PS-20 extreme CPU and other issues...

[Tj Shredder]

I just installed the demo on a 2013 10-core Mac Pro. I do like the sounds so far, but some patches just drive the CPU to 100% in Bitwig 3.3.9. "Meandorer" jumps to 100% without even playing a note. Some like "Moody Intervals" do so with a single note with digital crackling, distorted sounds.
Another user reported no problems on his 2012 i5 iMac...
I wanted to try the same sounds on my 2015 Macbook Air, but there the plugin doesn't appear at all, even not in the vst error list, though its definitely installed...
Anothe observation I don't understand, some, not all, presets specifically labeled MPE do not pitch bend in MPE mode. The non MPE labeled presets do that nicely...

[ELEX]

I thinks it's just the overall CPU use of this plugin being be rather high. The patches you mention easily take over 50% of a core with realtime playing here. On a ( admittedly rather old ) i7 950 3GHz and on Windows, that is. Might also have something to do with the fact that in a sequenced patch like "Moody Intervals," all voices are being triggered fairly quickly by the sequencer. It sounds different with less voices, even if playing a single note. The external signal processor takes the cake when it comes to CPU use, btw. An attempt use a guitar as a controller exceeded 100% CPU with ease at all buffer sizes suitable for realtime playing.

[Tj Shredder]

But others on slower computers don’t have that issue... I don’t mind to only be able to play one voice, but on a comparatively fast computer I expect all presets to sound as intended without crackling and dropouts...

[ELEX]

Yes it would be nice if all presets played properly. But tbh, when it comes to that, Softube Modular took away my illusions some time ago. Bought PS-20 anyway though, since it does PWM at freq. multiples rather nicely , which I really like and is a bit of a rare thing.

[Iernesto77]

I love Cherry Audio instruments. I have all of them except Polymode. In Windows they also demand a lot of CPU. I've found that disabling its effects and adding the stock effects from Studio One or other plug-ins reduces the CPU load a bit. This can help.

[cherryDan]

Hi all,

We've released a new update of PS-20 today (Build 84) which should be quite a bit more CPU efficient. We've also updated Eight Voice (Build 100) with similar CPU improvements.

For most users, these updates will download automatically. If you've chosen to not allow automatic updates, then you'll need to allow the update to happen. You don't need to download any installer - the update happens automatically in the software itself.

Please let us know if you see an improvement!

- Dan @ Cherry Audio

[tony10000]

I noticed a 10% improvement using PS-20 in Ableton. I also suggested that Cherry implement a draft mode similar to what u-he and Xfer have that allows you to reduce oversampling to save CPU.

[Tj Shredder]

The previously mentioned presets still go to 100%, but it seems they don’t sound as crackling as before. I suspect it has to do with the processors... My way slower Macbook Air plays these presets with maximal 20% CPU just fine. The previous version didn’t load btw...
Is AVX used? The Xenons of the Mac Pro only support AVX1, whereas the i7 support AVX2 as far as I know... The single performance of the Xenons are normally way higher than that of the i7 in the Air, but with PS-20 its at least 5 times slower...

[dsnipe]

Considered buying the plugin, as it sounds nice and very flexible. But CPU over hunger just no go for me, unfortunately.
And I have a decent laptop: MacBook Pro 2019 (1,4 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5, 16Gb RAM), host: Bitwig 4.