Ensoniq DP/4 Emulation Incoming!

[budweiser]

While I have personally called for this, I also think that if it can’t be done with reasonable resources, it isn’t worth it. The truth is, I’m awash with great multi effects plugins. Do I need those specific algorithms? No. Would I appreciate them if they were efficient at this price? Absolutely.

You guys are always complaining. You can render, you can freeze, but no...
Why don't you buy the real deal ? I have two units : 8 slots, approximatively 1800 euros on current market. If i use the 4 units operation, it means i can only process two signals at a time...

Sorry can't agree with this perception.
Even if a real device costs a million dollars and requires 50 cables to connect, that doesn't compensate for the absurdity of a simple tone generator consuming 17% of the CPU. (Or rather, that it consumes CPU at all.)
Additionally, i almost sure (based on many other great multi fx's which exists at market) that there is nothing in this routing shell that could require such calculations. (unless i did miss something special in features)

Well, you're still free to code it yourself, but for the moment that's the only clone we have. I still have to compare it to the real deal, but if it's close enough, having a hassle free, maintenance free, cheap, hardware clone, it a godsend, even if it's a cpu hog. I just render and deactivate the vst.
I recently tried Acustica Thing5, that is a real cpu glutton, but that outperforms all other Prophet 5 clones by a mile. Fot $100 in promo vs $3500 for the real deal, i don't see this cpu consumption as a problem that important...

[c_voltage]

While I have personally called for this, I also think that if it can’t be done with reasonable resources, it isn’t worth it. The truth is, I’m awash with great multi effects plugins. Do I need those specific algorithms? No. Would I appreciate them if they were efficient at this price? Absolutely.

You guys are always complaining. You can render, you can freeze, but no...
Why don't you buy the real deal ? I have two units : 8 slots, approximatively 1800 euros on current market. If i use the 4 units operation, it means i can only process two signals at a time...

Sorry can't agree with this perception.
Even if a real device costs a million dollars and requires 50 cables to connect, that doesn't compensate for the absurdity of a simple tone generator consuming 17% of the CPU. (Or rather, that it consumes CPU at all.)
Additionally, i almost sure (based on many other great multi fx's which exists at market) that there is nothing in this routing shell that could require such calculations. (unless i did miss something special in features)

Well, you're still free to code it yourself, but for the moment that's the only clone we have. I still have to compare it to the real deal, but if it's close enough, having a hassle free, maintenance free, cheap, hardware clone, it a godsend, even if it's a cpu hog. I just render and deactivate the vst.
I recently tried Acustica Thing5, that is a real cpu glutton, but that outperforms all other Prophet 5 clones by a mile. Fot $100 in promo vs $3500 for the real deal, i don't see this cpu consumption as a problem that important...

Ok, I get your point.
On a positive note, if considering outside the context of discussed plugin, I wanted to clarify that I actually like the very idea of ​​how complicated everything used to be (in terms of commutations/prices, etc.), and how now we should value those opportunities that allow us to make everything much simpler. Ie I do not underestimate the importance of this factor.
I'm even so to speak voting for this idea with money, buying emulations that potentially don't give anything new (comparing with novaday stuff), but make warm by thought of what they was before lol.
But nevertheless, even despite all of this, i am ready to find fault with optimization. (At the very least, this needs to be discussed, this is not grumbling at all).

[jens]

Okay, I now tried it and there is clearly something very wrong with it. Even with all four processors disabled and the GUI closed it's still an enormous CPU hog. (Curiously switching to parallel makes it using somewhat less (while still far too much - still with everything bypassed).)

The processors themselves then use comparatively few CPU cycles.

So it appears it's the plugin framework that at the moment is pretty much unuseable. While I think that in its current state the plugin shouldn't even be sold at all (or at least not without a warning - it's basically alpha right now due to the CPU-useage), I assume it's something that is relatively easy to solve with rigorous testing.

[VariKusBrainZ]

How does the Ursa Major compare for CPU usage?

[kraster]

With 4 slots occupied I'm getting very reasonable CPU usage on an M1 on Live.

[beely]

So it appears it's the plugin framework that at the moment is pretty much unuseable.

"Pretty much unusable" was not my experience from trying the demo. I could use it just fine, as have many other people.

Obviously, it's going to perform differently on different systems, and right now it's reasonably CPU heavy, which may or may not improve (it still seems to be somewhat early in development, at version 0.2x), but just bear in mind that your experience may not be everyone's. The developer seems reasonably committed to improving it too.

It'll be interesting to see how CPU heavy the forthcoming TUS emulation will be, I wouldn't be surprised if it's somewhat similar...

[c_voltage]

It'll be interesting to see how CPU heavy the forthcoming TUS emulation will be, I wouldn't be surprised if it's somewhat similar...

BTW yes, actually will be interesting to see.
Although my expectations are opposite - I'll be surprised (confused) if it's will be the same eating.
But ok, will see.

[electro]

What latency does the plugin add?

[jens]

So it appears it's the plugin framework that at the moment is pretty much unuseable.

"Pretty much unusable" was not my experience from trying the demo. I could use it just fine, as have many other people.

I guess we must have very different definitions of the term "useable". I for one am goal-oriented. For me finishing songs is a lot more important than playing around with emulations of legendary gear in empty projects. Just because I can load several instances of a plugin by themselves that doesn't mean using it is feasible in the context of a real production.

Obviously, it's going to perform differently on different systems, and right now it's reasonably CPU heavy

I gues we must have very different definitions of the term "reasonable". Obviously it's performing differently on different machines. But that doesn't affect whether it's a CPU hog as compared to other plugins.

