KVR Audio

flex42 · Post by **flex42** » Mon Feb 28, 2005 1:22 am

I love it! Sonar and Logic look like DOS to me...

zircon · Post by **zircon** » Mon Feb 28, 2005 1:24 am

kovacs wrote:
Acolmiztli wrote:Its a common observation of mine that the people who complain about Live are the people who are interested in getting a "professional consumer driven" sound.

The people who are actually creative don't have a problem at all!!
LOL. Sadly it's not true. I'm currently working on a track for the winter contest here at KVR and find that I'm maxing out my CPU with:

BFD stereo (ie, one track)
5 instances of Wusikstation
3 audio tracks, all going to Send A which contains various Voxengo and Classic FX
1 instance of Absy 2

I would hit 99% most of the time. So when I added the fifth instance of Wusik I had to render the BFD track (and forgot to save a copy of the midi first...damn).

I have made Live my main host but it's not living up to my expectations as a producer's tool. For loops it's great.

My specs: Athlon XP 3200+, 768 MB RAM, ASUS A7N8X mobo, Audiophile 2496 PCI

Geez.. that's weird..

With FL5, using 93 assorted VST effects, 25 sampler channels, and 13 synths (eg. fm7, Pro-53, impOSCar, Synth1), my 3ghz P4 doesn't go above 25% idle...

djastroboy · Post by **djastroboy** » Mon Feb 28, 2005 2:37 am

I've just started using Ableton and read a lot of these threads, here and in the Live forums, about Live, VSTs, and CPU usage and I've noticed that people are putting maybe a bit too much faith in the CPU meters.
I do performance analysis with a lot of different tools for a big company with thousands of servers and thousands more network devices and I'm here to tell you that none of these CPU meters is gospel, not even the million dollar ones, let alone "Windows Task Manager".
Different ways of measuring, averaging, and displaying CPU usage are probably the cause of most of the disparities you are seeing.
So don't freak on CPU meters, the final judgement on whether a program is useful is just your ears!
If you're not getting audio glitches, forget the CPU meters.

braj · Post by **braj** » Mon Feb 28, 2005 4:56 am

djastroboy wrote:I've just started using Ableton and read a lot of these threads, here and in the Live forums, about Live, VSTs, and CPU usage and I've noticed that people are putting maybe a bit too much faith in the CPU meters.
I do performance analysis with a lot of different tools for a big company with thousands of servers and thousands more network devices and I'm here to tell you that none of these CPU meters is gospel, not even the million dollar ones, let alone "Windows Task Manager".
Different ways of measuring, averaging, and displaying CPU usage are probably the cause of most of the disparities you are seeing.
So don't freak on CPU meters, the final judgement on whether a program is useful is just your ears!
If you're not getting audio glitches, forget the CPU meters.

The meters and artifacting go hand in hand in this case. My 667 Powerbook does as well running Logic than my 3.2 P4 does with Live4. I love Live4, but it's a hog. It's not just the meters, trust me on that.

headquest · Post by **headquest** » Mon Feb 28, 2005 7:44 am

djastroboy wrote: So don't freak on CPU meters, the final judgement on whether a program is useful is just your ears!
If you're not getting audio glitches, forget the CPU meters.

You're right that the CPU meters are unreliable. The problem IS audio dropout though, not purely a visual fixation.

I get audio drop outs after Live's own CPU meters reach around 60 - 65%, which is pretty poor.

braj · Post by **braj** » Mon Feb 28, 2005 7:59 am

zircon wrote:Geez.. that's weird..

With FL5, using 93 assorted VST effects, 25 sampler channels, and 13 synths (eg. fm7, Pro-53, impOSCar, Synth1), my 3ghz P4 doesn't go above 25% idle...

Wait, are you saying installed as plugs or actively used in a composition? Because I don't see how you would need 93 assorted VST effects, 25 sampler channels, and 13 synths all active in a typical composition. If that's what you're saying, that's amazing

I'm guessing you're missing the point. Live4 is bad, but it's not that bad.

kovacs · Post by **kovacs** » Mon Feb 28, 2005 9:53 am

zircon wrote:Geez.. that's weird..

