CPU intensive plugins affecting your choice of DAW?

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1. Softube Modular
2. Diva
3. LuSH-101
4. Serum
5. the list goes on ...

These CPU intensive plugins sound amazing, and they smoke my CPU at 44.1 kHz. Don't even attempt moving to 96 kHz.

I find myself moving towards Studio One v3 as my primary DAW, because track transform gives me maximum flexibility to reduce CPU strain -- MIDI to audio that you can edit, and back to MIDI.

Without rendering to audio somehow, I can't complete a track. I prefer many aspects of Ableton Live and Cubase over Studio One, but track transform is a killer feature for dealing with CPU intensive plugins.

Questions:
- Are CPU intensive plugins affecting your choice of DAW?
- How are you dealing with the CPU requirements of the best plugins these days?

Tips, tricks, comments?
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Answers:
-No. I love S1 V2 too much, even if it's a CPU intensive DAW.
-Same as you. Track transform saved me with my latest creation. Used quite a few U-He Bazille instances. To run them in real time would have been impossible.

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Great thread :)

Yes, 'track transform' or rendering to audio is the way to go if you * really * need those CPU costly plugs. But hey, there is no free lunch and sound quality costs.

The only other 'tip' I could offer is to say move as much processing outboard as you can afford. If you use a lot of synth plugs in your music, then maybe investing some money in a physical keyboard may be the way to go.
I'm a keyboard player, so recording my stage keys as audio beats using any VST instrument plugs hands down.

Likewise, a second hand Line 6 POD 2 will beat most guitar amp sim plugs hands down for guitar / bass.

I invested in a Harman DBX 286s outboard pre-amp / channel strip which really helps for recording vocals and DI bass.

I choose the DAW I want to use for its work-flow, rather than the DAW that suits the plug-ins I want to use

Also learning your craft as a musician and engineer / producer will pay dividends over buying a set of 'boutique' plugs. IMHO.

Yes and I like Studio One also. It's great for 'getting the job done'. YMMV

Just my sixpence worth !
Why won't you delete this account as I have requested Ben ?

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I can't help it, I've fallen in love with Diva and Serum. :ud:
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billcarroll wrote:Questions:
- Are CPU intensive plugins affecting your choice of DAW?
No
- How are you dealing with the CPU requirements of the best plugins these days?
Upgrading to 8GB RAM and changing HDD to SSD, has more or less solved any problem with plugs spiking the CPU

Plugs like ACE which is supposdly CPU incentive, stay under 30%

The plugs I have found are troublesome to the CPU is more or less only Element 2 and Iris2

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Reaper is very CPU friendly and can save whole track states (same as Cubase track versions just it saves everything) so only a new track snapshot has to be created then any clip(s) can be bounced out (can bounce in place a the first X mixer slots so the fx chain can be removed from the bouncing process) and can go back to the original (or any) version anytime



Reaper uses universal track so MIDI and audio can be stored in the same track, so
Questions:
- Are CPU intensive plugins affecting your choice of DAW?
- How are you dealing with the CPU requirements of the best plugins these days?
yepp (no regret here Reaper is far the best DAW, only miss the chord track from Cubase), and as u can see on the video
Last edited by xbitz on Sun Jul 31, 2016 8:14 pm, edited 3 times in total.
"Where we're workarounding, we don't NEED features." - powermat

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CPU intensive plugins affecting your choice of DAW?
No, not at all. At most, i am happy that both my DAW's allow me to freeze instruments, if i have to.

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TheoM wrote:
billcarroll wrote:1. Softube Modular
2. Diva
3. LuSH-101
4. Serum
5. the list goes on ...

These CPU intensive plugins sound amazing, and they smoke my CPU at 44.1 kHz. Don't even attempt moving to 96 kHz.

I find myself moving towards Studio One v3 as my primary DAW, because track transform gives me maximum flexibility to reduce CPU strain -- MIDI to audio that you can edit, and back to MIDI.

Without rendering to audio somehow, I can't complete a track. I prefer many aspects of Ableton Live and Cubase over Studio One, but track transform is a killer feature for dealing with CPU intensive plugins.

Questions:
- Are CPU intensive plugins affecting your choice of DAW?
- How are you dealing with the CPU requirements of the best plugins these days?

Tips, tricks, comments?
Well, what cpu do you have Bill?
How are you able to post? You appear as "suspended" here. :P

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TheoM wrote:Well, what cpu do you have Bill?
the specs:

MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015)
2.8 GHz Intel Core i7, 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
AMD Radeon R9 M370X 2048 MB
Mac OS 10.11.6

Internal 1 TB SSD
Last edited by billcarroll on Sun Jul 31, 2016 8:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Bitwig Certified Trainer

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Numanoid wrote: Upgrading to 8GB RAM and changing HDD to SSD, has more or less solved any problem with plugs spiking the CPU
Yes, people tend to focus on CPU usage in isolation. Good disk I/O through-put works wonders for reducing CPU utilisation and CPU waits. Of course having sufficient RAM will prevent memory being paged to disk.
CPU waits are a performance killer.
Disk I/O is the most expensive system resource. If you can't afford SSD, then partition executables, data (audio files, project files, samples, patches etc) and backups on separate physical disks to minimise disk contention..
Why won't you delete this account as I have requested Ben ?

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chk071 wrote: How are you able to post? You appear as "suspended" here. :P
It is well known that Theo has super powers. That's the rumor anyway. That I just started.
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Welcome back Theo :)

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