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  4. Tempo Changes causes audio pop with VEP slave instruments

  • Tempo Changes causes audio pop with VEP slave instruments

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    Has anyone else noticed this issue?

    My setup - using VEP as a slave - connected via gigabit LAN. Using Play instances.

    Master computer - running Cubase 6.02.

    Both computers PC Windows 7 64 bit. High spec.

    In Cubase if the tempo changes while a note is playing, or even the release trail of such a note, I get an audio pop.

    It would seem that some sort of tempo sync is necessary for the proper working of VEP. Some instruments behave differently depending on the tempo of your project.

    Disabling this functionality would not be ideal - the fact that the slave is responding to more than just simple MIDI data is actually very useful. It's the raison d'etre I would say for VEP. Since otherwise simple MIDI over LAN would provide a more reliable setup - since the audio is dealt with on an exclusive channel via sound cards and cables.

    Is there a workaround for this?

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    The first thing to check is whether or not you have the same problem if you load the patches directly into Cubase. There should only (potentially) be a problem with tempo synced patches, which VSL doesn't have, so it may be a PLAY issue.

    DG
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    @DG said:

    The first thing to check is whether or not you have the same problem if you load the patches directly into Cubase. There should only (potentially) be a problem with tempo synced patches, which VSL doesn't have, so it may be a PLAY issue.

    DG

    Well that was the first thing I tried to establish. It doesn't happen with the patches loaded directly in Cubase. And it happens even where the patch in the slave doesn't have any tempo synced information.

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    I had this problem but assumed it was PLAY's fault. I ended up using real time export to remedy the situation, because offline bounce was resulting in pops. I wasn't using tempo mapped instruments though
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    Hang on a sec. When PLAY was released it was stated that they only supported real time bounce/mixdown. Has that changed?

    DG
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    @aptmusic said:

    I had this problem but assumed it was PLAY's fault. I ended up using real time export to remedy the situation, because offline bounce was resulting in pops. I wasn't using tempo mapped instruments though

    This issue is happening in real time though - I'm not exporting
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    @DG said:

    Hang on a sec. When PLAY was released it was stated that they only supported real time bounce/mixdown. Has that changed?

    DG

    I've had no problems using offline bouncing. In fact I use the export function in Cubase to bounce offline multiple stems at the same time.

    Officially I think you are right - Play does not recommend this. But as I'm delivering broadcast quality stems to clients okay, clearly Play is capable. It must depend on your hardware and the samples. I haven't tried this with VEPro of course as a slave. I would seriously doubt that would work. And I haven't tried it with the latest Eastwest Hollywood sample libraries, which do put extra strain on the system.

    Anyway, this is off topic somewhat. Because my issue is about getting pops at tempo changes, regardless of any tempo mapping instruments being loaded. Sure I can live with it while composing and creating the balance in my mix, but when it comes to recording my stems, realtime or not, it is going to be an issue.

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     Fair enough. My only other question would be does it happen with any other sample player than PLAY?
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    @DG said:

     Fair enough. My only other question would be does it happen with any other sample player than PLAY?

    Unfortunately I don't have another one installed on my slave machine to test this. But it would be a logical test to see whether this is just a Play issue.

    Not fully understanding how VEP works, but clearly it has to send a chunk of data to the slave to sync it. I was wondering if this had an impact.

    However, I've just tried a tempo change in a clean Cubase project - using the same set of samples loaded in my slave. No pop. So I would surmise that this is neither a VEP or Play issue. What's different in this new Cubase project I wonder? Bit resolution is 24 instead of 32 floating point. Frame rate is 30 instead of 24.

    Also of course I don't have loads of Midi Channels or other VSTi's loaded. But I was discounting that as an factor, because the problem occurs with just a single instrument playing, so I didn't think it would be a issue of strain upon the network connection or the CPU.

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    It gets stranger

    The issue only seems to happen some measures into a project. Changing tempo right at start of project (like measure 2 for example) doesn't cause pop. Doing so at measure 120 for instance, does.

    Also I seem to be able to mitigate the issue by ramping the tempo change (even very quickly), rather than a jump. It also seems to depend on how big the tempo change is.

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    I have had the same problem. I have just done a switch from VEP server to

    VEP stand alone and I find Play and some Kontact patchs give me pops and clicks.

    I think it is patches that are sending out tempo that is causing the pops. I have found

    that I can get rid of the pops but I have to raise my buffer way up on my slave.

    Try raising the buffer up does that get rid of the pops for you??
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    Sorry I don't know how to do this beyond the 2 buffers. Can you explain more?
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    When/where did PLAY state that it supported real-time bounce only, DG?
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    @aptmusic said:

    When/where did PLAY state that it supported real-time bounce only, DG?

    This was in the early days, before I deleted it from my system, and my life. Probably around the same time that Buck Rodgers was telling everyone that PLAY Pro was a much better Networking solution than VE Pro.  [;)]

    DG
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    Did anyone come up with any solutions or answers with this? It is happening to me right now. 100BPM tempo change and Play (HS) pops. If I remove the tempo change or slide the midi just past it it is fine. Obmit
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    Any word on that? I am experiencing this issue as well and it is quite bad!
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    my [Cubsse 5.5.3] projects have extensive tempo changes... I conform the timeline to the music so even where there is a 'steady beat' there are many actual changes. I have not seen this, including with Play instances. Now, my usage of Play is pretty minimal.

    I use Jumbo Frames, 9000 in the network settings. If yu have smaller frames you could try that.
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    I have the same issue, but with LASS loaded in Kontakt 5 inside VE Pro. During ramp tempo changes in Cubase, the audio sounds very distorted, almost like it is using the wrong sample rate.
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    How does LASS behave when loaded directly in Cubase while ramping like this? I was never able to reproduce this problem here.
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    I've had a similar problem with 'looping points' when using instances of NI's Maschine in VEP and piped through /slaved to Ableton Live. If I have, say a 16 bar loop set in Live every time it reaches the beginning of a new loop the audio glitches for that first beat from the Maschines in VEP. The only solution I've found is to set the VEP Plug-in instance latency set to 'None', which raises the CPU level in Ableton to about the same as if the Maschine instances were in Live (which defeats the point of using VSP really). Is there possibly some sort of tempo/loop/sync issue here? (Maschine's play nicely when directly inside Ableton Live) Cheers, Alan