With FL5, using 93 assorted VST effects, 25 sampler channels, and 13 synths (eg. fm7, Pro-53, impOSCar, Synth1), my 3ghz P4 doesn't go above 25% idle...

FL Studio 5 also behaves a lot better than Live on my PC. I have never tried to load 93 effects though...

braj · Post by **braj** » Mon Feb 28, 2005 9:55 am

OK, I don't usually like to resample because I like to be able to switch up Midi whenever I feel like it and I feel the midi just sounds a bit better most of the time, but tonight I felt like I needed to give Live4 a last chance on my Powerbook after spending that last week with Logic Express 7. My conclusion? Live4 using resampling is easier and more flexible than Logic using freeze tracks in many situations. This is especially true if you're working with loop-based compositions, not so much if you all of a sudden want to resample the whole composition. I guess you can resample the master but then you have less flexibility, not more. Logic sounds much better overall. My game plan? Use both, choosing each for their strength depending on the context of the project. But since Live is on my more powerful computer (with more plug-in options), I guess it will be used more often than Logic.

But Logic just makes me feel good somehow. I'm planning to use it to do scores for my upcoming avant-garde psychedelic surrealist camcorder flick of the mountain by my house. And I made some nice Arranger icons as well, so I really have no choice.

braj · Post by **braj** » Mon Feb 28, 2005 9:59 am

I really don't like FL's UI. It just makes my mind hurt. It's not the fonts or anything like that, it just doesn't 'say' what's what to my sensibilities. It does look kind-of cool though. Live4 looks very straightforward to me, two screens and two views of a track's contents. Simple and elegant IMO. I do wish we could make our own skins though.

headquest · Post by **headquest** » Mon Feb 28, 2005 10:46 am

braj wrote: My game plan? Use both, choosing each for their strength depending on the context of the project. But since Live is on my more powerful computer (with more plug-in options), I guess it will be used more often than Logic.

My game plan too braj - except for "logic" insert Tracktion. I'm not giving up on Live 4 because there is so much about it I love, and I do find it inspiring for composition and arrangement - there's no doubt about it!

2 points further to my previous moans about Live:

1] I've come to the conclusion that the poor sound quality I previously reported in Live 4 is down to its reverb, which sounds tinny. I've replaced the Live reverb with the Kjaerhus Classic reverb, which sounds much warmer and has corrected the sound quality problem I felt was there before.

2] Regarding Live's poor handling of VSTs/CPU bouncing is indeed the cure, plus making sure that you use efficient VST effects. So I've abandoned Ambience (at least in Live 4) and use the Kjaerhus classic instead, which sounds very nice and uses less CPU than either the native Live reverb or of course Ambience (which is a famojus CPU hog itself). This gives you a lot more scope.

But I will use Tracktion over Live as a production tool - much more useful, especially when producing a linear track. I think this is the same as your using Logic (I am PC only).

ObsoleteAcc99 · Post by **ObsoleteAcc99** » Wed Mar 02, 2005 12:50 pm

[DELETED]

stale bread · Post by **stale bread** » Wed Mar 02, 2005 6:54 pm

you away

tkay77 · Post by **tkay77** » Wed Mar 02, 2005 7:15 pm

. i´m rather waiting for my P5 II upgrade...

..then i probably can sell my Live

tkay

John Vulich · Post by **John Vulich** » Wed Mar 02, 2005 7:45 pm

skymind wrote:Acolmiztli, thanks for your help about the values, i read the manual but i couldn't find that CTRL function.
Thanks dude
Skymind

You can also type any value in directly if you click on the numerical display under the knobs.

stale bread · Post by **stale bread** » Wed Mar 02, 2005 7:59 pm

tkay77 wrote:. i´m rather waiting for my P5 II upgrade...

..then i probably can sell my Live

tkay

i'm waiting for p5 too, I think it'll be a great companion to Live 4 and fL5, sounds like the best parts of sonar

live4 is best thing since sliced bread...