Here it's using 15-30 times as much as plugins such as Valhalla Delay, Ubermod& VintageVerb, Eventide INstant Phaser&Flanger, ADA Fanger&STD-1, etc. even without doing any processing at all.

And if you really consider that to be reasoable, there is absolutely no point in discussing this any further with you.

But let me say that your "I'll defend it no matter what" stance is rather part of the problem than the solution. You're not helping the developer at all.

[VariKusBrainZ]

Trevor Wishart rolls his eyeballs

[beely]

Weird take, but OK, I'll play for five minutes to try to clear up any confusion...

I guess we must have very different definitions of the term "useable". I for one am goal-oriented. For me finishing songs is a lot more important than playing around with emulations of legendary gear in empty projects. Just because I can load several instances of a plugin by themselves that doesn't mean using it is feasible in the context of a real production.

So, I was taking issue with the comment "pretty much unusable", which seems like hyperbole to me. Perhaps you meant something further away that what the literally phrase implied (for example "This is too CPU heavy for me to use in the way in which I would like/expect", which would be fair enough, but that's not what you were communicating.

I gues we must have very different definitions of the term "reasonable". Obviously it's performing differently on different machines. But that doesn't affect whether it's a CPU hog as compared to other plugins.

Ok, so if my language was unclear, by "reasonably CPU heavy", as an English phrase I meant that it's not CPU light, but it's not "extremely CPU heavy", but somewhere in the middle. The word "reasonably" here in this context is used as a qualifier, meaning "it's fairly CPU heavy" - although actually, checking it again, I *do* find it's CPU use actually pretty reasonable on my system. Nothing I would object to for this type of effect.

Note, the CPU load I see with the plugin is barely readable on my core readout in Logic. I certainly don't see 40% even running a 4U preset, more like maybe 7% or so in Logic here. This is not, for me, "unreasonable" for a multi FX algorithm.

This is what i see running more or less all the 4U presets in Logic at 48K, on my M1 MBP:
.

SCR-20260308-qgeq.png

And if you really consider that to be reasoable, there is absolutely no point in discussing this any further with you.

Well hopefully you now better understand the choice of phrase I used, and how my experience differs from yours.

But let me say that your "I'll defend it no matter what" stance is rather part of the problem than the solution.

Umm...! I just said I don't agree with your "pretty much unusable" comment, and mentioned that currently the emulation was fairly heavy (I had to re-check as I hadn't really paid attention the CPU when first demoing it), and maybe we'll see improvements. Please don't invent a stance you *think* I'm making from interpreting my comments in ways that were not intended, just so you can argue because someone doesn't share your view. There was absolutely nothing in my post that was defending anything.

Personally, I'm not really a fan of this plugin, nor do I have much attraction to 90s hardware FX units or this hardware in particular, other than curiosity because it seems to be somewhat beloved by some people. There were some things it did I liked, but it didn't really add much that I couldn't already do, but I do like these emulation efforts by people...

[jens]

Ok, so if my language was unclear, by "reasonably CPU heavy", as an English phrase I meant that it's not CPU light, but it's not "extremely CPU heavy", but somewhere in the middle.

No, your language was clear, but it's just that I think your claim is complete, absolute and absurd nonsense!

This is one of - if not THE - the CPU-heaviest plugins I have ever seen even without - again: any processing going on.

Or if it indeed behaves completely different on your machine:

Please post a screenshot with all processors disabled where it is taking less CPU than any CPU heavy plugin of your choice!

Keep in mind that I only tried it because several others here were complaning about unreasonably high CPU useage, which I can absolutely confirm.

But if it is NOT performing significantly better on your machine then your posts here are absolutely inexuseable fanboi noise. And in this case again: you are not doing the developer - or anyone else (including yourself) - any favours here.

Edit: okay, you are on OSX and it is perfectly reasonable to expect completely diffrent results on a completely different CPU-platform and OS if the plugin-framework is buggy/un-optimized.
But your screenshot is pretty much meaningless nonetheless without (semi-)proper CPU measurement and a direct comparison with other plugins. On my machine it takes ~4-6% of my machine's processing power across all cores (which is outrageous) - could your graph not show something around 4-5%?
Then it would be similarly heavy even on your machine.

[budweiser]

Please post a screenshot with all processors disabled where it is taking less CPU than any CPU heavy plugin of your choice!

Zero cpu consuption here when noting inputs in the plug, works perfectly fine. Windows 11, cubase 14, i7 8700k.

Keep in mind that I only tried it because several others here were complaning about unreasonably high CPU useage, which I can absolutely confirm.

But if it is NOT performing significantly better on your machine then your posts here are absolutely inexuseable fanboi noise.

Are you here to make the police ? You should slow down on the pills, considering you're not even interested.

[jens]

Please post a screenshot with all processors disabled where it is taking less CPU than any CPU heavy plugin of your choice!

Zero cpu consuption here when noting inputs in the plug, works perfectly fine. Windows 11, cubase 14, i7 8700k.

Disable suspend and then try again.

Keep in mind that I only tried it because several others here were complaning about unreasonably high CPU useage, which I can absolutely confirm.

But if it is NOT performing significantly better on your machine then your posts here are absolutely inexuseable fanboi noise.

Are you here to make the police ?

Are you?

You should slow down on the pills, considering you're not even interested.

How would you know what my interests are?

If you believe you were psychic amd could read minds: you can't.

[budweiser]

Why would i disable suspend ? Works fine.