Why is everyone so obsessed with plugin CPU consumption?

[Hunter]

I'm consantly amazed by how obsessed with plugin CPU consumption people are here.

In my mind I have this picture of everyone trying to keep their projects below 20% or something the way people go on about it . Whats the point in trying to get as much CPU power as possible if you're going to keep your projects as low as possible by avoiding more CPU hungry plugs?

I mean a few years ago it was more of an issue with machines being so much slower, but even for very small money you can get a pretty powerful CPU nowadays, I got my 2nd hand Athlon XP2800+ for next to nothing and its stably clocked up anotehr 200Mhz or so.

I can run shedloads of synths and effects on my meagre old budget 2nd hand machine, and if I run out I just freeze or bounce down tracks, does no one else freeze or bounce or what?

Anyway, I think you are all idiots, work that CPU til it screams, thats why you bought it, and try bouncing or freezing once in a while, you might like it

[Ja.x]

You can do it because we, "the idiots", always complain about cpu usage and devs try to keep it low.

[VanLichten]

Simple answer:
For sounding professional, you still have to use every cycle of your CPU. Example: 16 tracks track, each one:
Synth/sampler - Saturation - Mod FX - Small Reberb/Delay -Comp - 2nd Comp/Limiter - EQ

Up to Busses, to main out with some fx, summing up to, say:
12 Synths and 100 FX .
Now you want good ones, at least roughly as good as Hardware;
you take Voxengo or Kjaerhus, with 2 % each FX uses - here you go again....

Youre settled up in this scenario with a dual core + some outboard/ or Scope/UAD stuff, but not before, unless you bounce like crazy.

[JackDark]

I always thought that the CPU thing was a bit of a moot point, but that's due to my workflow. I don't usually run more than 2 or 3 VST at a time, as I usually render the output of say a synth to a .WAV and then layer it into a song. So if said synth uses 75% of my CPU until it is rendered, it really doesn't bother me.

However, it would seem that some people like to run many VST at once, and therefore are only happy if any given VST in their arsenal uses >5%, which is ridiculous and very aggravating if you're into VST development.

However, the ever increasing power of CPUs brings both sides of the argument to an eventual syncretism anyway, so no worries.

[whyterabbyt]

Simple answer:
For sounding professional, you still have to use every cycle of your CPU.

what utter shite.

[Jason Brian Merrill]

this whole thread is, WR ...

[HelgeG]

Simple answer:
For sounding professional, you still have to use every cycle of your CPU.

You can buy my fantastic Professionalizer (tm) VST-plugin. If your project only uses say 20% CPU, you can insert the Professionalizer (tm) which will consume the remaining CPU cycles, making sure you always sound 100 % professional.

The Professionalizer (tm) is available for $999 at www.GiveMeYourMoneyAndYouTooWillBeProfessional.com.

[blaster78]

I'm consantly amazed by how obsessed with plugin CPU consumption people are here.

kinda depends on the genre you work in as well a bit...

personally i'm with you... i run a bucket load of synths and effects and rarely hit the top edge of my computers limits.

but then you get people who do this...

16 tracks track, each one:
Synth/sampler - Saturation - Mod FX - Small Reberb/Delay -Comp - 2nd Comp/Limiter - EQ

Up to Busses, to main out with some fx, summing up to, say:
12 Synths and 100 FX Shocked

quite why you need 2 compressors, an eq, saturation, a reverb/delay and modfx on every track i have no idea but i imagine it would run the cpu bill up pretty fast. aparently thats what it takes to sound proffesional

and given that enourmous fx load on each track you obviously need to send it through a shed load more on several busses.

don't forget the old standard...

Now you want good ones, at least roughly as good as Hardware

sorry feeling a little beligerent today

[beej]

Using Logic on the PC, which doesn't have a freeze, and mixing large projects, using softsynths and lots of acoustic tracks, CPU issues do come into play, but for those, most parts are finalised so I'll at least bounce all the softsynth/sampler/MIDI synths to audio beforehand.

Freezing is a godsend on my Mac G4 laptop, I literally wouldn't be able to do that much without it. But freezing does become annoying when mixing as you're continually tweaking stuff, and to keep unfreezing/tweaking/refreezing does slow down the workflow.

But in the main, as long as I have a half decent computer, I don't mind too much about CPU - if it's a synth for example, let's say something hungry like MiniMonsta, I'd get the part right and bounce it or freeze it. As long as it sounds good, the CPU hit isn't too much of an issue.

But in an ideal world, many of us would love to have the power to run everything live until the final mix is finished. For people running small projects with 10-12 synth tracks maybe, you may well already have all the power you need.

If you're running big song projects, real drums, guitars, organs. synths, strings, buckets of bvox and so on, then you really do need a hefty machine to have a speedy workflow...

(Running Zebra2 on my G4 laptop, I can't play chords on some sounds. In that instance, CPU does matter - until you buy a faster machine which keeps you ahead of the curve for another few years...)

[CypherOne]

I find that it reduces the options available, i.e. having to bounce/render to me is a bit like adding sugar to tea - you can't take it back out again. Because my meager machine craps out at about 6 instruments and a few fx, I have to bounce stuff a lot - I therefore tend to end up with several 'versions' of the same project with all different bits bounced so that I can still go back and change stuff.

This is probably down to the haphazard way I work...

[Hunter]

this whole thread is, WR ...

thanks for your valuable contribution

[jittered]

I think it all depends on what results your looking for and the way you want to obtain them.

In my opinion many plugins - be it an instrument or an effect - only start to shine once you start tweaking their parameters (this usually gives more organic sounding results than when you stick to a fixed sound). If the goal is to produce a track entirely in the studio then you could automate parameters and bounce tracks if needed. However, if the intention is to do live performances with plugins, i believe it's primordial to keep cpu consumption as low as possible.

On my desktop pc (PIV 1.7 with 1GB RAM) i often had to bounce tracks (especially with synthedit plugins) and layer them into the song. But all too often the song took an (unforseen) direction which wanted the bounced tracks to go somewhere else (some filter sweep or pitch modulation or whatever). If found this very annoying and counter-productive. Luckily on my new pc this problem has been generally solved. But nevertheless when using (SE) plugins I still carefully watch cpu consumption.

[Hunter]

Simple answer:
For sounding professional, you still have to use every cycle of your CPU.

what utter shite.

So thats what I was doing wrong

[Hunter]

I find that it reduces the options available, i.e. having to bounce/render to me is a bit like adding sugar to tea - you can't take it back out again. Because my meager machine craps out at about 6 instruments and a few fx, I have to bounce stuff a lot - I therefore tend to end up with several 'versions' of the same project with all different bits bounced so that I can still go back and change stuff.

This is probably down to the haphazard way I work...

Yeah but the way I work is to save a different project version with every major change to the track, so once I bounce a synth down if I decide i want to cahnge something that can't be done just on the audio I just revert to a previous version and do it there. Disk space is cheap, I have about 40 versions of one track at the mo

[sonicfire]

i only use reason - i dont have CPU problems