thanks, yeah it looks like it's the oversampling on the Pulsar channels that's causing the overwhelming issues.

as you can tell, I'm kinda fed up with Logic anyway, it's not the fact it's hitting the ceiling processor-wise, it's the way that it handles the overloads.

honestly, my ears can't take the crackle and the mad fits of audio it spits out when it starts to go wrong.

not just that though, it's so unresponsive. if I engage a cycle in a track it more often than not just misses it until I restart the transport.

and I swear I never had this issue when I was running the same oversampled plugs on my 2013 laptop, maybe they downgraded the hardware or something.

anyway: scotch.

thank you for your help!