Korg Wavestate and Opsix for Win/Mac

[Korg Supporter]

They seem pretty bad on M1, under Logic. Running Native, the wavestat pegs a core, until you play some notes, at which point the CPU drops to a more reasonable 40% or so, but when you release the notes back to silence, so wavestat is not doing any processing, and the core pegs back to 100%.

Very interesting. On my AMD Ryzen 7 3700 X, both plugins generally use 8-12% on a single thread. That CPU is supposed to be weaker than an M1, right?

[beely]

It's generally not the CPU in these cases, it's the optimisation of the plugins. I have plenty of plugins that run great, and plenty of plugins that run terribly. For example, take a Roland Cloud ACB plugin, like the JP8. On my 2011 MBP, I can play it just fine. On my M1Pro, which is a good 6x more powerful, it pegs a core, glitches horribly, and is unplayable.

Intel optimisations are quite mature, but it's still early days for devs making M1 stuff, and some of the optimisations they relied upon for Intel to get good performance are not available on ARM, as I understand it.

Remember - the performance is *way better* under Rosetta on the same machine - that's running the Intel code, under emulation. That *should* be worse performance than native, so the fact that native has 4x worse performance (here at least) points to poor optimisation.

[EnGee]

I think I'll skip! I don't think I need them really! I haven't even tried to design my own sounds on the Wavestation! For FM! I also haven't used my MODX enough to make my own sounds!

I'll use what I have and save the money for future fuels

[PAK]

They seem pretty bad on M1, under Logic. Running Native, the wavestat pegs a core, until you play some notes, at which point the CPU drops to a more reasonable 40% or so, but when you release the notes back to silence, so wavestat is not doing any processing, and the core pegs back to 100%.

The opsix pegs a core so much it causes glitches in the audio, even just a note or two. This is an M1Pro, running Logic 10.7.3.

What's interesting is it behaves exactly the same way, as you're describing, under Windows on Intel here (though in usage it's more like 25% CPU than your 40%).

It's like something related to the way the plugin is handling idle activity (denormal issues?!). The fact that, what sounds like the same bug, is present across both different CPU architectures and OS platforms also makes me wonder if, just maybe, there's some sort of additional underlying conversion happening..

It'll experience CPU spikes when switching presets too, and have you to give it a second or two to settle down. At least they've fixed GUI recall times - Hopefully that means a fix, for the 6 seconds it takes to recall some of the Legacy collection plugins, like Triton, is incoming..

[beely]

Yes, I get spikes too. Interesting it's also happening on Windows. I also remember the denormal days...

I just tried the plugins running natively in Live, and I got good performance - typically 10%-15% each instance, no glitching (although the CPU meters aren't as informative as Logic's). So maybe it's something weird going on in Logic..?

[ZenEagle]

Well, there goes $300 I hadn’t anticipated spending this month. Couldn’t resist either one, as they both sound phenomenal!

It hasn’t exactly been smooth sailing so far though, as they’re the only crash prone M1 Native plugs on my M1 Pro MBP. Opsix brings Ableton 11 down every 5 or 10 minutes, so I’m having to stick to Bitwig’s sandbox until things improve. Maybe updating Monterey from 12.1 to 12.3 will make a difference. Fingers crossed.

[PAK]

I just tried the plugins running natively in Live, and I got good performance - typically 10%-15% each instance, no glitching (although the CPU meters aren't as informative as Logic's). So maybe it's something weird going on in Logic..?

Then there would also have to be something weird going on under Cubase too

[EvilDragon]

I don't think it's denormals. It seems that opsix always runs its voices, whereas wavestate does dynamic voice allocation. I see much lower CPU usage with wavestate vs opsix.

[beely]

I don't think it's denormals. It seems that opsix always runs its voices, whereas wavestate does dynamic voice allocation. I see much lower CPU usage with wavestate vs opsix.

Yes, but here in Logic, when *none* of the voices are sounding, it's pegging the core at 100%. It *comes down* to, say, 35% or so, when you actively play voices, and goes back up to 100% when you release them. Which doesn't seem like a feature...

[ozinga]

I don't think it's denormals. It seems that opsix always runs its voices, whereas wavestate does dynamic voice allocation. I see much lower CPU usage with wavestate vs opsix.

Yes, but here in Logic, when *none* of the voices are sounding, it's pegging the core at 100%. It *comes down* to, say, 35% or so, when you actively play voices, and goes back up to 100% when you release them. Which doesn't seem like a feature...

They both are unusable on my M1Max MBPro.Tried on 3 different DAWs. Constant spikes and drop outs. Hope an optimization fix is released soon.

[beely]

Great - thanks for letting me know I'm not alone!

Strange this got through Q/A, especially as they are providing native builds...

[EvilDragon]

Right, that does sound off. Doesn't seem to happen at all here in Reaper on W10.

[Teksonik]

I'm running the demo on my internet/test system which is an ancient i5 3470 and Wavestate's CPU is very reasonable in Cakewalk. I imagine it wouldn't even break a sweat on my studio system.

Well it didn't take me long to discover I want Wavestate. It's capable of some incredible evolving sounds and I've only scratched the surface. I haven't had to open the manual yet which is a good thing.

You can point it to a User Sample folder but it wants a " *.korgcompiledbank" so I'll have to figure out how to convert .wav files into that format so I suppose a dive into the manual will be inevitable.

I wonder if the Moss Converter would convert .wusiksnd files into wav files. That would give me about 30 gigs more sample content to use.

Anyway Wavestate is one of the most interesting synths released in recent memory so now I just need to convince my practical self that I need another $150 synth.

[bmanic]

At least Wavestate seems quite reasonable CPU wise here (cheapest Mac Mini M1), running in Reaper through Metaplugin where I tested how it works with oversampling (perfectly!!!). Was playing about 32 notes at 4x oversampling without any issues.. but according to activity monitor, I did get close to 100% total CPU usage with those crazy settings on some presets.

.. but boy does this thing sound phenomenal! I'm having way too much fun with the demo. GAAAAAAAS.

Please help!

[rafa1981]

Waiting for them to make to mature/stabilize a bit before deciding but I have no FM synth except Bazille, so it looks like opsix is what I have been waiting for.