Are all hosts share more or less the same CPU performance when running plugins?

[DuX]

hmmm Chicken or the egg problem, huh? I think most of the people like to have a beautiful looking, which usually means "hardware like looking" DAW and that's the problem. If looks weren't the issue, they would have more time to optimise the audio engine, which is what really *should* interest us. But oh, people are so "aesthetic" these days... almost as if they could play the music with their eyes.

You should hear how some blind people make music. They're deprived of the visual stimulant, so they rely on the sound only... I think today's society is too "visual" anyway... we've forgot about other senses altogether.

[chk071]

hmmm Chicken or the egg problem, huh? I think most of the people like to have a beautiful looking, which usually means "hardware like looking" DAW and that's the problem. If looks weren't the issue, they would have more time to optimise the audio engine, which is what really *should* interest us. But oh, people are so "aesthetic" these days... almost as if they could play the music with their eyes.

You should hear how some blind people make music. They're deprived of the visual stimulant, so they rely on the sound only... I think today's society is too "visual" anyway... we've forgot about other senses altogether.

Totally agree.

[jeffh]

To me, it seems like all the DAW makers just want to make the most beautiful looking DAW with every feature there is available

This. (Ableton and it's ugly interface being the exception ). But it's really the user's fault, I've been seeing for many years that 90%+ of users judge plugins and DAWs solely on their appearance, which really leaves developers no choice but to engage in "pretty-ness wars".

I can think of one particular crappy plugin suite (whose name who I won't mention), that got seriously nice new UIs not that long ago... and now I see and hear users raving about "OMG, THEY'RE JUST SO GOOD NOW, SOUND AMAZING, PROFESSIONAL-GRADE PLUGINZ!!!"

But, to objective and highly trained ears, they sound just as crappy as they did 5 years ago, and as far as I can tell, literally nothing about the plugins changed except the UIs, no new knobs or features, and they sound just the same... They were low-end then, and they still are, but suddenly they're becoming quite popular just for looking like real hardware. Back when they looked as bad as they sound, nobody cared about them.

Then there's that Roland Juno emulation in the Reaktor library. Some guy made it with a plain Reaktor UI, then some other dude came along and skinned it to look just like a real Juno(but pretended that he made the whole thing himself until he was eventually caught), and last time I looked, the skinned one was still a top-10 Reaktor download of all time, and the original is probably about 5000th place on the all time download list.

But, there's nothing we can really do about it, so here's to flash over substance

/rant

[DuX]

I think Live's interface looks great! I would take Live's GUI any day, if the DAW was more efficient, stable, and more easy to use. Different workflow. I'm not saying it is not easy to use. It's just that it is not easy to use for me, coming from Cubase, EnergyXT, Reaper.

Oh yeah, jeffh, people react so incredible when it comes to different looks, and that's what I'm telling everybody about - listen, close your eyes and listen. you can find some pretty good plugins that way that don't look very spiffy. I have a large collection of great GUIless plugins, freeware, that sound really great. That's thanks to KVR and being a regular. Some developers make a guiless version of a plugin, post it here, and then make a plugin that looks much better, however I keep the GUIless version... and I'd like if every developer would provide a GUIless version of a plugin, actually, for people who listen with their ears, not eyes.

[hibidy]

After using live for the last 3+ months, I too believe it looks great! Lean and clean imho. The problem with S1 is that viewing the mixer is cumbersome. Displaying it it obviously easy, but working with it is another story entirely! I'm going to work on a song I started in S1 today and I'm dreading "how do I access plug in windows/vs the mixer/vs tracks" nightmare (I wish they'd fix the mixer to always update the name you changed in the tracks area)

Btw way, Why HASN'T studio one had an update since forever?

Oh yeah, this is a cpu thread.......sorry bout that.

[machinesworking]

Hmmm? all the arguments that a complex GUI hardware looking DAW is guilty of using far too much resources fall flat on their face with Live's massive CPU use and 2D ultra simple GUI.
Maybe back when graphics cards were underpowered years ago that was partly true, but it really isn't the case as much these days.

