Psy-Gen: Is this normal?

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Hi there,

Just wanted to check that this is expected behaviour:
- when changing to a different preset the entire audio-engine pauses - that is everything stops - for a second.

Why this is a problem...
- I was intending to use Psy-Gen to perform live along with other effects - as it stands it cuts out everything when it loads another preset

I have Psy-Gen running on a Bootcamp / win7 install.
I have both Sensomusic Usine and Bidule installed and it exhibits the same issue in both.

Any thoughts or remedies?

chrs
Lloyd

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It shouldn't and doesn't with my Sonar 64 bit on a PC Win 7 64 bit. For all of the patches I tried changing in real time the changes were instantaneous. When you say it cuts out everything are you saying the DSP engine stops? That is very unusual and I have never seen that happen. I don't have a Mac to test it with though.

It could be an issue with Bootcamp.

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Check it out --> https://dl.dropbox.com/u/28602715/testpsy-gen.mp3

Interestingly - recording in Bidule does not reproduce glitches so I'm guessing it is stopping the entire process?
You can hear the glitches in this excerpt which I recorded from the mixer output on a Zoom H4N.

I'm using 32bit bidule but 64bit Windows - running Asio through a Motu Ultralite. Not sure if any of that makes a difference.
It could be that my laptop is too old (5yrs) but this is the first time I've had the issue. Any suggestions?

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secretkillerofnames wrote:Check it out --> https://dl.dropbox.com/u/28602715/testpsy-gen.mp3

Interestingly - recording in Bidule does not reproduce glitches so I'm guessing it is stopping the entire process?
You can hear the glitches in this excerpt which I recorded from the mixer output on a Zoom H4N.

I'm using 32bit bidule but 64bit Windows - running Asio through a Motu Ultralite. Not sure if any of that makes a difference.
It could be that my laptop is too old (5yrs) but this is the first time I've had the issue. Any suggestions?
There are many variables in your configuration so it is hard to ascertain which may be causing the problem. Since I have none of those I really cannot suggest a solution. Sorry.

PsyGEN has to load the samples into each channel for each patch and if there are many channels with samples the computer processor may not be fast enough. But I am just guessing at a cause.

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mine does it as well. never really noticed as i wouldnt need to switch patches while playing.

fl studio 10 on win 7 64

interestingly enough....it seems that it cuts out every time if i switch patches while NOT playing, but if i hold a note while switching, it only cuts out sometimes. a lot of the time if i switch while holding a note it wont cut out but there is a slight (but noticeable) click.

it seems to be patch dependent...the same ones cut or make a click and the same ones are instant and seamless.

i was thinking it was associated with the complexity of the patch i.e. how many samples were being used, but no, some complicated patches load seamless and some simple ones cut or click.
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Yeah i've tried running all the samples from an external and that reduces the problem somewhat but it is still very noticeable.

By comparison if I change to a different reaktor ensemble it takes a lot longer to load but doesn't cut out everything else.

It's like Psy-Gen takes over the priority of the CPU or something. ChaosWyrm are you running a Core2Duo as I am?

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nope, amd phenom x2 560 (only using 2 cores though not all 4)
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Well that is better than my Macbook Pro's T9300 I guess.

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OK I did some testing with some interesting results.

What I did was try running it on OSX. Here are my tests and results

1: Psy-Gen with VFX and Ableton Live 8

VFX I know of as a way of getting SynthEdit plugins running on OSX. I set Soundflower as my audio device which allowed me to then stream the audio through Ableton Live. I put a beat on in another Ableton channel so that I can get a proper test.
It worked! But the playback from Psy-Gen was a bit glitchy and laggy. Occasional skips in the audio like I get running a DosBox emulator on my shitty Android Tablet. The important thing - changing presets did not stop the audio or interrupt the looping wave file!

2: Psy-Gen in EnergyXT through Crossover and Jack router to Bidule.

For this test I load up the PC demo of EnergyXT in Crossover which is a pay-ware Wine implementation I bought to run Vaz Modular 3 on OSX. I have Jack Router setup to route the output of Energy XT into Bidule and then Bidule routing out to the audio device. I setup a loop in bidule and get Psy-Gen going. Again it works - no interruption to the loop while changing the presets. It is however worse to use than VFX with the UI running so sluggishly it is virtually impossible to control.

Conclusion:

The fact that interacting with the presets in OSX has no effect on other processes running makes me think something is up with my Bootcamp / Windows install. A clogged bus? IO issues? I'm not sure but I recall having this issue back in the day with Audiomulch - changing files to loop would result in the same kind of brief pause of the audio engine. I recall the fix at that point was to
1) run all media from a drive other than the windows drive
2) Fiddle with the file streaming settings in Audiomulch

Next Step:

I'm going to try installing Audiomulch in Bootcamp as well as see if fiddling with the File Settings (if they are available) of Bidule and Usine make any difference to the result.

Any thoughts on this?

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wow man...lol. any thoughts? nope...i barely understood what you said :?

i have absolutely zero knowledge about macs or how they work at all. all that crazy routing and using 3rd party apps for stuff is way above my pay grade.

sorry...you obviously know way far more about that stuff than i do.
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Well the tl.dr. version is the problem is most likely with my crappy system (and also with the fact that Psy-Gen is not made in an OSX friendly version - hehe).

Alas it means I can't use it for a gig at the end of the month - will have to pre-record and put on the SP404sux ;)

I've already done a heap of modding to this Win7 install to make it music friendly. A bunch more I can do from Black Viper here but I'm actually thinking "f**k this - I wanna make music" so i'm going with the tried and trusted for now.

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