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  • Crackles and Pops in VE Pro, even in brand new rig. Can't get a 512 buffer size to work.

    I can't figure out why I can't just get my template to play cleanly without any drop outs or crackles in thickly orchestrated places. I have a brand new slave: Mac Pro, 3.8 Ghz Quad Core i7, OSX Mavericks 10.9.1, 32 gigs of 1600 Mhz RAM, VEP5, and a 1TB Samsung 840 Evo SSD streaming samples. This connects to my other Mac, a less powerful 2.4 Ghz Quad Core i7 sequencer on 10.9.1 with 16 GB of RAM, that is purely dedicated to Pro Tools 10.3.6 (also tried PT 11.1 which didn't provide better or worse results). I'm not brand new to these kind of setups so I've tried a few things, but I just can't get everything to work as well as it should given what I've just invested in in terms of specs. My samples are all kontakt libraries, and again, streamed from a very fast SSD. I connect to them through 5 instances of VE Pro 5 (Master, Strings, Brass, Winds, Perc). Most of the time it plays fine, but at dense parts it can crackle and drop out (at 512 buffer size). If I bump it up to 1024 then it plays cleaner, but at that point the latency is just unmanageable in terms of playing things in. I'm not sure why I can't get 512 to work consistently. Sometimes it's fine, other times it struggles. When I play a sequence and look at the activity monitors for both computers, the CPU on the sequencer hovers at about 4-5% (it's just receiving audio), and the slave/sampler runs at about 25%. So I don't think it's CPU, and with an SSD it's unlikely to be disk speed either. What's the problem here? Is there anything I can do to optimize my setup? Some additional information: Delay compensation in Pro Tools is ON; I'm connecting to each instance with a VEP RTAS set at 2 buffers (changing that to 4 doesn't seem to make a difference), and the threads of my slave are set to 4 thread per instance (again, changing these settings doesn't seem to make a difference to the CPU in activity monitor). If I can optimize any of these settings to get a better setup, please let me know.

  • One thing jumps out at me: 4 threads per x 5 instances = 20 and you probably have 8 logical cores. I have neglected to look at these settings a couple of times and the reason I did look at them was poor performance. Which was sorted by assigning cores more normally. You may want to leave 2 for Pro Tools. I realize you said you see no difference in Activity Monitor but I don't know it does nothing to performance, and I don't know you didn't try less per instance.

    Mavericks may be part of it as well. Also, are you using dynamic IP?


  • Right, I have 8 possible threads and 5 instances, so I originally had it set to two per instance. I've tried setting this to 2, 4, 6, 8 -- nothing seems to really make much of a difference. I'm using DHCP with manual IP address on both machines.

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    @jlgagne said:

    I'm using DHCP with manual IP address on both machines.

    You should use "manually" look at : http://cyrilblanc.fr/site_principal/slave_mac.html


    MacBook Pro M3 MAX 128 GB 8TB - 2 x 48" screen --- Logic Pro --- Mir Pro 3D --- Most of the VI libs, a few Synch... libs --- Quite a few Kontakt libs --- CS80 fanatic
  • [quote=jlgagne] I have a brand new slave:

    A Macpro with an I7 processor ! The Macpro have a Xeon processor ; is it a hackintosh ? 


    MacBook Pro M3 MAX 128 GB 8TB - 2 x 48" screen --- Logic Pro --- Mir Pro 3D --- Most of the VI libs, a few Synch... libs --- Quite a few Kontakt libs --- CS80 fanatic
  • Maybe you should try to get it under 8 so you have something left for PT. You can set it per instance in fact, rather than the metaframe preferences setting.

    I have had performance issues I didn't understand abate by attending to this. I don't know for you. Mavericks has been reported widely to suck for this type of work, and I don't believe it's recommended by VSL. The last I saw here went 'you may want to test it in its own partitition, but we're not supporting it at this time.'.


  • What do you mean? The only menu I can find that is similar to that is the Vienna Ensemble Pro -> Preferences tab, which I've tried putting the multiprocessing option to many different settings. Is that what you are talking about or is there a different window where you can tweak this? If so I can't find it. Mine doesn't have the option for "Use Preferences Settings".

  • "Project Settings..." is in the Edit menu, the bottom entry. "Use Preferences Settings" refers to the settings in Preferences which are global, eg., '4 threads per instance' for all instances. This makes it for that instance only.

    The parenthetical 'per instance' may be misleading. I mean that I'm setting threads per differently in instance 1 than I am in instance 2 should I prefer to.


