Two major software announcements from PreSonus: Notion 6 & Studio One 3.3

[incubus]

Is the CPU usage really so much higher in S1 than in other hosts? I frankly never noticed much of a difference with my, admittedly, very small projects, between hosts. Using Studio One 2 producer though, not the newer version.

S1 and bitwig were just terrible for me. Everything else I use is basically fine except when using too many hungry plugs (and they ALL seem hungry at times )

Even on this old computer FL, reason, tracktion....they are fine. Keep in mind that NI + S1 is a fairly common issue outside of the norm as well.

Again, CONFIRMED by Eike when he was with the company. Also confirmed is that the CPU is NOT OPTIMIZED.

You'd think someone would just do it and get it over with. Then we wouldn't have people like me complaining about it.

[chk071]

Frankly, i read this "not optimized" thing far too often. No programmer would "not optimize" things, unless he's a full blown idiot, or wants his program to be the most massive CPU hog ever existed. If S1 really uses more CPU than other hosts, fair enough. But this "not optimized" thing is a myth created by people who have no idea about programming IMO. No offense to you incubus, it's just that such rumours are often spread, and people emphasize something to make their point weigh more. That doesn't mean it has to be true though.

Anyway, might do some experiments with my VSTi's in different hosts the next days, i'd be really interested if the differences are so big between the hosts. What i did notice before, using the Diva demo, when it came out, was that i got one note less in Cubase when playing a quite CPU intensive patch in Cubase Elements (pre-version 8 ) than i got in Reaper. Didn't ever do such a check after that again.

[incubus]

His words, not mine.

I'm just giving the facts. Later!

[chk071]

So, one of the companies reps tells people that their software is a CPU hog, and "not optimized"? I'd really like to read that.

[LawrenceF]

I think it's maybe just out of context as in...

Q: Did you optimize the cpu efficiency in this update?
A. No. We did not optimize the cpu in this update. (No, we didn't change anything in that regard)

If they did anything like that it would be in the release notes and/or the marketing and nobody would ever have to ask, but people ask on every update cycle anyway, like asking if FL has time sig now or whatever on every update cycle. The question to ask, if you ever get their ear is...

"Do you feel it needs to be more efficient for the product to be successful?"

If they answer yes, ask ... "when?" If they answer "no" ... well...

[ras.s]

Frankly, i read this "not optimized" thing far too often. No programmer would "not optimize" things, unless he's a full blown idiot, or wants his program to be the most massive CPU hog ever existed. If S1 really uses more CPU than other hosts, fair enough. But this "not optimized" thing is a myth created by people who have no idea about programming IMO. No offense to you incubus, it's just that such rumours are often spread, and people emphasize something to make their point weigh more. That doesn't mean it has to be true though.

And you being frank about it and all doesn't make it true either. From what I gather, programmers more often than not don't get to optimise their code, even if they'd like to. It's more about what they can get away with. Think about it. The product manager is breathing down on your neck, you hack together a new feature, the product manager marks a checkbox and assigns you a new feature to work on, but try telling him that you'd like to spend the next four to six weeks optimising what you just barely got working. Make it nine months since it might mean restructuring the whole codebase. Ain't going to happen, he can't sell a new revision with "code optimisation" as the only new feature that's been worked on since the last version. Well he could, but how often do you see that happening? The system requirements get raised, if anything (as was the case with S1 2 bumping to S1 3).



Now that I'm in a Studio One thread, how's the hardware instrument support in it these days? Particularly in regards to using MIDI instruments, program changes and all that. I haven't upgraded from version two, but haven't sold it either.

[chk071]

Frankly, i read this "not optimized" thing far too often. No programmer would "not optimize" things, unless he's a full blown idiot, or wants his program to be the most massive CPU hog ever existed. If S1 really uses more CPU than other hosts, fair enough. But this "not optimized" thing is a myth created by people who have no idea about programming IMO. No offense to you incubus, it's just that such rumours are often spread, and people emphasize something to make their point weigh more. That doesn't mean it has to be true though.

