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

[jancivil]

Cubase is pretty slow on a Mac. Period, I think especially for virtual instruments. I use VE Pro to host most things, and connect to Cubase; which keeps my latency pretty tolerable. If if wasn't for that I would have probably given up on Cubase under OSX.

[sqigls]

It's pretty damn good here... OSX 10.8.2. I rarely have any troubles, if it is, it's a 3rd party plug. Mind you my CPU is 2.7 quad and i have a solid state drive & rme drivers. Pretty solid. I'm even starting to run 24/96 with LuSH-101 and a few other demanding plugs. Latency doesn't bother me so much cos I'm no Beethoven. At 24/48 I can load as many instruments and effects as I need without glitches.

I would like to maybe buy Logic one day, give it a go. But I remember when I had a go of the windows version, it was ANYTHING but logical.

I must admit, having the CPU headroom to be able to load anything you want is a good feeling. Maybe some people are running HUNDREDS of instruments and plugins but I just think that is getting a bit f**king MENTAL. Simon Posford made shitloads of cutting edge music with a 400 megahertz machine, so SURELY theres enough processing power in the average machine today. Mind you he had some good hardware

[wavephonic]

in my experience on pc.
the best is cubase
the worst is synapse op

[DHR53]

Periodically, I go on a testing mission of DAWs on my Mac, some of the new smaller footprint apps and other stuff, and I forget how efficient Logic is. Then I go back to Logic and load twice as many plugins and the cpu meter is hardly moving... Almost not fair.

[chk071]

I can absolutely believe these percentages, since neither Cubase nor Reaper are OS-X native. They will get better with time, though.

Cubase I doubt. I don't doubt that Reaper will improve, though when is up in the air.

I doubt that too. Realistically i think it's fair to say that they will rather add CPU demanding feature, than remove anything. Reaper is of course natively less CPU demaning, because it's simply strapped of so many things other hosts come with natively. Adding to that, you can read everywhere that it is supposed to have some very good plugin handling too.

The worst host in terms of performance i tested was Podium Free btw. But then, it doesn't support multicore. Found that out after wondering why this thing absolutely slaughters my system. Bit of a shame really, without that letdown it would be pretty much the most awesome thing for no money.

[lockheart]

in reality, not unless there's something wrong with one of them.

Well, there's nothing wrong with Reaper, so I guess there's something wrong with most others?

[hibidy]

That's pretty sad. That was the big announcement at namm 2012! They had a working alpha (or beta?) then and it's still not released. Anyways, it's not really on my radar anymore (like a cat-crazy host) but still, that is pretty lame.

Would you rather they release it buggy as hell?
DP8 on OSX is remarkably stable, ridiculously so. Obviously they found issues with the Windows version. MOTU at least do this right, no software is 100% bug free, but if there's even a Cubase level of bugs in the first DP released for Windows and people will accuse it of being a "primarily mac product" etc. Cubase lost a lot of OSX customers when it was found that similarly specced computers were drastically different in performance depending on platform.

I'm not a patient person either, but after Logic 7.0 and all the crap it put me through I would rather not wait for a bug fix update to work on songs I started in a crashing disaster again.

Seriously, be glad they aren't releasing it a buggy mess, let that be Logic, Live, NI, and Cubase's checkered past.

Oh, I'm patient. It's just that I can remember reports of "this week" and so on and that was months ago. They bit off more than they could chew it seems. Hopefully it will pay off in the end.

[DuX]

I must admit, having the CPU headroom to be able to load anything you want is a good feeling. Maybe some people are running HUNDREDS of instruments and plugins but I just think that is getting a bit f**king MENTAL. Simon Posford made shitloads of cutting edge music with a 400 megahertz machine, so SURELY theres enough processing power in the average machine today. Mind you he had some good hardware

You can still make great pieces of music with an old Atari and Cubase or C-Lab, or even Pro-24 , but you have to use hardware synths, of course. Not to mention a console for mixing and FX, too. That still gives great results, and it's easier to manage, if you can afford it, and if you have enough space to set it all up.

Personally, I wouldn't go so much back. But the point was that you can use just about any computer for MIDI if you have enough hardware, and make great tracks.