Mostly CPU hits are due to plug ins and newer features. Most modern DAWs do some form of elastic audio which is a CPU drain, most do PDC, and include all kinds of ways to make sure you doing something like adding a piggish plug in to a track while the transport is running doesn't crash your song, and hopefully doesn't interrupt it.


VSTs have gone through the roof. An older VST like the original PPG Wave uses almost zero CPU on a modern PC. While Massive, Diva and the like will kill your CPU quickly and efficiently. People demand this, they demand elastic audio, and plug ins that have the warmth and power of hardware, then demand that it all be light on their CPU. People demand that Live never have it's audio interrupted, that it take all kinds of performance features on, then complain that it's a CPU pig.

It's how we roll, us humans!

[Tony Ostinato]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7T29uWWjmCI

thats the nuendo setup i was using for windsynth playing live but in the last year or so ive switched it all over to reaper. everything in the video matches in my new reaper setup and ive added a whole bunch more stuff.

the main motivation when i switched was to use the new insert piz here midichords which works way better than nuendos chorder.

im starting to work on a matching video for that whole setup.

the summary would be reaper is very solid and flexible for a low latency live setup like this and i love it.

i wanted to do a hundred or so gigs on it before doing the video just so i was sure its solid, and in that time not a crash or problem.

[metamorphosis]

Their "Anticipative" processing, which afaik is a kind of prerendering works really really well...

In most tests I did for myself, I could run about 30-40% more content in Reaper than in other hosts, which in real numbers were 15-20 instances MORE ...

I did tests between tracktion 3 and reaper several years ago, and found plugin count was almost exactly the same - for reaper, sometimes more plugins could be used, for tracktion, sometimes more could be used, it depended entirely on the plugin in question. Reaper on the whole was very slightly (< 5%) faster.
So unless tracktion and reaper are both light-years ahead of the competition, I can't say there's a huge amount of difference, asides from multi-core support.

m@

[hibidy]

So in other words, regardless of the truth, everyone has had different experiences and since we are not all in one room to PROVE if anyone is right/wrong, we really don't know?

I see

[j79]

Well, the misunderstanding that adding a new feature necessarily means that the DAW wants more CPU-juice, seem to be pretty common around here...

Sometimes adding a feature means higher CPU-use, sometimes not. Most features do not use any ressources when not used

[LawrenceF]

So in other words, regardless of the truth, everyone has had different experiences and since we are not all in one room to PROVE if anyone is right/wrong, we really don't know?

I see

I think you just pretty accurately defined religion. The comparison is nteresting, no?

Translation: Believe whatever makes you happy that doesn't hurt someone else.

[hibidy]

That's the thing about S1. It uses 5-10% on their woeful meter when NOTHING is loaded

Maybe it's just me, but I hardly think that is a good thing.

[sqigls]

That's the thing about S1. It uses 5-10% on their woeful meter when NOTHING is loaded

Maybe it's just me, but I hardly think that is a good thing.

REALLY!? I was under the impression it was quite efficient. Jeez.


My live (ableton) set is starting to revolve more (and almost completely) around MIDI triggering soft synths, with both patch and instrument rack change messages. I'm just exploring now all the synths I have which don't use CPU when aren't being triggered. I should make a list, if anyone has or knows where there is a list compiled it would be a great help. It beats the hell out of rendering stems, such a pain, and so limiting.

A good friend has an awesome minimal tech set which is 100% Operator, but I find the sound pallete a bit limiting. I'd like use 100% Zebra, but I have so many good synths now that i keep getting thrown off track.

I wish more developers would code their synths to not use CPU while the synth was idle.

[hibidy]

I've heard from quite a few people that complain about the 5-10% S1 thing. I think it was Lawrence that said it........."the CPU meter is pretty much useless" I can't help it.......it flickers

[metamorphosis]

So in other words, regardless of the truth, everyone has had different experiences and since we are not all in one room to PROVE if anyone is right/wrong, we really don't know?

I see

I think there's an objective truth, because we're talking about computers, not lemurs.
However, I'm not in a position to compare anything but tracktion or reaper, because I haven't done it yet. If they are lightyears ahead of the competition, that's great. I just said that there's little objective difference between those two in terms of performance...