Really bad bugs destroying user experience, cpu problem +dropped synths biotek and collective

[Silweri]

First of all; I'm really loving Waveform and would like to try to make this my number one DAW, as it has many my preferred best sides from both Ableton live and Logic Pro X. It seems to combine these both into one DAW that has all the things I'm using and adding some great things.



I've been demoing two different versions of the new Waveform daw along with biotek and collective synths. First there was broblem on os x with horrible 2+mins total unresponsiveness when changing preset on collective.

Now after giving it some time to get rid of bugs, I installed the newest version. Collective seems to be smooth now, but I'm now encourtering two far more worse problems;

First
Midi tracks stop working. Suddenly there's no output from track even though nothing has been changed on the track. I can't figure out any reason for this, as the tracks that do this varies. For example simple chords with collective on the track running simple piano preset just stops outputting any sound. Even restart won't fix the issue. Only thing helping is deleting the collective from track and reinput it. Same thing with totally different track with simple melody on midi and biotek on it. I can reproduce this in 5mins again and again, because this is happening all the time and I can't really demo the software as this is happening all the time.

Second thing is
My CPU is dying with only 9 tracks and 5 of them playing at the time. 2 tracks with wav/caf loops and 2 tracks (midi chords/bass) with collective on them and 1 track with midi melody running biotek.

After letting it loop few times for short 8 bar loop, I get cpu overload. CPU usage is 98-100 all the time.


I've tried to google everything related to these issues but no success... Has anybody else had same kind of problems?




These issues are on two totally different computers and are exactly the same;

Computer 1:
Macbook Pro Mid2010 i5 8gb 250gt SSD
OS X Sierra and all updates installed. Fresh Sierra install made few moths ago.


For comparison, I'm running Logic Pro X 10.3... and Ableton Live 9 with 30+ tracks and loads of effects without any hickups or cpu running over 70%



Computer 2:
Asus Asrog g20something gen 4? i5 8gb 250gt SSD, 1Tb hd
Windows 10 clean install made some time last year and all updates installed.

For comparison, I'm running Ableton Live 9 with
30+ tracks and loads of effects without any hickups or cpu running over 50%.

[pough]

Your first issue might be this one:
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 544809cbab

They're trying hard to track down a bug in Collective where it stops playing.

[Silweri]

Forgot to mention that on windows machine, the whole DAW encounters sudden problem from time to time and crashes, project goes some steps back in time when reloading.

I have also tried reinstall and redownload it few times.

[Silweri]

Your first issue might be this one:
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 544809cbab

They're trying hard to track down a bug in Collective where it stops playing.

Thanks for the reply. I'll check that out.

I'm getting the same problem with both collective and biotek.

I haven't yet tried outside the daw synths ect, so don't know if it's only problem with these two.

[zzz00m]

Your first issue might be this one:
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 544809cbab

They're trying hard to track down a bug in Collective where it stops playing.

Thanks for the reply. I'll check that out.

I'm getting the same problem with both collective and biotek.

I haven't yet tried outside the daw synths ect, so don't know if it's only problem with these two.

I posted in that other thread as well. I have the intermittent silence problem with Collective on Waveform 8. I have tested many other 3rd party VST instruments, and so far no dropouts with them. When I was demo-ing Biotek, I noticed it drop out a few times, but it always recovered on its own, and I could not reproduce it. I believe Collective and Biotek share the same core synth engine.

I don't know what to say about your other performance issues. I have a similar Windows configuration as yours, and Waveform seems very light on resources here. I can run a simple MIDI project with 4 tracks and 4 instances of collective, no FX, and it runs around 5% CPU and takes about 500MB memory.

[Silweri]

Just ran test three time on my pc and three times on my macbook pro. Every time I get silence with both biotek and collective by doing this;

I'll use biotek now as example, cause this I also recorded on video.


Start new project

Add midi track on track 1
Generate chord pattern
Use pattern preset house 1

Copy midi track to tracks 2 and 3

Add biotek on track 1 with preset Algorithmic Spring

Add biotek on track 2 with preset Antarctic Life

Add biotek on track 3 with preset Bamboo Forest

All bioteks multiple cores and open gl on.

Start playing tracks on loop and click on cpu load meter on top right cormer.