And you being frank about it and all doesn't make it true either. From what I gather, programmers more often than not don't get to optimise their code, even if they'd like to. It's more about what they can get away with. Think about it. The product manager is breathing down on your neck, you hack together a new feature, the product manager marks a checkbox and assigns you a new feature to work on, but try telling him that you'd like to spend the next four to six weeks optimising what you just barely got working. Make it nine months since it might mean restructuring the whole codebase. Ain't going to happen, he can't sell a new revision with "code optimisation" as the only new feature that's been worked on since the last version. Well he could, but how often do you see that happening? The system requirements get raised, if anything (as was the case with S1 2 bumping to S1 3).

I'm sorry, but that's just nonsense. In such a critical field like real-time audio processing, it's an absolute necessity to optimize your code, and when you don't do that, it will be a huge backfire for you, because, basically, people will simply refrain from your sucky product. I can well understand that some programs are not as efficient as others in that regard, for whatever reason, but a DAW which is "not optimized"? Come on, that's just a fairytale.

Anyway, this is all speculation. Let's wait what incubus will bring up. I wouldn't be surprised if it is like Lawrence stated though, a misunderstanding, taken out of context. No company rep would admit that, even in the for me unthinkable case that it would be true. I mean, he's on their payroll. I don't think he would hurt his own existence.

[LawrenceF]

No real point arguing about who said what. The old forum archive where Eike was talking about all of that (and other stuff, he was the only developer ever posting there at all actually) is still online. Just go search it. http://forumsarchive.presonus.com/

[ras.s]

There's quite a bit more to a DAW than just real-time audio processing. These are massive projects and with users and the sales department demanding new releases all the time, I'm not as confident as you seem to be about the time the developers have for not only coding, but for optimising that code as well. As an example, they overhauled the whole interface coming from version two and clearly people are still complaining about the software being a processor intensive compared to others.

[chk071]

Well, maybe incubus provides us with a link, then i don't have to read through hundreds of search results on "optimized"... all i find is that eike stated that Studio One is not "especially optimized" for the use of hyperthreading (in a Xeon CPU), which basically means nothing afaic.

studioone is not especially optimized for it, but it makes use of multiple cores/multithreading.

[LawrenceF]

Doesn't matter either way. It just is what it is. Like ED said earlier, it's not like Reaper for low latency performance, in most cases.

At any rate, back on topic... Studio One running here is in many ways not like most other installations. I'm a Javascript hacking kinda guy. I chuckle when I read the FR's for full screen on Windows.

[chk071]

There's quite a bit more to a DAW than just real-time audio processing. These are massive projects and with users and the sales department demanding new releases all the time, I'm not as confident as you seem to be about the time the developers have for not only coding, but for optimising that code as well. As an example, they overhauled the whole interface coming from version two and clearly people are still complaining about the software being a processor intensive compared to others.

I understand that. But there is a difference between optimized in some ways, and not optimized at all. I'm sure Studio One, like any other software is optimized in some ways. But, of course, for the reasons you mentioned it is not always possible, or planned to get the absolute best out of it. Probably in the least cases it is.

[LawrenceF]

You guys just love to argue. Here, I'll add some useful macros to this post (and just edit it later if more come up, not make new posts) for anyone here actually using 3.3.

Render Stems Without FX: This will turn off all audio plugins and throw up the stem export dialog, then after the stem render is completed it will turn the audio plugins back on. Render Stems is bound to CTL+SHIFT+E. Bind this one to CTL+ALT+E.

• - Device | Activate All inserts ("1")
  - Song | Export Stems
  - Device | Activate All inserts ("0")

[woodsdenis]

The difference in CPU usage with heavier VSTs is quite considerable. Kontakt especially, world of CPU difference between S1 and, say, Reaper.

What he said

[InLight-Tone]

It was said that S1 doesn't remember the routing after you disable tracks. Is this true, can't be?