KVR Audio

rebeat · Post by **rebeat** » Mon Feb 28, 2005 12:24 am

Hi, I Have one question and if anybody reply's it would be a great help. I use a lot of tracks (midi and audio) and I have cpu overload all the time. My cpu is an athlon 64 3800+. Is it too much to use about 20 vsti's and about 10 audio tracks in one music track? thanks

vurt · Post by **vurt** » Mon Feb 28, 2005 12:27 am

its hard to say really but if your pc is struggling then yes,try bouncing a few more of the vstis down to audio
audio rather than vst will free up a lot of cpu,so when your happy with the way one track sounds bounce it down

VitaminD · Post by **VitaminD** » Mon Feb 28, 2005 12:27 am

well that depends greatly on the instruments used, the sounds used, and any effects used..

WoJ · Post by **WoJ** » Mon Feb 28, 2005 12:28 am

Depending on what host you have you could improve your situation by bouncing some of those vst's down to audio tracks. Then it'll take the load off your cpu somewhat. Of course it depends what vsti's your using cuz some hog cpu alot whereas others err..dont.

But why do u need that many vsti's anyway

surley you can afford to drop a few?

WoJ

edit: beaten to it i see. heh.

Bake · Post by **Bake** » Mon Feb 28, 2005 12:28 am

I would say that's not a lot of audio, but that's a shit load of vsti's as compared to how many I use!
For me usually about 6-8 vsti's and maybe 20 or less tracks of audio (guitars and vox). Usually 2-5 effects on every audio track and I only get to about 50% on a P4 3khz.

Sascha Franck · Post by **Sascha Franck** » Mon Feb 28, 2005 12:30 am

- Which VSTis?
- How many voices are they playing in average?
- Are you using further FX?
- If so, which and how many?

rebeat · Post by **rebeat** » Mon Feb 28, 2005 12:34 am

Sascha Franck wrote:- Which VSTis?
- How many voices are they playing in average?
- Are you using further FX?
- If so, which and how many?

I use about 20 vsti's like korg legacy, all NI instruments and some other free plugins, Waves plugins and ohmforce about 5 or 6 fx for the whole project. My sequencer is cubase sx2 and my music style is psytrance if it matters.

John_P · Post by **John_P** » Mon Feb 28, 2005 12:35 am

Bake wrote:...on a P4 3khz.

That's a fast processor you have there! LOL!

Bake · Post by **Bake** » Mon Feb 28, 2005 12:49 am

The Maestro wrote:
Bake wrote:...on a P4 3khz.
That's a fast processor you have there! LOL!

duh, I mean 3 ghz...or whatever...

djanthonyw · Post by **djanthonyw** » Mon Feb 28, 2005 12:55 am

In Cubase do you have experience using group channels? If you don't, look into it because it could save you ALOT of cpu when using effects.

Anthony

Sascha Franck · Post by **Sascha Franck** » Mon Feb 28, 2005 1:21 am

rebeat wrote: I use about 20 vsti's like korg legacy, all NI instruments and some other free plugins, Waves plugins and ohmforce about 5 or 6 fx for the whole project. My sequencer is cubase sx2 and my music style is psytrance if it matters.

Well, it all comes down to how much voices of which plugins you are playing (and how many Oscs for example they're using).
Korg Legacy should be somewhat tempting, a pad patch could allready use up quite some CPU power.

To me, 20 VSTis allready is a lot, I wouldn't wonder about my CPU crapping out.

If you don't mind the time it takes, sample your most used patches and load the files into, say, Kontakt.
I do that very often for CPU demanding plugins. Maybe not freeing up as much power as freezing, but you will maintain MIDI access.
Of course, proper sampling involves quite some work...

FaX · Post by **FaX** » Mon Feb 28, 2005 1:30 am

Sascha Franck wrote:
rebeat wrote: I use about 20 vsti's like korg legacy, all NI instruments and some other free plugins, Waves plugins and ohmforce about 5 or 6 fx for the whole project. My sequencer is cubase sx2 and my music style is psytrance if it matters.
Well, it all comes down to how much voices of which plugins you are playing (and how many Oscs for example they're using).
Korg Legacy should be somewhat tempting, a pad patch could allready use up quite some CPU power.

To me, 20 VSTis allready is a lot, I wouldn't wonder about my CPU crapping out.

If you don't mind the time it takes, sample your most used patches and load the files into, say, Kontakt.
I do that very often for CPU demanding plugins. Maybe not freeing up as much power as freezing, but you will maintain MIDI access.
Of course, proper sampling involves quite some work...

I'd agree 20 VSTi's sounds a bit like overkill per composition IMHO - I never use more than 16 tracks vsti's/audio combined maybe 17 tracks total maximum on anything I write and that usually sits around 7 -12 tracks average.
Sampling or rendering audio tracks is your only option.
Either that or learn to prune all the dead wood in a mix that sounds fancy but actually adds little to the overall feel you're after.
I just can't imagine using 20 VSti's in a single track myself

- to me their would be such a mess of frequency overlap and a density to the mix that I'd find overwhelming.
Two mates of mine release fairly decent psy/goa stuff and never go over 14-15 tracks tops either.
Not much I can say except ummm wow and maybe you're expecting to much of your CPU !

zircon · Post by **zircon** » Mon Feb 28, 2005 1:30 am

That's definitely next to nothing, imo. Unless I'm doing a very minimal arrangement, or a mostly-orchestral one, I'll be using at least 60 VSTs. My current project, which is not even half done, has about 110. I don't use many audio tracks.. maybe 5-10 automation tracks, but that's about it. CPU is just fine. I couldn't imagine using any less.

(the song in question, btw, can be found here in its in-progress form: http://www.zirconstudios.com/Badass.mp3)

Sascha Franck · Post by **Sascha Franck** » Mon Feb 28, 2005 7:44 am

the song in question, btw, can be found here in its in-progress form: http://www.zirconstudios.com/Badass.mp3

Good sound... so, which 110 VSTis do I need?

zircon · Post by **zircon** » Mon Feb 28, 2005 5:32 pm

Oops, I didn't catch the "i" there. That track only uses about 15-20 VSTis, and will probably end up with around 30 in the end, which is about average for me as I like to have a lot of variations in sound that can't be accomplished with automation.

how many tracks?