Issue with Hive 2 and FL Studio

[Urs]

There are two individual things:

1. There are weird timing issues when "fixed buffersizes" are chosen in FLS. This is very odd, as we routinely test timing issues with crazy odd buffer sizes, and our devs can not reproduce this outside of FLS. We'll probably have to debug inside of FLS to figure out what's different there. This will take a while, and we don't even know if this is something we can fix from our side, or if we need a special workaround for FLS.

2. In Hive 2.1.1, when switching presets while the host is in playback, the audio engine can freeze. This happens more often (maybe only) with very small buffer sizes, which FLS is known to use when "fixed buffersizes" is switched off. We have identified the cause, and a workaround will most likely make it into the next update.

Now, when the next update will be... we don't exactly know. Can be quick, can take a while. It'll most certainly happen in 2023, as we have planned to release CLAP versions of Hive (and hopefully also Repro) that year.

[tony10000]

What exactly is the issue with dynamic buffer sizes? Are u-he plugins coded to rely on assumed fixed sizes? Isn't it just the amount of samples that are processed per block? Why should that create issues? I'm trying to understand why this is an issue for only a few plugins and only a few users.

Urs explained it in even more detail in this old post:

Urs
u-he
Contact Urs
27028 posts since 8 Aug, 2002 from Berlin
Post Mon Nov 08, 2021 3:17 am

There's a possibility that it's related to expectations by the host that rendering, say, 8 samples takes exactly an 8th of the time of rendering 64 samples. This is not always the case. Pretty much every plug-in developer uses some internal block size to optimise the CPU of their plug-ins. This is called block processing and it is the only way plug-ins like Diva or Repro can run on today's computers. Our internal block size is 16 samples, and we further optimise this by processing up to 4 such blocks at once.

However, FL Studio - like probably few other hosts - does a clever trick by slicing process buffers into smaller units to make parameter automation more accurate than what's possible (or common) with VST plug-ins. Some of these slices can have the length of 1 sample. Most of these slices don't use any CPU, because we need to accumulate them until there's 16 or more samples. But sometimes we get a 1 sample process call that happens to fill our buffers with the 16th sample. In that case, while the host expects the CPU of 1 sample, we process 16 samples. Even if it happens at a slice of 8 samples, the CPU used is still 2 times as what the host might expect. And thus there are synchronisation issues.

I assume that this is the root cause of issues with hosts that do adaptive buffer slicing and plug-ins that rigidly process buffers in slices of 4, 8, 16 or even 64 samples. Pretty much all convolution reverbs and any other FFT based plug-in will work best with fixed buffer sizes that are a multiple of 16, or a power of two. They might even have to, due to the nature of their process. And so do our plug-ins.

I assume that is why setting "use fixed size buffers" resolves pretty much all of these issues.

viewtopic.php?t=570788

[tony10000]

There are two individual things:

1. There are weird timing issues when "fixed buffersizes" are chosen in FLS. This is very odd, as we routinely test timing issues with crazy odd buffer sizes, and our devs can not reproduce this outside of FLS. We'll probably have to debug inside of FLS to figure out what's different there. This will take a while, and we don't even know if this is something we can fix from our side, or if we need a special workaround for FLS.

2. In Hive 2.1.1, when switching presets while the host is in playback, the audio engine can freeze. This happens more often (maybe only) with very small buffer sizes, which FLS is known to use when "fixed buffersizes" is switched off. We have identified the cause, and a workaround will most likely make it into the next update.

Now, when the next update will be... we don't exactly know. Can be quick, can take a while. It'll most certainly happen in 2023, as we have planned to release CLAP versions of Hive (and hopefully also Repro) that year.

According to Scott at Image Line, they are planning to switch to fixed buffer sizes sometime in the near future:

"That means tracks can be added infinitum and we are also taking the opportunity to switch to fixed sized buffers, as this causes issues for some VST developers.

"Work has started. It will appear in a 21.something update. Just look at how far 12 and 20 went. Lots of exciting stuff incoming. But first 21.0."

