Elevayta ‘Convo Boy’ V1.03i – New update, Lower Latency!

[Reqs]

I really really like this plug. I am a big bargain hunter: I love to find good wines under $10, and I love cheap, great plugins.

Last night I was playing around in Tracktion with Arp2Midi triggering Asynth. I had just dragged Convoy Boy down from another track, and had even forgotten what wave was being convoluted. I'm arping along and thinking how great it sounds, and I start to wonder what effect CB is having. So I disable it and boom! All life goes out of the track. Now I am fairly new to convolution, but this just blew me away! Best reverb I've ever heard. And at $12.95, an exciting, incredible deal.

Thanks Elevayta!

[Space Boy]

Thanks Greg..

I need to see what these special features are..

Compared to SIR, 'Convo Boy' has:

• The capability to Save your fully customized IR functions (does any other Convolution engine offer that? - for $12.95).
• Half the latency of SIR - already in the FREE version.
• Minimum latency of 21.3 ms (compared to 170.7 ms for SIR) - at $12.95).
• The capability to load independent L/R Mono or Stereo IR functions and pick L/R channels with complete freedom - easy support for mono IR function pairs - and that comes for FREE.
• A Pre-delay that can be negative as well as positive (very important for hardware simulations) - the 'Scroll' function - FREE.
• User choice if to re-sample the IR function or not - FREE.
• Swap L/R channels at will - FREE.
• Auto-Truncate the zeros from your IR and save on CPU - FREE.
• Lower latency and lower CPU usage, even in the FREE version (compared to SIR).
• A much more compact user interface.

The instructons for use can also be quite informative - they're FREE as well.

[thockin]

I think I'll try ConvoBoy tonight. What I really want to see is how the CPU usage is on the lowest latency vs. SIR.

One think I like about SIR is the fact that I can do a stretch on a impulse, right there. Load the impulse, do a high quality resample and store the result in memory. Can convo-boy do that?

Also, how is memory usage? SIR eats a TON of memory.

[Space Boy]

I think I'll try ConvoBoy tonight. What I really want to see is how the CPU usage is on the lowest latency vs. SIR.

One think I like about SIR is the fact that I can do a stretch on a impulse, right there. Load the impulse, do a high quality resample and store the result in memory. Can convo-boy do that?

Also, how is memory usage? SIR eats a TON of memory.

O.K. Let me know how you go.

Stretching I can add - but not in the free version.

BTW, you will not be able to test the minimum latency or minimum CPU usage in the free version. But I can tell you that the latency is already half that of SIR and the CPU usage is similar. In the commercial version of Convo Boy, at the same latency setting as SIR, the CPU usage is 20-30% lower.

[thockin]

My other concern is PristineSpace. I know it can get super low latency, but I want to know how the CPU usage is.

I use 2-3 convolvers per project, and I have been waiting anxiously for SIR to get lower latency. ConvoBoy is cheap, so I'll try it out.

I'm willing to pay money to get the lowest latency and lowest CPU usage. I'm finding that three instances of SIR become the limiting factor in a few of my tracks, and I *hate* bouncing to disk.

So what I am saying is - I'll happily pay for ConvoBoy, if it can beat SIR at either latency or CPU, and it sounds like it can. The stretching, envelope, and builtin EQ features of SIR make it very nice and self contained, and are mainly what has caused me to not switch. If ConvoBoy had those, it would be a lot more of a no-brainer for me to buy .

I've already bought one or two of your plugs, and they work well.

Cheers

Tim

[McLilith]

I suppose that you are aware that the stretching feature in SIR changes the quality of the IR, as well as changing its length?

You can also stretch your IR file in audio editor. I'm not sure what quality the results are. I'm sure it depends on your technique and the quality of the editor's stretching feature. It might even work better than SIR, but of course it isn't as handy as having a "stretch control" inside the convolution plugin.

For me, Convo Boy (even the free version) is less demanding on my system than SIR. That's one of the main reasons I like it so much. The lower latency is also very nice. I usually don't need the stretch feature. I'm usually either wanting an accurate replication of a "real world" IR (in which case I don't want to stretch), or I'm using an IR which I synthesized completely from scratch. (In which case, I simply create an IR of the exact length I need.)


take care,
McLilith

[thockin]

I actually like the resampling stretch. I'll often start with an impulse and then stretch it longer, then envelope off the tail end of it. It makes the IR duller and moodier, but still smooth and wonderful

[BC]

Another happy ConvoBoy user here.

I've been using it so much I felt compelled to register.

Good stuff, great price.

[thockin]

I tried it out. Not bad. Other than a few missing features from SIR, it's totally usable and cheap.

Features I think it needs:

* The file navigator needs to handle folders, including the parent folder - then the FileOpen dialog is moot.

* The "filter" is an envelope, and isn't very flexible. A more flexible envelope (spline) would make it much more useful.

* Stretching - give me 50% to 200% High Quality resampling. This can be worked around, but is nice.

* It should show how long the current impulse is (in seconds). It's useful.

All that said, I'd love to support you and buy it. BUt it's a lot slower than SIR on my box. SIR eats up more memory, but is faster. I took a track that is clunky on my current PC. I inserted ConvoBoy instead of SIR. It runs worse than before. And some of the impulses are shorter, since I used the stretch in SIR.

Anything I can do to help speed it up? debugging, other info? If it is as fast as SIR with better latency, I'll buy it.

[Space Boy]

* The file navigator needs to handle folders, including the parent folder - then the FileOpen dialog is moot.

* The "filter" is an envelope, and isn't very flexible. A more flexible envelope (spline) would make it much more useful.

* Stretching - give me 50% to 200% High Quality resampling. This can be worked around, but is nice.

* It should show how long the current impulse is (in seconds). It's useful.

All that said, I'd love to support you and buy it. BUt it's a lot slower than SIR on my box. SIR eats up more memory, but is faster. I took a track that is clunky on my current PC. I inserted ConvoBoy instead of SIR. It runs worse than before. And some of the impulses are shorter, since I used the stretch in SIR.

Anything I can do to help speed it up? debugging, other info? If it is as fast as SIR with better latency, I'll buy it.

It's partly a question of taste. Convo Boy has more different kinds of features compared to SIR - it's what you are used to.

File handling, as far as I can see, is no different to SIR, the buttons are just in a different place. if I want to change folders in SIR, I have to click Open file and navigate (or am I missing something).

The Stretching does not come for free (it costs 10% more CPU on my system using SIR).

The 'Filter' is an envelope (which is also a filter) but in the time domain.

On my own system, and also reported by others, Convo Boy is faster and using lower CPU than SIR. SIR is using a longer buffer that requires less FFTs per second but has a longer latency. Your system is possibly not configured best to suit Convo Boy. Check out the troubleshooting page in the instructions.

The length of the current impulse response is already displayed in seconds (on the Convo Filter page).

It already has better latency than SIR.

I think the free version of Convo Boy offers enough differences to SIR that both can co-exist (e.g. loading seperate IRs and lower latency). Also my aim was not to make another SIR.

If you need the additional features that Convo Boy offers then consider buying - but if you are happy with the free version then that's fine.

I will not update the free version from now on.

[thockin]

If I decide to use it at all, I'll buy it. I'll see if I can make it use less CPU. out of the box it uses more CPU than SIR, for me.

[McLilith]

Hi thockin,

If I understand correctly, the full version of Convo Boy is faster than the free version. I'm just not certain how much faster.

take care,
McLilith