KVR Audio

Zauni · Post by **Zauni** » Fri May 21, 2010 11:19 pm

I'll take a look at Cantabile and JS3 here and get back to you. Meanwhile, raising the latency to 256 should help the problem.

Zauni · Post by **Zauni** » Fri May 21, 2010 11:43 pm

I can duplicate the 10-15 second spike in Cantabile. I'll see next week what we can do about that.

SuperFly76 · Post by **SuperFly76** » Fri May 21, 2010 11:51 pm

TiUser wrote:Quadcore 8200 @2.33GHz
4GB ram
ASIO4All
Host: Cantabile Performer
Audio setting: 2x128samples buffer
OS: Win Vista 64bit

Jamstix Demo produces about 35% timing load - this is Cantabiles load meter which is very accurate, not cpu hit which is really slow and kind of irrelevant for audio. The spikes occur from time to time (maybe somethiong like every 10s or so) pump timing load up to about 350% and create crackles then. This happens only if Jamstix gui is open.

I have some other plugins that show different processing needs when having the gui open or closed too - however I can't remember one that affected timing load. Instead I could find increased cpu load... which isn't that much an issue for me as my quadcore has plenty cpu...

I'm having similar results using jamstix 3 in Samplitude 11 pro. The first time I try to open the jamstix 3 gui, it opens up with a blank box and takes about 10 or more seconds for the gui to appear. The cpu meter goes up significantly during this time too.

I've also noticed that I need to raise my soundcard's buffer quite a bit, making it nearly impossible to jam with it in realtime. With most projects, my soundcard asio buffers are set at 64 samples, at most 128 samples for projects with many softsynths and 40 to 60 track count. With a simple project containing jamstix 3 and a few vstis I have to raise the latency to 256 or 512 samples !!

I'm still getting pops and clicks even at 512 samples of latency.

My gear is:

i7 920
Gigabyte X58A-UD7
6 GB CL8 corsair ram
Windows 7 x64 also dual booted into Windows XP Pro x86 (same issues with same project there)
Samplitude 11 Pro
RME FireFace 800 interface

Zauni · Post by **Zauni** » Sat May 22, 2010 12:28 am

Are you using 3.0.1?

SuperFly76 wrote: I've also noticed that I need to raise my soundcard's buffer quite a bit, making it nearly impossible to jam with it in realtime. With most projects, my soundcard asio buffers are set at 64 samples, at most 128 samples for projects with many softsynths and 40 to 60 track count. With a simple project containing jamstix 3 and a few vstis I have to raise the latency to 256 or 512 samples !!

I understand your desire to run the lowest possible latency. However, 256 samples at 44.1kHz is 5ms, which is equal to playing with a musician at a distance of about 6 feet.

SuperFly76 · Post by **SuperFly76** » Sat May 22, 2010 11:01 am

Zauni wrote:Are you using 3.0.1?

SuperFly76 wrote: I've also noticed that I need to raise my soundcard's buffer quite a bit, making it nearly impossible to jam with it in realtime. With most projects, my soundcard asio buffers are set at 64 samples, at most 128 samples for projects with many softsynths and 40 to 60 track count. With a simple project containing jamstix 3 and a few vstis I have to raise the latency to 256 or 512 samples !!
I understand your desire to run the lowest possible latency. However, 256 samples at 44.1kHz is 5ms, which is equal to playing with a musician at a distance of about 6 feet.

Yeah, 256 ought to be low enough for most things. I can still feel it as a drummer though. With JS2 I am able to run it at 64 samples, sometimes even 48 samples with no problem.

The main issue is the gui freeze issue. This happens at any latency, even 1024 samples. I often get asio buffer drops when this happens. CPU also spikes when this happens.

TiUser · Post by **TiUser** » Sat May 22, 2010 1:17 pm

I just noticed issues with Jamstix3 demo gui being open. It's not different to the time I checked Jamstix2 demo. My feel is that's a thing not easy to change or just to fix... I also do not believe that's a Cantabile issue... As far as I can say Jamstix with gui closed works acceptable and does not put more timing load than any other sophisticated plugin.

When I open the gui there is a sound interruption until the window is complete - but that does not take more than maybe 1-2 seconds... Anyway, that's not cool either, but that's less of an issue IMHO.

Sample buffer in Cantabile set to 256 does not work well either - I already checked this too. In addition I had set an additional protection buffer in Cantabile, so the true buffer size is already doubled. 128 + 1x 128 is already 256 and 256 + 1x 256 is 512... the latter setting I do not like for live playing, that really feels not well - except to a church organist maybe, who wants to set even more latency to get the right feel...