[hibidy]

NO NO NO! You MUST want bigger better faster!!!!!!!!!!

[machinesworking]

Oh, I'm patient. It's just that I can remember reports of "this week" and so on and that was months ago. They bit off more than they could chew it seems. Hopefully it will pay off in the end.

Well to be fair MOTU only made one claim of last spring, which wasn't true for either platform.
Most of the reports are speculation stated as fact. So to clarify, the rumor is that the Windows version will come out with the next update to DP8, it's only a NAMM story, but hopefully that means everything is stable and they're final testing. There's always a chance a bug pops up then though.

The whole effort on the developers part must be monumental to say the least. This is a 30 year old application history wise, and until now has been Mac only. So I'm not too surprised it's taking a while. They probably should have pulled an Apple move though, covertly announce the Windows version by leaking rumors for the last year, hold a press conference when it's backed and ready for release acting like it's some big surprise!

[DuX]

Yeah we must use all the hurtz there are. ;P

On the serious side, I was considering going hardware all the way [again] lately and came to a conclusion that it wouldn't be so expensive at all, and much more quality than only ["only"?] 15 years ago. But I have to think about it some more... maybe combine the modern with the old and save some money. An Atari to drive all the synths into my audio interface, and into the PC for mixing? hmmm That sounds good and affordable.

The thing that worries me is that 128 steps MIDI automation Atari was capable of. It's just not enough these days. It has to be 1024 or more steps.

Sorry for the OT, guys. I've put on my thinking hat.

[hibidy]

I think it's funny that people want to go "back" to the "good ol' days"

I wouldn't trade the tech for anything, but I DO get frustrated at how behind many of the products are. To me CPU optimization should be PRIORITY NUMBER ONE.

That reminds me, I need to do a test of something later today.

[machinesworking]

On the serious side, I was considering going hardware all the way lately and came to a conclusion that it wouldn't be so expensive at all, and much more quality than only ["only"?] 15 years ago. But I have to think about it some more... maybe combine the modern with the old and save some money.

I use two old analog poly synths along with plug ins. Since the types of synths that you would use for fat bass and lead sounds are CPU hungry this has made a substantial difference in CPU use. Up until last September I was using a 5 year old dual 2.4 core 2 macbook pro with no real bottlenecks in the composition stages. Admittedly the new Mac Pro really helps during mix down for sure, but using a couple hardware synths makes it difficult to get this 8 core Xeon machine above 10% CPU wise.

A mixture is the way to go. My recommendation is to spend the money on classic hardware, because you can sell it for what you pay for it. win/win!

[DuX]

Absolutely agreed on the CPU optimisation part, Hibidy. ABsoLUteLY.

To me, it seems like all the DAW makers just want to make the most beautiful looking DAW with every feature there is available [ProTools excluded, they just make it, nothing else], instead of the *best* and *most optimised* DAW. Well, all other software is made in the same manner anyway... It's kinda hard to find the "gems". I was so happy when I found Reaper. It's got its fair share of trade-offs, but it's great for my needs.

Oh yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking machinesworking. The thing is, everybody would like to have that "hardware sound" these days, well you can have it. Some really great synths come really cheap now. Get them. Buy a cheap but good console and mix them, and send them into the computer. Then mix it all ITB. Cheap and great solution. I found out that it's not the mixing ITB that is bad, it's the source of the sounds. If your source of the sounds is good, you can get away with mixing it anywhere or anyhow.

Going back to watching "Breaking Bad".

[chk071]

To me, it seems like all the DAW makers just want to make the most beautiful looking DAW with every feature there is available [ProTools excluded, they just make it, nothing else], instead of the *best* and *most optimised* DAW.

Mmh, i think every piece of software is coded with performance optimisation in mind. I don't think there is such thing as a DAW not optimised on that. Making a program as light on CPU and system ressources as possible is usually rule 1 for every programmer out there, kind of the first thing that you learn. What is the problem is more the fact that every program needs to be eye candy nowadays to attract the buyers. And it comes pretty handy marketing wise to have a large feature pack. Which obviously leads to the program being more heavy on ressources...