive daw so far..
cheers
Same here, with a few additions.
I get playback glitches and dropouts while the system CPU and
Reaper's performance meter are both ticking along in the 30%-50% range.
Sound is a MOTU UltraLite running with a buffer of 1152.
I also have a couple pesky old UAD-1s, running at 40%,
and those are a separate troublespot for Reaper.
But somewhere the system is choking without indication.