Tracktion and CPU Optimization, part 2

[zzz00m]

I think I'm confusing you 'cause I'm partly confused myself

I meant in terms of I/O / ASIO drivers and any inside processing. For instance, in the DAW settings I'm using Windows Audio as my device type. I see the Behringer as I/O options, but I didn't install any custom drivers for it and it is not going through its own ASIO as far as I can tell.

I also have ASIO 4 ALL but I'm not sure that's doing much better than the default Windows Audio. Overall it seems that this I/O buffering stuff is my bottleneck and it is seriously hampering the other parts.

The Behringer is USB, so that's going straight into the computer on its own. However, I don't know if there's an audio processing engine within the PC that would be boosted by adding a dedicated audio card or something of that nature (to take over some manner of processing or control the buffering). Forgive if this is a naive thought, I edit video on this machine so I'm used to fixing speed deficiencies by boosting with a GPU card.

Aha! I understand now. I took 'integrated' to mean something like the on-board RealTek audio chip on your system board.

Since you have a dedicated audio interface, you need to finish installing it so that your DAW can see ASIO drivers, and you can dump the Windows audio. Windows audio can be the worst, unless you are accessing the newest WASAPI with Windows 10. Even then I would highly recommend ASIO only.

Make sure you uninstall ASIO4ALL first, then install the drivers from Behringer. You should then be able see the 'ASIO' option under audio device type in Tracktion.

ASIO4ALL can work fine with the built-in audio, but it can conflict with other ASIO drivers if they are installed at the same time. The interface manufacturer's drivers will perform better, because ASIO4ALL is really just a hack that uses Windows drivers. It works OK on my laptop, but I don't use it on my DAW.

[jochicago]

Alright. Uninstalled ASIO 4 ALL and installed the Behringer ASIO for the UMC404HD. The process seems to have gone well, and now I see the ASIO UMC driver. Pretty neat, goes to 192k (who is using that?)

Anyway, the Behringer UMC ASIO is not better than the Windows Audio in terms of CPU and dropouts. After a few tests and tweaking the buffer samples, it seems to be about 15% worse than the Windows Audio.

To give you a reference, I'm testing with a single track using hungry tube saturation plugins. I'm loading them on the track and the master. I can load 3 total and get within a hair of dropouts when using Windows Audio in T7 and W9 (both are about the same btw). If I switch to the UMC ASIO I'm a step inside the dropout zone. If I add another saturator its dropout galore on either device type.

I recently upgraded to Studio One, so I tested there as well using the same stuff. Studio One can handle about twice the load.

[zzz00m]

Audio performance is the sum of all the parts. The PC hardware, the OS, the DAW, the audio interface, the drivers for the hardware, and the settings for all of that. Many variables...

And yes, some DAWs are probably better tuned for heavy plugins than others.

Assuming modern components are used, and that the system has been optimized for audio according to accepted recommendations, the single biggest limiting factor today is probably going to come down to single core performance. The faster the clock on a given CPU core, the better a track with plugins will perform.

[HansP]

... ..
With all this in mind, automatic pre-rending probably isn't going to be the silver bullet you might think it is.
It would be much better to spend our time an energy on optimising the audio graph's threading model and making it quick and easy to freeze tracks that you know you won't be working on for a while (we have thought about adding hints for this, a Mr Paperclip: "It looks like you haven't changed this track in a while, would you like to freeze to save resources?" anyone? We all know how well regarded Paperclip is

If any, there should be a help assistant that is to be called by the user. (help button - mix hint analyzer)
About what the assistant can tell us, we need to collect requirements and examples over a longer time.
Anyway it can remind us of unused features that might apply to the current mix. (should be meaningful i.e. avoid midi hints when there is no midi stuff being used.)

The freezing option is great, I use it all the time.
In T6 I can cheat it: after I freeze a track, I can switch its output to another (bus) track! Else it does not let me freeze it.
Freezing any of the busses unfortunately does not manage sidechains to the outside.

I'd like to suggest the following:
- keep a list of sidechain connections in the meta data.
- on rendering (regular export), have an option to preserve extra sidechain content files. just steal them from rack input/output.
- when I freeze a track, then it can find its sidechain input data in these files, and use it for the local rendering of the freeze.
- if the source track of sidechain data gets changed, often it does not matter much, and the change may be at a plugin that comes after the sidechained rack.
- so the user can decide if to rerender the whole, and have updated sidechain data, or continue editing.

[Mineralhillsworkshop]

If you haven't seen it already this post from ScanAudio has some interesting info on Ryzen and DAWs.
http://www.scanproaudio.info/2017/03/02 ... for-audio/

Over at the KVR Computer Setup and System Configuration forum there are several users having good results with Ryzen but I get it that Waveform maybe a unique case. You might get some insights there. Kaine is very respected over there.

I am am running a Ryzen Threadripper 1950x. In Reaper, and other DAWs, I have no issues at all. The issue is just with Waveform 9.

[bobbybro]

I'm jumping in late on this. I've tried to work around Biotek 2's intensive processing usage and i can barely use this synth plugin. I've been using Pro tools since 2005. I have and have used all kinds of plugins - Waves, Slate, IK Multimedia, Fab Filter, Sound Toys and Isotope Ozone. Even Isotope Ozone is less intensive on processing than Biotek 2. And i'm using a 6 core (hyperthreads to 12) 3.33 GHZ Intel Xeon Mac Pro with 32 GB of Ram. I don't think it's our computers.