Every time track three stops outputting any sound and won't start again even if playback is stopped, other tracks deleted, Panic! Pressed (Reset audio engine). Playing keys on synth won't give any sound out from synth.

After loading up different preset on frozen biotek. Sometimes it starts outputting sound again and sometimes won't.

[Silweri]

Your first issue might be this one:
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 544809cbab

They're trying hard to track down a bug in Collective where it stops playing.

Thanks for the reply. I'll check that out.

I'm getting the same problem with both collective and biotek.

I haven't yet tried outside the daw synths ect, so don't know if it's only problem with these two.

I posted in that other thread as well. I have the intermittent silence problem with Collective on Waveform 8. I have tested many other 3rd party VST instruments, and so far no dropouts with them. When I was demo-ing Biotek, I noticed it drop out a few times, but it always recovered on its own, and I could not reproduce it. I believe Collective and Biotek share the same core synth engine.

I don't know what to say about your other performance issues. I have a similar Windows configuration as yours, and Waveform seems very light on resources here. I can run a simple MIDI project with 4 tracks and 4 instances of collective, no FX, and it runs around 5% CPU and takes about 500MB memory.

Thank you for the reply.

I tested waveform also on my friends computer today and same issues on his PC laptop. With only one midi track with simple chords pattern and biotek on track with one stock preset, the cpu meter runs at 54-62%.

How are you getting so low cpu loads?

I can get around 4-5% load only by frozing whole project.

[zzz00m]

I tested waveform also on my friends computer today and same issues on his PC laptop. With only one midi track with simple chords pattern and biotek on track with one stock preset, the cpu meter runs at 54-62%.

How are you getting so low cpu loads?

I can get around 4-5% load only by frozing whole project.

That does sound pretty high on the CPU hit. How about testing Waveform with plugin instruments you can run in your other DAW without issue. I think at this point it would be good to know whether it is Waveform or the new instruments that are the hogs, so time to rule out one or the other.

I use an external audio interface with factory ASIO drivers. With that I can run Waveform with audio buffer size of 256 samples (5.8 ms latency).

Windows 10 is a conundrum. It seems to be capable of being the highest performance Windows OS yet, but a stock install is loaded with crap. If you haven't done so already, I would disable Cortana (as much as possible) and all of the Microsoft store stuff, plus any unnecessary processes that start at boot, and disconnect all USB devices you absolutely don't need. Sometimes even Wi-Fi can cause conflict, so you may want to disable that if necessary. I would recommend Googling around for how-to's on optimizing a system for audio.

Windows 10 Task Manager has a "Startup" tab where you can go in and temporarily disable some startup tasks.

There is also a handy free app called LatencyMon that you can run that will give you a report on how well your system can handle real-time audio. You can even dig into it a bit to see what drivers are hitting your CPU the hardest. http://www.resplendence.com/latencymon

[Silweri]

Found two exact effects causing Collective to freeze. After disabling these effects, collective starts working normally. Effects can be enabled again and keep working.

On preset Ballad Piano EM -> effect 4 Reverb Natur...

On preset 5th Track WMF -> effect 3 Delay

I have video from the whole process which gives more info. Uploaded to my Youtube channel. Please check it out and don't mind background voices +wobbly camera. You see that on other preset, reducing mix brought voice back and disabling these effects, mentioned before, brought whole sound back to life.

Maby the bug is on some delay/echo coding?
Please check your effects through if disabling some specific effect unfreezes the sound.

https://youtu.be/YgBS236twkY

[Silweri]

One more freeze solved. This time it was effect Chorus.

https://youtu.be/C9wq-HZ7ncA

[Silweri]

Tried 32bit version of Waveform on PC.

Working flawless so far.
No silence on Collective or biotek, CPU usage dropped to ~25% where the 64bit version is over 90%.


One other problem went away too!
I've had the problem with Waveform, that if I plug in, or plug out headphones, I lose all sounds. Panic!(Reset the audio engine) has not been able to bring the sounds back, only blue button on Settings -> Setup Audio Device "Reset Audio Settings" has been able to get sounds back on, or restarting of Waveform.

On 32bit version of Waveform on PC, sounds keep playing without any problems when plugging in/out the headphones.