Saving CPU

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Hansson
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Saving CPU

Post by Hansson » Tue Jan 12, 2016 3:35 am

Hey Guys, ive been using Pro since release now and ikeep having problems with Syntmaster (My favorite :( )

What do you guys usally do to save CPU ?i have an Ipad Air 2 with latest IOS release.

is there any point in Freezing an audio track if i don't have any effects on it ?
If i Mute a Midi Channel will it still process in the background ?
wich plugins should i stay away from ?
are there any specific settings i should look into ? (i don't use any external equipment)
is there anyway to have Bpm and beats instead of MS in the digital delay?


i dont know, alot of different questions here but i suspect there are other users out there that are looking for the same answers.


I love Auria BTW its Awesome and thats mostly because i know its still being heavily developed and we have a great developer who actually listens.keep it up

regards

rickwaugh
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Re: Saving CPU

Post by rickwaugh » Tue Jan 12, 2016 8:33 am

I freeze pretty much everything, unless it's straight audio with no plugins.

In particular, freeze midi tracks, plugins or no. If they are all frozen, you can move the buffer size up from 512. This makes a huge difference.

Any Fabfilter plugin preset with multiple modulation so will eat up CPU. Saturn does this in particular. Twin 2 will also. But they sound great. So tinker with it until you're happy, then freeze it.

Make sure you kill everything else that is running when working Auria. Good to do a reboot first.

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Tourniquet
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Re: Saving CPU

Post by Tourniquet » Tue Jan 12, 2016 3:21 pm

There is a lot of chatter on the Audiobus Forum about the Synthmaster CPU usage, even just with the synth alone. It's my favorite synth as well. Recent couple of updates seem to have raised the CPU usage quite a bit. Not sure if they are looking into it ATM.

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Igneousflame
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Re: Saving CPU

Post by Igneousflame » Wed Jan 13, 2016 8:27 am

Hello, New person to the forum here.

I upgraded to AP recently and I'm glad I did, I do have some concerns over the CPU usage though - with MIDI tracks in particular. I'm used to working with Korg Gadget and decided I'd like to try AP to 'freshen things up a bit' creatively. In Gadget, I typically run 16 instruments in a song with no issues.
I've noticed that even using 8 tracks of Lyra uses about 30% (ish) on my Air2 (iOS 9.1), Twin Two just eats up CPU big time, making it less than useable. Freezing tracks is not the way I work, are any CPU optimisations planned over time I wonder ? Anyone else with any suggestions / pointers ?

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CEIsar
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Re: Saving CPU

Post by CEIsar » Wed Jan 13, 2016 1:41 pm

Tourniquet wrote:There is a lot of chatter on the Audiobus Forum about the Synthmaster CPU usage, even just with the synth alone. It's my favorite synth as well. Recent couple of updates seem to have raised the CPU usage quite a bit. Not sure if they are looking into it ATM.
at least he can use SM in Auria ar all...for me it's always crashing,no matter if i use it as IAA or AB.i bought it with some IAP but could never use it yet.
iPad Air 2 - WiFI - 128GB - iOS 9.1 - Auria Pro 2.01 - Roland Duo Capture EX

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Igneousflame
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Re: Saving CPU

Post by Igneousflame » Fri Jan 15, 2016 2:42 pm

Igneousflame wrote:are any CPU optimisations planned over time I wonder ? Anyone else with any suggestions / pointers ?
No suggestions ?

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-ki
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Re: Saving CPU

Post by -ki » Fri Jan 15, 2016 4:08 pm

Igneousflame wrote:No suggestions ?
Hmm, i had finished formulating my answer (suggesting to raise the buffer size to get lower cpu usage) but before submitting the text, i checked the facts in Auria. It seems one can't raise the buffersize beyond 512 if there is a midi track.

Are you using FabFilter plugins on the midi tracks ?
  • Some of their presets enable HQ mode (for FF Saturn) or Oversampling (FF Pro-C2/DS/G/L/MB) - just disable HQ or Oversampling to lower the cpu usage needed for that FX.

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Igneousflame
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Re: Saving CPU

Post by Igneousflame » Sat Jan 16, 2016 10:33 am

No, no plugins at all, just 'bare' MIDI tracks.

Rim
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Re: Saving CPU

Post by Rim » Sat Jan 16, 2016 5:26 pm

Auria is already highly CPU efficient. One thing to keep in mind is that unlike other iOS audio apps, Auria's plugins are made by top plugin developers and are typically the same as their desktop equivalents which run on Logic, Pro Tools, etc, so they will take more CPU than simpler effects available in other iOS apps.

As already mentioned, the biggest influence on CPU usage (in any audio app) is the buffer size. The larger the buffer size, the less CPU the app is going to need. The tradeoff is that larger buffer sizes create latency when playing live and monitoring. Latency is a non-issue when playing back, since Auria has plugin delay compensation. The real limitation however is that Apple has a restriction that prevents apps from using buffer sizes larger than 512 if MIDI is also being used. One potential workaround is to create all your MIDI tracks first, get them exactly the way you want them, then bounce in place when you're done (which turns them into audio tracks). Now you can increase the buffer size and use lots of plugins for your mixing.

Using a more powerful iPad is also a way to get more CPU bandwidth.

Rim

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Igneousflame
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Re: Saving CPU

Post by Igneousflame » Wed Jan 20, 2016 5:22 am

Thanks for the answer,

So, is the ipad Pro the answer to working with multiple MIDI tracks / fabfilter plugins ?
Am curious to hear any ipad Pro owners feedback on number of tracks running etc. before CPU meltdown.
My reference is Korg Gadget, as Gadget is able to run many MIDI tracks fine (on an Air2) - maybe thats why it has no per track FX ?

I believe that a lot of people working with MIDI tracks do so with them being 'live' and editable, freezing won't work for that kind of workflow. Yes, when everything's finished and FXs are added to frozen audio tracks / the mastering stage, I can see the logic in it, but not when the track is still being constructed / worked on.

Hansson
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Re: Saving CPU

Post by Hansson » Wed Jan 20, 2016 6:40 am

yeah its too bad Apple has those restrictions, and focusing too much on saving cpu would mean auria would be not that top notch when it comes to audio, maybe a reviewmode or something, where everything is rendered in lower quality or something to save RAM and CPU or maybe split the buffers so midi and Audio is seperated so we can have a larger buffer size for Audio onlu tracks, i dont know.

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