WasteLand wrote: ↑Thu Nov 26, 2020 12:38 pm
it is not my intention to go in discussion, but i also bought spacecraft. and have other granular synths, or with granular capabilities. and demoed quanta. i am not an expert on granular synthesis (composition...), i am reading a book about it, that goes really in depth. in way grains can lead to compositions, or it is an archaic term for a new type of synthesis, or better an approach to music.
so that aroused my interest. spacecraft, the names says it all, 128 grains playing at the same time, 60% cpu usage (one core by the way)... it works with MPE, at 512 samples. (with unarmed tracks, because it can play itself, of course in reaper and cubase, they preprocess, and buffer load drops a lot.)
but it is indeed strange, or not strange, granulizer 2, only uses 10-15%, i think. it is not always the cpu usage that determines how fast a buffer can be filled.
i see it with other plugins that put a lot strain on the buffer, and in cpu percentage it isn't very high (and i think, i can be wrong, a not so high cpu usage, does not mean, a slower cpu can do it, with a higher cpu usage, the ISP is still important even on a load of 10 or 20%. (at 100% core frequency of course..)).
i can't determine of granulizer 2 can be more optimized. and as i already said, i am no expert, don't have all granular synths..
but i before i read the FAQ, and i saw what granulizer 2 is capable of, i thought, that's gonna strain my DAW..
each have their own priorities, i can get it, that you want to stay at 128. (i can't 256, is the minimum, my soft modulars would break.. and i wanted to stay at 256... but i must let go.. personal.)
so this post is based about the performance, and the decision not to buy it when it needs 512 samples, but not for a discussion, more insight, why it puts so much strain on the buffer. quanta 100 grains per voice, 1000ms.
spacecraft 128 grains... 60% cpu usage!
it is a good idea, inertia!, to put that in the FAQ and/or manual. it is not uncommon..
quanta for instance isn't that cpu intensive, but it works quite differently, almost identical to the granular oscillator in biotek2, also capable of MPE. quanta, i repeat, it can make 100 grains of 1000ms per voice, but it works differently than for example biotek2 granular osc, that can also do per voice, but how many grains? so the differences? i am not new to granular synthesis, but new to the in depth workings of granular. the approach of quanta is quite different.
i can only add this: over a month, when working with granular synthesis, more in depth and reading the book, rereading it, and read part 2... i can say more about it. so why say things now. it are questions.
it seems that unlike wavetable synths, that struggle with the same limits, granular synths are quite different in their approach, or granular effects (like melda's, glitchmachines (also instruments), unfiltered audio).
so i don't really understand it, but i already can judge a little by what a granular synth can do, what it costs, for your buffer..
(i am curious though which other granular tools Tom from Berlin means. and i repeat, don't get me wrong, understanding this particular synth better, also how it works under the hood, gives me more possibilities to work with it. so Tom from Berlin, i use your post as a trampoline, as you see in how i write... and i must jump of..)