Regards Scott

https://forum.image-line.com/viewtopic. ... s#p1764259

[tony10000]

In the meantime, I think it would be helpful to add info that it is not recommended that FL Studio users install the 2.1.1 update and use 2.1.0 instead.

[LoveEnigma18]

In the meantime, I think it would be helpful to add info that it is not recommended that FL Studio users install the 2.1.1 update and use 2.1.0 instead.

Thanks for the tip. Do you mean the file "Hive_21_11037_Win.zip" (Windows here) at this location https://u-he.com/downloads/release-archive/hive/?

[tony10000]

In the meantime, I think it would be helpful to add info that it is not recommended that FL Studio users install the 2.1.1 update and use 2.1.0 instead.

Thanks for the tip. Do you mean the file "Hive_21_11037_Win.zip" (Windows here) at this location https://u-he.com/downloads/release-archive/hive/?

That is correct.

[LoveEnigma18]

In the meantime, I think it would be helpful to add info that it is not recommended that FL Studio users install the 2.1.1 update and use 2.1.0 instead.

Thanks for the tip. Do you mean the file "Hive_21_11037_Win.zip" (Windows here) at this location https://u-he.com/downloads/release-archive/hive/?

That is correct.

Thank you. I bought Hive 2 recently and was facing some issues during my quick play time with it and I can't recall the exact problem, so I will give this version a try.

[tony10000]

In the meantime, I think it would be helpful to add info that it is not recommended that FL Studio users install the 2.1.1 update and use 2.1.0 instead.

Thanks for the tip. Do you mean the file "Hive_21_11037_Win.zip" (Windows here) at this location https://u-he.com/downloads/release-archive/hive/?

That is correct.

Thank you. I bought Hive 2 recently and was facing some issues during my quick play time with it and I can't recall the exact problem, so I will give this version a try.

The issues are outlined above. 2.1.0 works fine on my system.

[Urs]

Any news on this issue?

Thank you for asking! We do have a fix internally but we also currently have to deal with a couple of issues. Latter make it really difficult to release any updates right now, so we hope you can be just a little bit more patient with us.

Regards,

- U

[Fannon]

Just curious - no need to answer it (and no judgment assumed): What kind of issues would lead to a situation that you cannot ship updates / releases across many products?

[Urs]

Just curious - no need to answer it (and no judgment assumed): What kind of issues would lead to a situation that you cannot ship updates / releases across many products?

There are several things.

For example, we switched from Subversion to Git a few months ago. In order to do this, we first merged all branches, then did the transition. The reason for that is complex and multi layered. Anyhow, some branches have long term developments on them, such as universal dialogs and localisation. Those aren't necessarily ready for prime time yet (but they almost are).

Likewise, we're almost ready to go with AAX on Apple Silicon. But because the installers were already double patched to do some things, and we don't want to revert back, we simply have to wait until this also is absolutely stable. It pretty much is.

Likewise, improving the MIDI timing of our software has created new and unexpected issues. I'm still working on those, and I'm glad we can address them *before* we released anything.

Anyhow, we're crunching through all of these issues right now. I alone have closed about 30 major tickets in the three weeks since Superbooth (the two months before that I've prepped for NAMM and SB). I have maybe another 20 issues to go, and a couple of routine dev tasks.

It's looking pretty good in terms of progress, but we had to delay our latest bug review due to health issues and holidays. Hence, I do not currently have a big picture.

[Fannon]

Thanks for the insight and transparency!

Wish you and you team good progress on these topics. Sounds like some not so easy to take transitions, but they'll leave you in a better place for the future.

[darkcapricorn]

It seems also latest version of repro freezes FL studio when preset change while playing.

[Urs]

It'll be fixed with the next round of updates. We hope to be able to post betas shortly after we release Filterscape 1.5. Depends on how that goes and whether or not we encounter any other issues on the way.

Filterscape has been in public beta since 2 days ago, we usually need 4-6 weeks from public beta to release.

[Lbdunequest]

It seems also latest version of repro freezes FL studio when preset change while playing.

Version that came out yesterday?