DAW development stopped ?

[starise]

Haha..that's funny man.

I think it could be done with certain combinations of words, for instance-

-Sally record track one
-Sally rewind
-Sally lower gain to 6
-Sally measure begin record measure five track two

Yeah there would be that odd time where a song might have "Sally" in it. It is doubtful it would have the rest. Imagine the benefit to people who are blind.

[low_low]

Cubase 9.5 has a 64 bit floating point mixing engine.

It used to only have a 32 bit floating point mixing engine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjAZnGeBcgg

[enroe]

Cubase 9.5 has a 64 bit floating point mixing engine.

Yes, and in some years every DAW will have a 128-bit floating point
engine.

Nobody will hear a difference, but all the marketing directors of all
DAW-companies ardently claimed for this feature.

[tapper mike]

Cubase 9.5 has a 64 bit floating point mixing engine.

Yes, and in some years every DAW will have a 128-bit floating point
engine.

Nobody will hear a difference, but all the marketing directors of all
DAW-companies ardently claimed for this feature.

Maybe not you but don't cut the rest of the world out. I started to learn computer programming drum machines were mechanical
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6AxpKnSFL8

While I was overjoyed after paying a small fortune for one of these I knew that there would be something better around the corner. Heck I had access to the most powerful computers available it had 500 KB of RAM, 233 megabytes of hard disk space, and ran at 2.5 MHz. But I had to share it with other users. Back then I was studying COBOL and FORTRAN. The computer only cost the school $8,000,000. There were this guy who would build his own circuit boards with scrap parts and sell them to computer stores who got a write up in the computer trade magazines. He hadn't built his own computer yet and he hadn't met his future business partner. But he made a huge impression on my professor. That guy was Steve Wozniak.

It's fine if you want to say "Stop the world I want to get off" The world doesn't stop advancing because you've satiated your interest. I know guy's who get frustrated because they feel that the mic'ing / amplification system doesn't meet their expectations or they think it interferes with the audience's reception of the signal. My response is always "Okay play smaller rooms with less audience and tell them they have to be perfectly silent during your performance." Then I explain to them that unless they are playing an acoustic guitar that is 50 years or younger the instrument isn't faithful to it's original creation due to the advancement of technology that went into building them. (glue's, finish and many other factors)

DAW's aren't needs they are wants. Features that some daws may or may not have are also wants not needs. You may not see the value of a specified feature or lack there of (simplicity) but it doesn't mean that others may not see the value. For the last few years I've been using Mixcraft. I don't care if it doesn't have a million and one features another daw has. I do care that it's working for me. Well I did care till it wasn't fulfilling a specific want that wasn't attainable. It was only the other day that I began to look at what's available in Bitwig. I own Ableton Live 9 never took the bait for 10. And to be honest I didn't think to kindly of Bitwig from pre release till the current release. I didn't and don't waste my time searching for the next big thing. But while surfing youtube and thinking about how much I wanted another linnstrument as mine crapped out on me I came across a few videos that kept pointing me to Bitwig.

Sure you can call it marketing. However marketing only works if there is something to back it up. It doesn't take too long for something that doesn't deliver to be shown for what it is. You may not be in charge of product development or marketing but you are in charge of yourself. As you are in charge of yourself and responsible for your decisions so too others are in charge of themselves and ultimately responsible for theirs.

[DJ Warmonger]

^TL;DR

The world may be advancing, but humans do not. Unlike DAWs, human do not have and will never have 64-bit hearing. If you want to make better music, 64-bit engine won't help you at all.

[ShawnG]

^TL;DR

The world may be advancing, but humans do not. Unlike DAWs, human do not have and will never have 64-bit hearing. If you want to make better music, 64-bit engine won't help you at all.

Exactly. The "old" 32 bit floating point could manage 1680db dynamic range, so theoretically with the "obsolete" format, if you had a perfect speaker capable of producing the smallest level signal at a barely audible level, and then producing the loudest signal as well, the loudest signal would kill you instantly, and turn you into a thin pink paste. And that wasnt enough apparently so now cubase can deal internally with 64 bit! I'm not a programming genius, but I can also imagine that processing all those extra 0's are a bit taxing on the cpu.

Im always willing to be educated though, if someone knows why 64 bit floating (for audio) isn't just a weird waste of resources, I'm all ears.

[learnkeys]

^TL;DR

The world may be advancing, but humans do not. Unlike DAWs, human do not have and will never have 64-bit hearing. If you want to make better music, 64-bit engine won't help you at all.

Exactly. The "old" 32 bit floating point could manage 1680db dynamic range, so theoretically with the "obsolete" format, if you had a perfect speaker capable of producing the smallest level signal at a barely audible level, and then producing the loudest signal as well, the loudest signal would kill you instantly, and turn you into a thin pink paste. And that wasnt enough apparently so now cubase can deal internally with 64 bit! I'm not a programming genius, but I can also imagine that processing all those extra 0's are a bit taxing on the cpu.

