I could be kicking myself in the buttox.

[IMF OnSite Recording]

Mentally disturbed engineer with an issue here:

So I jumped the gun with a lower budget and invested in a decent i5 2400 processor. If I try to push it too hard it will let me know, but I never run into it just doing the norm sessions and mixing. I was going to get an i7-2600k or 2700k setup which was going to be $300 more if I built it myself.

My ass hurts now.

I sorta ran into a brick wall with my regular routine and ending up engineering and producing a hip hop artist's material. Since I've started a few weeks ago, I have been merging some of his session material with mine, while mixing his parts in and adding several of my own instruments and samples and crap.. now my PC is like.. "Ehh, better slow down soon". When I am half way done with the song and im hitting over 25-35% on all 4 CPU's, that could be trouble.

Problem: I am trying to keep near 0ms latency as I am tracking MIDI while I have parts of the session mixed into stems. Bad idea. Other problem is THOSE stem mixes I did influenced my next decision.. so that mindset of "Dont you dare start mixing until all tracking is done and loaded into a mix only session" doesn't always go well with me.

Possible solution?: Adjust my buffers and bypass all native effects while I am tracking, then readjust when i want to mix that part?

If I knew this was coming, I would have bought a much more powerful system. AGH!!!!! I don't want to go in too deep and then find out I cannot finish the session on my equipment.

Suggestions?

[Stan_Halen]

If I understand you correctly, you are just trying to record some stuff (MIDI?) and also keep the CPU load down with 0ms latency? One trick, while a bit time-consuming, is to bounce (render) the mix you have to a stereo track with the processing on it you want. Kind of a "ruff mix". Then disable all your tracks with native effects on them and just record your parts along with the stereo ruff mix. After you have recorded the parts you want, disable that stereo ruff mix or delete it - it was just a scratch track with low CPU to make your overdubs. Make sense?

[IMF OnSite Recording]

If it came to that, I think freezing my tracks would be more than enough to take care of the issue, but I understand what you're saying. I'll put that trick up my sleeve as a failsafe if things get nuts. Thanks

[aj113]

FWIW I don't think a more powerful machine would have been much better. Even in these heady technological times there are some things that PC's just don't do too well. I mean, your PC is pretty much a beast, if it can't cope with what you are trying to do I'm not sure a more powerful one would cope much better.

Just a point - how is your gear set up? I have the same problem as you frequently but the problem is more related to my Tascam mixer being USB 2 than any shortcomings of my PC.

Other than that, It's the zero latency thing that's probably eating up most of your CPU's energy. Is the DAW actually generating the sounds? Or are the keyboards generating the sounds themselves? If the keyboards are generating the sounds, then you could use an audio out from the keyboards through your mixer for monitoring puposes, then you would not need the zero latency.

If the keyboards are not generating the sounds, then you could perhaps find some way of using some other module to trigger off some sort of sound from your keyboards' midi signal. Again, you could then monitor this sound back through your mixer and you would not need the zero latency option.

I never have latency issues, because I never monitor back through the DAW. Monitoring through the DAW has so many potential issues and problems associated with it that I gave up trying a long time ago, and always try to find some other way of getting the stuff down. Sometimes it's a bit convoluted but it saves a boatload of stress and problems.

BTW, I always mix-as-I-go, I can't see why people wouldn't do that every time, because as you say, if you have your parts mixed, it is much easier to record the next layer, whatever that may be.

[miccimiao]

I don't think running into 35-40% of cpu is an issue at all.

All the stuff I'm working on at the moment runs at 70% cpu. Cooling becomes very important at such a percentage. I have a cooling system set in place.

You might have to accept freezing as part of your work flow. If the software you are using doesn't support freezing, give Cubase a shot!

[IMF OnSite Recording]

Other than that, It's the zero latency thing that's probably eating up most of your CPU's energy.

Yes, I am certain that is it.. which is why while I am tracking I could be in my 2-4ms realm comfortably if I bypass all native plugs while tracking. Then I can set my device to a much higher ASIO latency when I am mixing the part. I may also bounce all tracked midi and shut off soft synths after they're tracking.. that way they are still easily able to be recalled if I need to edit a part and high latency will not interfere with note delay.

I don't think running into 35-40% of cpu is an issue at all. All the stuff I'm working on at the moment runs at 70% cpu.

Right, I am not worried now, I am looking into the future and being proactive since I never dug this deep into a session the way I am now on this setup.

Cooling becomes very important at such a percentage.

I do not have a good cooling system in place, I'm glad you brought that up. I dont think I need a decked out radiator, but something considerably better than stock should do, right?

[bozmillar]

I do not have a good cooling system in place, I'm glad you brought that up. I dont think I need a decked out radiator, but something considerably better than stock should do, right?