Just to finish with, Cantabile is quite good with low latency - I can use 64 samples with Asio4all as well - but the timing load is immense and you can't play many instruments with such settings... before you hit the crackle threshold. But there are not few hosts out that do not work reasonable with 64 samples setting and just ASIO4ALL.

TiUser · Post by **TiUser** » Sat May 22, 2010 1:45 pm

Zauni wrote:...I understand your desire to run the lowest possible latency. However, 256 samples at 44.1kHz is 5ms, which is equal to playing with a musician at a distance of about 6 feet.

That's the optimistic milkmans view... the pure buffer latency without anything else like midi latencies, D/A conversion, etc.

Well, the "remote playing a bandmate in 6ft distance..." is a freaky example - math like maybe ok - but odd too...

The feel of latency depends much on the sound type. It's far more to be noticed and disturbing with percussive sounds... drums first than stuff like harpsicord, clavinett, piano or percussive organs... while soft organs, slow synth pads and similar are less critical.

Zauni · Post by **Zauni** » Sat May 22, 2010 4:34 pm

We will research the Cantabile issue. I can duplicate those spikes here on a i7-920 Win 7-64 just as you describe. However, the very same machine can run TWO instances of JS3 in REAPER-64 at 1x128 latency with BOTH GUIs open without any artefacts or spiking. Therefore, the issue is related to how Cantabile handles plugins. We will try to locate the core issue and work around it. We are also continually working on improving JS3 GUI performance generally.

Zauni · Post by **Zauni** » Sat May 22, 2010 4:49 pm

TIuser: if you send me an email to support [t] rayzoon.com then I can send you an updated JS3 demo DLL with some fixes that appear to have reduced the spikes for us here significantly. Would love to hear how it works for you.

SuperFly76 · Post by **SuperFly76** » Sun May 23, 2010 10:17 am

Ralph, have you tried this out with the demo of Samplitude 11 also? I'm getting the same results as TIUser.

SongMonkey · Post by **SongMonkey** » Sun May 23, 2010 2:55 pm

Just as another data point, I'm on Samp11 (Windows 7 and multicore xeon) and I'm not getting the GUI freeze issue.

Had some other issues, already communicated (poor Ralph, releases are always so tough!), but I have to say, I'm loving the new version overall.

Cheers.

TiUser · Post by **TiUser** » Sun May 23, 2010 5:07 pm

Zauni wrote:We will research the Cantabile issue. I can duplicate those spikes here on a i7-920 Win 7-64 just as you describe. However, the very same machine can run TWO instances of JS3 in REAPER-64 at 1x128 latency with BOTH GUIs open without any artefacts or spiking. Therefore, the issue is related to how Cantabile handles plugins. We will try to locate the core issue and work around it. We are also continually working on improving JS3 GUI performance generally.

I usually run Cantabile 32bit.

If you think the issue is Cantabile related do not hesitate to contact Brad R. at Topten Software to discuss the problem. He is usually much interested in such issues and probably both programs can benefit here...

Timing load versus usual cpu load is indeed looking quite unbalanced in cantabile. I just settled down with the fact that my PC isn't optimized in any way for audio...

TiUser · Post by **TiUser** » Mon May 24, 2010 9:51 am

I've just tried to load two instances of JS3 in Cantabile.

The funny result is that I get spikes now too with both gui's closed - while the basic processing need is still no problem @128 samples buffer size. When I deactivate Cantabile's multiprocessor support and set JS3 options to "Core = Last" the hefty spikes seem to disappear again... until I open one JS gui.

It looks like JS3 and Cantabile interfere in some way badly and both need some tweaks... but multiprocessor management seems to be one key beyond the gui being open.

These things make me "love" VST technology... you never know what happens next.

...and one can daisy chain the source of problems from one software maker to the next...

TiUser · Post by **TiUser** » Tue May 25, 2010 12:10 pm

I've quickly checked out JS3 in VST host now.

It's load meter also shows significantly higher values than windows' cpu meter. The meter behaves basically like Cantabile's timing load meter - just it doesn't display spikes. However it also creates crackles in a similar (approx. 10s) cycle...

TiUser · Post by **TiUser** » Thu May 27, 2010 2:15 pm

Any news?

[Edit] Thanks for you mail reply Ralph!

Jamstix 3!