Im always willing to be educated though, if someone knows why 64 bit floating (for audio) isn't just a weird waste of resources, I'm all ears.

Making the engine full double precision eliminates the need for upsampling and truncating before and after each insert slot and from each channel to bus/bus/output. So since the plugins are (or can be) 64bit nowadays, there is no reason at all for "converting" before and after the inster slots.

So what happens is that by having a 64 bit engine from start to end, a lot of unnessesairy processing is removed from the audio engine.
Does this make a difference in sound quality: Nope. Only under exotic laboratory conditions you would be able to expose the "gain in quality".
It does simplify the piping/processing and programming throughout the audio engine?
But indeed, the majority of people still thinks that "more is better", so even for that reason alone, the change is justified.

https://www.steinberg.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=126778

[ShawnG]

Thanks for the link, which allowed me to find this, which was perhaps more illustrative: from a Steiny dev.

The interest of 64 bit float is not about "headroom" / "dynamic range"...

pro:

no need to convert between 32 bit and 64 bit float: 64 bit is needed by some plugins for their internal computations. 64 bit then means: small performance gain and no precision lost between succeeding 64 bit plugins.
Better audio precision when mixing audio signals. I explain this at the end of this message.
If audio devices ever go beyond 24 bit precision, 64 bit float will be needed (because 32 bit float means, in fact, 24 bit precision)

con:

requires more memory, which can mean a performance lost (more memory to move). But as soon as a sophisticated plugin is used, this one is likely to become the bottleneck, compared to the memory overhead. Therefore, this is a "relative con".
64 bit CPU instructions are as fast as 32 bit instructions, because the CPUs are 64 bit today. But certain rare instructions are faster with 32 bit float, because the CPU can conjugate 2 of them while in the same time, only one 64 bit instruction is performed (SIMD).

Now, an explanation about 32 bit float vs 64 bit float, for mixing.
While 32 bit float means in fact 24 bit precision, 64 bit float means in fact 48 bit precision. This means, far more precision.
I can illustrate this difference with elementary school maths (this is an analogy of what happens in reality).

Let's say samples can have only values 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5,...
Let's start with a sample that has value "3"
An audio gain of "divide by 2", is applied. We get the value "1.5", but this value is not allowed hence must be rounded, eg. the new value becomes 1.
Later another gain "multiply by 2" is applied. The new sample becomes "2".

Consequence: we started from value "3" and ended up with value "2", while the two gains should have cancelled each other.

When this kind of loss is performed multiple of times (complex mixing), then errors stack up.
The consequence is not dramatic, because some errors are (randomly) compensated by others (round-down / round-up), but this compensation actually means "digital fog" aka noise.

64 bit float processing pushes the digital fog far from the 24 bit domain. Hence a cleaner result at the end of the audio chain.

The difference 32/64 is therefore about "audio definition", if your ears can sensible enough. But that's another topic!
Philippe

The "some plugins" would refer to VST3 plugins, I believe, since I dont think vst2 can do full 64 bit audio. So I suppose it fits with the steinberg focus of trying to drag the audio world kicking and screaming into a vst3 standard, since that's where the benefits would occur. So it gets rid of some processing overhead, at the expense of memory requirements, for VST3 only.

[learnkeys]

Actually the cost of memory is rather cheap these days. Running 16, 32, 64 or even 128 gigs of ram isn't uncommon. If you find yourself running out of memory, it's pretty cheap and easy to slap in another 8, 16 or 32 gb stick.

As for VST3, it has plenty of benefits, I've been using it for years. I don't use Windows 7 or 8 anymore either, I tend to stay on the tip of technology with updated drivers and everything.

[ShawnG]

Actually the cost of memory is rather cheap these days. Running 16, 32, 64 or even 128 gigs of ram isn't uncommon. If you find yourself running out of memory, it's pretty cheap and easy to slap in another 8, 16 or 32 gb stick.

As for VST3, it has plenty of benefits, I've been using it for years. I don't use Windows 7 or 8 anymore either, I tend to stay on the tip of technology with updated drivers and everything.

The "cost" of memory usage that is being referred to is not the cost in money, but in processing, as in bigger chunks of data need to be run through at a time, which is what phillippe is referring to.

Also if you "slap another stick" of memory into your system there are often problems. Not to say that it doesnt sometimes work out, but I would never just add a stick to my current rig, to do it properly, you would need to buy a full set of matched memory for the spec you are looking to achieve, which is definitely not really that cheap if you need 32gigs of good high speed memory.

I also dont have issues with vst3 either, but the plugin world has not exactly embraced it as a whole, so as of right now, the bulk of my plugs are vst2, so cannot benefit from the feature, such as it is.