Make sure you keep dust out of the heat sink. That makes a huge difference in heat. I'm sure all stock coolers are different, but on mine, I can't run more than 40% cpu for very long before it starts getting really hot.

[brandondrury]

FWIW I don't think a more powerful machine would have been much better. Even in these heady technological times there are some things that PC's just don't do too well. I mean, your PC is pretty much a beast, if it can't cope with what you are trying to do I'm not sure a more powerful one would cope much better.

I don't remotely agree. This isn't a case of some non-linearity or bottle neck. He normally needs 100 thingies per second, he's got a max of 200 thingies per second, and now he's got a job that required 300 thingies per second. The easiest method (ignoring realities of cost, time, etc) is to up his device to a max of 500 thingies per second.

This graph illustrates it well: PassMark Intel vs AMD CPU Benchmarks - High End

Assuming nothing majorly inefficient is happening on the user end, more CPU is the answer. No doubt about it.

I think freezing my tracks would be more than enough to take care of the issue, but I understand what you're saying. I'll put that trick up my sleeve as a failsafe if things get nuts. Thanks

If you are using Cubase (or any other DAW with this feature) this freezing business is the answer. The problem with rendering tracks is going back to make tweaks is a problem. It's slow and often times you have to render something else to make CPU room for the track you want to deal with. Freezing greatly simplifies a process that can get messy particularly when your brain is in mix mode.

Yes, I am certain that is it.. which is why while I am tracking I could be in my 2-4ms realm comfortably if I bypass all native plugs while tracking.

If you are doing rigid electronic production, a person can make due with higher latency because the notes will probably be all quantized anyway. It's not fun, but bumping up to 256 samples can often get you 10% more CPU power, give or take. Food for thought.

Make sure you keep dust out of the heat sink. That makes a huge difference in heat. I'm sure all stock coolers are different, but on mine, I can't run more than 40% cpu for very long before it starts getting really hot.

I've seen improvements in performance by cleaning out my CPU. All my computers now use the cheapo (at least it used to be under $30). Newegg.com - COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 Plus RR-B10-212P-G1 "Heatpipe Direct Contact" Long Life Sleeve 120mm CPU Cooler Compatible Intel Core i5 & Intel Core i7 This thing is HUGE. It's not as quiet as I'd prefer, but it works for my setup.

Brandon

[aj113]

..... He normally needs 100 thingies per second, he's got a max of 200 thingies per second, and now he's got a job that required 300 thingies per second. The easiest method (ignoring realities of cost, time, etc) is to up his device to a max of 500 thingies per second.....

Yes, I realise this is the logic of the situation, my point is that in real life it may not actually give the required improvements. You say it's not a case of bottleneck, but I would like to know how you came to that conclusion so emphatically. I'm sticking my neck out here and disagreeing with you oh lord and master, I think it could be a bottleneck of data transfer somewhere within the system, hence my suggestion that a bigger beast may not solve the problem.

[IMF OnSite Recording]

Yes, I realise this is the logic of the situation, my point is that in real life it may not actually give the required improvements. You say it's not a case of bottleneck, but I would like to know how you came to that conclusion so emphatically. I'm sticking my neck out here and disagreeing with you oh lord and master, I think it could be a bottleneck of data transfer somewhere within the system, hence my suggestion that a bigger beast may not solve the problem.

I understand where you're coming from, but in computer land.. logic rules all and everything is a mathematical scenario according to a computer core. More multipliers running at a faster speed = more simultaneous things happening at lower usage rates. That's where the "im kicking myself in the ass" came in. If I waited a bit longer and got a computer that is 35% better at handling more things at once, I would not be in this situation. Now that I am crawling into a larger scale of music production, I will say that processing equipment matters at every level without a shadow of a doubt. I am finding ways to deal with current and possible future adversity on my current setup, but the fact of the matter is, I wouldn't have to had I purchased a processor that had a much more efficient workload spread.

[brandondrury]

You say it's not a case of bottleneck, but I would like to know how you came to that conclusion so emphatically.

Most of it is assumed based on the fact that IMF OnSite Recording knows his stuff. I got the feeling that he's not got a fried OS, tons of porno-induced viruses, wireless internet cards, or any of the usual suspects. He simply increased the the load from 1-2 soft synths to 5-6 (or whatever). I'd say that the nature of his work didn't really change, necessarily (although we nit pick the semantics of that). It's simply an issue of asking the computer to pull more weight. If more CPU isn't the solution, what is?

Of course, I am assuming and that could be a fault of mine.

I know when I started to embrace the modern tool tools often associated with electronic music production (but have definitely moved over to rock/metal and maybe just about everything else) from the world of using nothing but microphones, but my very-well setup computer just couldn't hack it. It was the nature of the beast. Raw CPU power is the solution in that case.

