Disabling processing when input is silent. Worth it?

[jmh]

What a great show. Shouldn't have gone out to the real world today so I wouldn't have missed all this...

J&H rolls in his grave, satisfied that someone has finally stepped up to the position

FYI the comment regarding stealing resources such as knobs from a plugin was mentioned by me. More than one developer has mentioned either here or elsewhere that it has happened... and more importantly, that was mentioned as one possible reason for not using 32-bit PNGs with alpha channels. But who gives a flying toss about who said and what, in or out of context, right

Now, everybody get back to the bitching so I have something to enjoy while eating my meal

[jackson]

How's the weather in SF today Jonas? Been awesome here

It's pretty hot... thank god for AC. Observe _inside_ SF it's probably overcast and raining, but San Rafael is cooking...

Nah, it's sunny and hot in the city too... I can only imagine it's toasty as hell up in San Rafael though. I was working @ Autodesk for a bit last year, it's freaking blazing up there

[AdmiralQuality]

FYI the comment regarding stealing resources such as knobs from a plugin was mentioned by me. More than one developer has mentioned either here or elsewhere that it has happened... and more importantly, that was mentioned as one possible reason for not using 32-bit PNGs with alpha channels. But who gives a flying toss about who said and what, in or out of context, right

I wish I could talk more about that stuff, but I'm under a self-imposed NDA. 'Nuff said.

[stefancrs]

How's the weather in SF today Jonas? Been awesome here

It's pretty hot... thank god for AC. Observe _inside_ SF it's probably overcast and raining, but San Rafael is cooking...

Are you guys considering auto-disable for Synthmaker? that would be cool...

Cool. Been about 27 here today, and, indeed, thank god for AC

Actually it's quite simple for the user to add auto-disable in his plugs in SM, and it is about just as easy be done on different levels within the schematic as well, so I think it's decent enough as it is.

[jmh]

I wish I could talk more about that stuff, but I'm under a self-imposed NDA. 'Nuff said.

A lot of people could do that from time to time in here... then again, people banging heads together is what makes this place what it is

[nollock]

If you have to resort to personal insults then you may as well give up. As soon as you start doing that people will start paying more attention to your attitude than they will to your opinion. If sombody personaly attacks you dont respond in kind, if you stay calm reasonable and fair they will end up looking like the twat.

just my 2c, (not aimed at anyone in particular.)

[stefancrs]

If you have to resort to personal insults then you may as well give up. As soon as you start doing that people will start paying more attention to your attitude than they will to your opinion. If sombody personaly attacks you dont respond in kind, if you stay calm reasonable and fair they will end up looking like the twat.

just my 2c, (not aimed at anyone in particular.)

Are you dissing me? I'm sure there was a personal insult against me in there somewhere, twat!

[nollock]

If you have to resort to personal insults then you may as well give up. As soon as you start doing that people will start paying more attention to your attitude than they will to your opinion. If sombody personaly attacks you dont respond in kind, if you stay calm reasonable and fair they will end up looking like the twat.

just my 2c, (not aimed at anyone in particular.)

Are you dissing me? I'm sure there was a personal insult against me in there somewhere, twat!

LOL! Come on then yer c**t! Lets 'av it!

[Aktion]

I used it in the plug-ins, because spectral processing eat alot, but some host are never stop processings.
So handling silence helps.
It has some disadvantages, but actually such things ought to handle on host side.

[jupiter8]

I used it in the plug-ins, because spectral processing eat alot, but some host are never stop processings.
So handling silence helps.
It has some disadvantages, but actually such things ought to handle on host side.

The problem with that is that the host has no way of knowing how long the plugin cotinues to do whatever it does after silence occurs.

Think of delays and reverbs. A reverb could go on a long time after it recieves silence. You could check that the output is silence as well but then you have delays. They could output silence between taps and still be active.

IMO opinion that should be handeled at plugin level unless i've missed something.

[soma]

yes. all developers must make an effort to free up as much processing as they can afford.

[aciddose]

vst actually has some implementation to allow the host to manage bypass, but it was idiotic to put it into the spec. the host should know as little about the plugin as possible, and likewise for the plugin. all plugins should implement silence detection and automatic bypass if the overhead is minimal compared to the cost of processing the signal.

[Jason Brian Merrill]

This thread's great. The users (and even Monsieur Chopper) continue to have a rational discussion regarding the actual topic name, while Admiral Stick-up-his-ass continues to actively lose potential customers by acting like a twat. Brilliant.

indeed. I have never seen gol so civil in my life. I think im going to buy another copy of FL.

[Mr Smith]

why process silence? to me its good VST practice to turn off processing, a well coded synth/FX should use 0% CPU while not playing any voices or not processing so these resources can be used by some other plugin.

[AdmiralQuality]

Then why do so few plugs-ins do this? I can't think of a single one that does. (Talking about effects of course, it's common for most synths to kill silent voices.)

Effects that do process silence, just off the top of my head:

- All the free ones from Kjaerhus (haven't tried the others)
- PJG's Spinner
- Ohmforce Ohmboys
- Every PSP effect I've tried
- Scarbee Vintage Keyboard FX
- Waves GTR
- Amplitube (haven't tried ver 2 yet. Someone let us know please.)
- NI's B4 FX (both versions)
- NI's Guitar Rig (both versions)
- iZotope's Trash and Ozone
- TC Native Reverb

Plug-ins that bypass processing during silence:

- Not a single one that I know of. (Add to the list please. I'm curious.)

So, sorry, but I still feel I'm in good company with the constant load thing.

Again, if i want to do some gaming or spreadsheet crunching or compiling or something else that actually requires any noticeable CPU power, I'm unlikely to do it during silent portions of the song I'm working on. I'll close the host. (And if I'm in my host, seriously recording, I'll shutdown every other unneeded process on the machine.)

Personally, I'd rather get a sense of the load without actually having to make a sound first. Much easier to tell when you're overloading then. Rather frustrating to only find out in mid-take when everything suddenly goes crunchy. Again, I'd even consider making synths that had a constant load (and maybe will even make this an option for Poly-Ana someday).

So, what plugs are all you folks using that have made you think this is a vital feature? And what do you do with the spare CPU power during the silent parts of tracks? And, except for soft synth outputs, when is any track actually going to be silent anyway? You'd have to put a noise gate on every audio input to have them go silent. You're telling me that setting up a gate on every input is more trouble than automating a bypass during a silent bit?

One more argument for constant load... I THINK the CPU probably can work more efficiently with everything loaded, rather than activating and deactivating constantly. And even if that's not the case, certainly there's usually some overhead in a plug's resume function and having a whole string of effects come back on because a signal returns to that track is going to make a noticeable bump in the required load. Maybe enough to f**k your take. (And as someone mentioned, yes, some hosts guarantee the audio will get recorded anyway, or at least prioritize that... but if I get a bunch of noise in my ear in the middle of performing the take is probably going to be ruined anyway.)