[learnkeys]

Actually the cost of memory is rather cheap these days. Running 16, 32, 64 or even 128 gigs of ram isn't uncommon. If you find yourself running out of memory, it's pretty cheap and easy to slap in another 8, 16 or 32 gb stick.

As for VST3, it has plenty of benefits, I've been using it for years. I don't use Windows 7 or 8 anymore either, I tend to stay on the tip of technology with updated drivers and everything.

The "cost" of memory usage that is being referred to is not the cost in money, but in processing, as in bigger chunks of data need to be run through at a time, which is what phillippe is referring to.

Also if you "slap another stick" of memory into your system there are often problems. Not to say that it doesnt sometimes work out, but I would never just add a stick to my current rig, to do it properly, you would need to buy a full set of matched memory for the spec you are looking to achieve, which is definitely not really that cheap if you need 32gigs of good high speed memory.

I also dont have issues with vst3 either, but the plugin world has not exactly embraced it as a whole, so as of right now, the bulk of my plugs are vst2, so cannot benefit from the feature, such as it is.

I think you've missed the point. The fact that memory is cheap, means everyone has plenty to spare. In the audio world, saving cpu processing over memory is a good thing for most modern computers.

The most important thing in the audio engineering and music making world is latency, which is usually a result of your processing power and lack of DSP power keeping up with the number of processes (tracks). Besides the need for a well tuned signal chain from input to export.

I think most people would be willing to give up memory processing over cpu processing when it comes to audio processing. Take my word for it.

As for VST3, developers and customers had several years to "embrace" it as a whole. Now with your warning, it's probably a good time to learn and develop, because change always comes.

[ShawnG]

I have not missed the point. Moving larger items in and out of ram is a performance hit on the CPU no matter how much memory you have installed, as Phillippe the professional programmer pointed out. There is no free processing lunch. Memory cannot manage itself. Basically this enables some tasks to process better because of not having to constantly do the conversion math (with plugins that can take advantage and less the increased memory bottleneck) while plugins that cannot take advantage will run worse than they would have under 32 bit. And as he notes, if audio cards ever get to 32 bit standard, then precision needs to be increased, which would need 64 bit float point audio then.

My question about why this was done is answered, as I was previously only thinking about the dynamic range depth, so thanks for the link, It makes some sense to me now, but in my opinion we're a few years from really needing it.

[risome]

^TL;DR

The world may be advancing, but humans do not. Unlike DAWs, human do not have and will never have 64-bit hearing. If you want to make better music, 64-bit engine won't help you at all.

Probably but it will help with opening large orchestral libraies and the like that need to address more than 4gb of RAM which 32 bit versions of software are limited too.Once you go 64 bit you won't look back.The less i have to think about tech issues when writing music the better.64 bit helps with this tremendously.Have fun and keep pushing

[ShawnG]

^TL;DR

The world may be advancing, but humans do not. Unlike DAWs, human do not have and will never have 64-bit hearing. If you want to make better music, 64-bit engine won't help you at all.

Probably but it will help with opening large orchestral libraies and the like that need to address more than 4gb of RAM which 32 bit versions of software are limited too.Once you go 64 bit you won't look back.The less i have to think about tech issues when writing music the better.64 bit helps with this tremendously.Have fun and keep pushing

this isn't about the plugin being processed by the OS as 64 bit or 32. this is about whether the audio being processed at a bit depth greater than 32 is worth it. different subject. 64 bit plugins have been standard for years, DAWs are only now (last year or 2) beginning to use 64 bit depth audio engine. It is definitely a confusing topic

[learnkeys]

I have not missed the point. Moving larger items in and out of ram is a performance hit on the CPU no matter how much memory you have installed, as Phillippe the professional programmer pointed out. There is no free processing lunch. Memory cannot manage itself. Basically this enables some tasks to process better because of not having to constantly do the conversion math (with plugins that can take advantage and less the increased memory bottleneck) while plugins that cannot take advantage will run worse than they would have under 32 bit. And as he notes, if audio cards ever get to 32 bit standard, then precision needs to be increased, which would need 64 bit float point audio then.

My question about why this was done is answered, as I was previously only thinking about the dynamic range depth, so thanks for the link, It makes some sense to me now, but in my opinion we're a few years from really needing it.

Yes you did miss my point initially. CPU processing has a larger priority in audio processing due to the need for real time DSP power. Memory is cheap, plentiful and is not an issue for most modern computers.

The advantages were clearly pointed out and the benefits of 64 bit precision, which equates to less down/up sampling due to bit conversion and truncation. When it comes to mixing with a lot of tracks, inserts and busses with a lot of plugins with different bit rate processing, it can make a difference now in the year 2018.

If it's not for you that's fine, but other people live on the tip of technology and take advantage of all that modern programming and code has to offer.