Brandon

[fHumble fHingaz]

I know it's probably of not much help now, but I can vouch for the fact that a monster computer can make a HUGE difference... In the last year, I moved up from a Core Duo machine to an Intel Core i7 2600CPI@3.40 GHz with 16 GB of RAM. Well, it's like night & day. I have a Steinberg MR816CSX interface on my tracking computer which has on-board processing, so that you can track at high latency settings & still monitor with zero latency (& effects). The thing is, with my new computer, it's almost redundant, because I can now track at the lowest latency, even with several virtual instruments running & no glitching. I just tracked some of my family's vocal efforts the other day with a session involving Superior Drummer, Alecia's Keys, Miroslav Orchestra, Bass (running through Amplitude's SVX), a couple of live acoustic guitar tracks, & a couple of electric guitar tracks running through Guitar Rig 4 - all at the lowest possible latency rate, with no detectable latency. This would have been impossible before....

Just to illustrate how much of a difference this computer makes - The other day, I opened up a Slate Cup contest mix I was working on. Now this mix currently has more than 50 tracks going. It has many, many plugins, some instances of Slate's Trigger, & an instance of Addictive Drums. "Hmmm, that's weird" I thought "it's glitching a bit - I wonder why?" - Then I checked my latency settings on my soundcard - D'oh! I had been doing some tracking & left the latency on it's lowest setting! I was blown away - this session was only just glitching, despite having a full-on mix running. In the days of my Core Duo, it would have crashed immediately.

...but yeah, my solution to the tracking session issue would be to freeze tracks, or create a "latency-free" session consisting of stems (so that you can still control the levels for the monitor mix).

[Jeremy Morrissy]

I know it's probably of not much help now, but I can vouch for the fact that a monster computer can make a HUGE difference... In the last year, I moved up from a Core Duo machine to an Intel Core i7 2600CPI@3.40 GHz with 16 GB of RAM. Well, it's like night & day.

That's pretty beastly. I was thinking of getting the i7 2600 3.4 GHz too. Do you run into any load problems at all? How high is the CPU load usually?

[fHumble fHingaz]

That's pretty beastly. I was thinking of getting the i7 2600 3.4 GHz too. Do you run into any load problems at all? How high is the CPU load usually?

No load problems at all so far...TBH, I don't even look at the CPU load, so I'll have to get back to you on that.

[shackman]

I've read the threa thoroughly and think I have a handle on the symptoms. ONe question. Is the increased CPU usage causing latency problems.

If not, is the increased CPU usage a symptom of the computer struggling to handle things by matching your no latency requirement - in other words, is coping with latency what's increasing CPU usage.

One of the biggest downsides of almost all VSTs is that they have a small (usually un-noticeable) latency issue.

That multipklies as you use more and more VSTs.

I DON'T know the answer to MY questions.

But why take a look at this. ALeksy who designed it, produces top notch VSTs. This one is free. It (in simple terms) matches ANY chosen latency amount with a faked audio delay.

In -- oh, go and read the blurb. I tried it for the first time and bugger me, it certainly kils ltency off. I actually managed to set it up so that it introduced POSITIVE latency.

It's free. this is no sales blurb, and this may do nothing for you problem. But slapping this little baby on the MAster Bus and checking how CPU usage reacts wd be ... interesting

[IMF OnSite Recording]

It's free. this is no sales blurb, and this may do nothing for you problem. But slapping this little baby on the MAster Bus and checking how CPU usage reacts wd be ... interesting

Sounds interesting. Seems like it would just add to the CPU load since it is added on another thingie that is thinking and shifting things around. Every extra VST brain, like you said, adds up. I don't have an issue with latency at all anymore when tracking, its the growing CPU load. The effect you speak of is good only during playback. If I wanted high latency to reduce load, it would not compensate for the fact that there would be a note delay from a hardware midi controller being used. Althought, this could come in handy if I am mastering with some stems and using linear phase and 64bit stuff though... something I may try out. Thanks

BRANDON:

If you are doing rigid electronic production, a person can make due with higher latency because the notes will probably be all quantized anyway.

You dont want realtime note delay when tracking with a softsynth though... at least I dont.. it would hinder my performance. UNLESS.. who said it.. let me find it.. HERE IT IS

aj113:

If the keyboards are generating the sounds, then you could use an audio out from the keyboards through your mixer for monitoring puposes, then you would not need the zero latency.

How did I miss that?My keyboard is a standalone controller only, but I have a hardware synth brain I can MIDI THRU with to zero latency monitor with. As for drums (if I am not programming and playing my kit) I have the stock brain and amp for that. Great suggestion!

[bholst]

Mentally disturbed engineer with an issue here

Doesn't that describe all of us here?

[IMF OnSite Recording]

Doesn't that describe all of us here?

Probably true, lol.