u-he

lut lei · Post by **lut lei** » Fri Sep 11, 2009 10:32 pm

Is it normal behaviour that, e.g. Filterscape VA, Zebra 2 (and even the Bazille Alpha), introduce a significant buzzing sound when loaded into a host?

I'm using a mac with 10.5.8, and notice this in both Ableton Live and Numerology2.

elxsound · Post by **elxsound** » Fri Sep 11, 2009 10:37 pm

I don't hear any buzz on my setup...

I've opened this in Live 8.0.4, Reaper and the demo of Presonus' One. No buzz, (but I'm on PC).

lut lei · Post by **lut lei** » Fri Sep 11, 2009 11:02 pm

Ok. I guess it's not a feature then. I could make recording of what I hear, but it's quite descriptive to say it's a buzz;) It's not loud, but it's there. When I load Zebra, it's like plugging in a hardware synth, with grounding problems.

BradP · Post by **BradP** » Sat Sep 12, 2009 12:16 am

Maybe your Zebra attracts flies.

eidenk · Post by **eidenk** » Sat Sep 12, 2009 12:31 am

lut lei wrote:When I load Zebra, it's like plugging in a hardware synth, with grounding problems.

Make sure you haven't the option to faithfully emulate analog hardware turned on

pdxindy · Post by **pdxindy** » Sat Sep 12, 2009 1:01 am

lut lei wrote:Is it normal behaviour that, e.g. Filterscape VA, Zebra 2 (and even the Bazille Alpha), introduce a significant buzzing sound when loaded into a host?

I'm using a mac with 10.5.8, and notice this in both Ableton Live and Numerology2.

and no other synths have the same thing?

UltraJv · Post by **UltraJv** » Sat Sep 12, 2009 1:27 am

Its the audio fairy - shes whispering "get a decent sound card"

Guenon · Post by **Guenon** » Sat Sep 12, 2009 1:30 am

It's the buzz of pure awesome into your DAW.

mcnoone · Post by **mcnoone** » Sat Sep 12, 2009 4:54 am

lut lei wrote:Ok. I guess it's not a feature then. I could make recording of what I hear, but it's quite descriptive to say it's a buzz;) It's not loud, but it's there. When I load Zebra, it's like plugging in a hardware synth, with grounding problems.

It's your settings in Live. You have a line in that is on, or something similar. Replace the U-he plug-in with a different synth, in the same midi track, and see if the noise is still there. If it is, then it's your Live settings.

lut lei · Post by **lut lei** » Sat Sep 12, 2009 12:29 pm

Here's an example of the sound when inserting Zebra2 to a track in Ableton Live, recorded via soundflower in an external editor: http://www.lutlei.net/audio/insertingZebra.aif

What you hear is mainly silence, but if you normalize the file you'll clearly see that it's not only silence.

I'm not hearing this sound with any other AU. It appears with all the u-he stuff I've got. Uhbik, zebra, filterscape, triplecheese. I've tested in Numerology and Ableton Live with no audio inputs being enabled.

ZenPunkHippy · Post by **ZenPunkHippy** » Sat Sep 12, 2009 12:49 pm

I'm running 10.5.8, Live 8.0.4 and Numerology 2.1. There is nothing audible when inserting Zebra 2.5, Bazille or any other U-he plug-ins in either host when my mixing desk is at full volume.

Peace,
Andy.

lut lei · Post by **lut lei** » Sat Sep 12, 2009 4:19 pm

So, any other suggestions for troubleshooting this peculiar problem?

Urs · Post by **Urs** » Sat Sep 12, 2009 5:06 pm

Ah, I had problems downloading the file but now I could.

This is from a way of denormal prevention. It's very silent noise that prevents recursive filters from going into very small numbers, called "Denormals":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denormal_number

These are better avoided due to massive performance issues.

I can take that code out as soon as I can safely assume that no-one uses MacOS 10.3.9 Panther on PowerPC Macs anymore. After that Denormal processing is turned off by the operating system, and I do that by hand under Intel machines.

Cheers,

Urs

lut lei · Post by **lut lei** » Sat Sep 12, 2009 6:52 pm

Thanks Urs. (Got the url wrong first)

So why am I the only one hearing this?

bmrzycki · Post by **bmrzycki** » Sat Sep 12, 2009 7:22 pm

Maybe your soundcard has a really high noise floor? Maybe you have the gain turned way up on your soundcard and way low on your monitors?

Just thinking out loud...interesting stuff.

u-he

KVR Audio

What's that buzz when loading a U-he synth?