  • I use a souped up PC with two xeon processors 16 cores about 3 ghz...48 gigs server motherboard. I was advised to place MIR on a slave box and to purchase processors which run at 32 cores with about 6 ghz in order to eradicate the issue you are having.

     I could not play at 512 without crackles and drop outs. I load up all VSl piece by piece so I have 50 strings 4 fr hrns 3 trumpets 4 bones percussion you get the idea. With thick harmonic passages and dense sections where there are many articulations happening, I use 16,000 settings on the VE pro latency and 1024 on my sequencer. Then for playback I have no issues. Composing I do without  MIR... sad because the sound of MIR is unique. Once I've finished the piece or a section I then open up the MIR project. I also record audio with live drums and trumpet this is also a problem. I think putting MIR on it's own box and using the VSL midi over lan was the best suggestion so far. When I have more cash I'm going to try that. 


  • Apologies if already stated elsewhere, but double check your connection address.  

    If you have a wireless network adapters it might be connecting through that instead of over hardwired.  When I accidentally connect through wireless address on my machine, CPU spikes galore.  I can't play one instrument.  


  • A couple of other things to consider: the people that really need the low latency tend to use something other than Pro Tools, which if you browse here a bit you may get a sense of it performing not quite as good as say Cubendo. I think [with eg., an orchestra loaded] if you want latency down to where you're playing everything in and it's mostly useful, you want something else.

    The last even small symphonic scale thing I got done, the buffers were at 1024; I don't manage projects so that there is a 'composing' template vs a 'mixing' template, though. I like the final sound to be what I'm working with composing; however I will go for instances with a lot less instruments loaded during early getting parts to track where I need to make drums happen reliably on time.

    I demo'd MIR Pro thoroughly, I wasn't going to be able to fully exploit it without quite a bit more horsepower. There I would tend to want to dedicate the resources to it more after-the-fact. I don't even know how much horsepower I would need to stick every instrument in there while composing.

    I don't know, but I tend to think expecting SSD to make things wildly more achievable through itself could be misleading.


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    @gusttsilis said:

     With thick harmonic passages and dense sections where there are many articulations happening, I use 16,000 settings on the VE pro latency and 1024 on my sequencer. Then for playback I have no issues. Composing I do without  MIR... sad because the sound of MIR is unique. Once I've finished the piece or a section I then open up the MIR project. I also record audio with live drums and trumpet this is also a problem. I think putting MIR on it's own box and using the VSL midi over lan was the best suggestion so far. When I have more cash I'm going to try that. 

    Is there is a way to switch off MIR PRO when you are composing, or do you need two orchestral templates ?

    Best

    Cyril


    MacBook Pro M3 MAX 128 GB 8TB - 2 x 48" screen --- Logic Pro --- Mir Pro 3D --- Most of the VI libs, a few Synch... libs --- Quite a few Kontakt libs --- CS80 fanatic
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    @civilization 3 said:

    A couple of other things to consider: the people that really need the low latency tend to use something other than Pro Tools, which if you browse here a bit you may get a sense of it performing not quite as good as say Cubendo. I think [with eg., an orchestra loaded] if you want latency down to where you're playing everything in and it's mostly useful, you want something else.

    The last even small symphonic scale thing I got done, the buffers were at 1024; I don't manage projects so that there is a 'composing' template vs a 'mixing' template, though. I like the final sound to be what I'm working with composing; however I will go for instances with a lot less instruments loaded during early getting parts to track where I need to make drums happen reliably on time.

    I demo'd MIR Pro thoroughly, I wasn't going to be able to fully exploit it without quite a bit more horsepower. There I would tend to want to dedicate the resources to it more after-the-fact. I don't even know how much horsepower I would need to stick every instrument in there while composing.

    I don't know, but I tend to think expecting SSD to make things wildly more achievable through itself could be misleading.

    How sure are you that Pro Tools could be the problem? The reason I ask is that I've been eyeing up Cubase 7 for a while and if you're pretty sure that I could run at 256 or 512 in Cubase then that would be good enough for me.

  •  I think Pro Tools could be a factor, and I can't guarantee anything with Cubase 7, I can't even install a demo of it under the OS I'm using. I have read of too many people having terrible issues with virtual instruments with that. But here are people that can't tolerate 512 in the buffer; and there are people that say they have a good experience. Not everybody's sandbox is the same. PT as slower than Cubase [ought to be] is not an uncommon belief.


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    @civilization 3 said:

     I think Pro Tools could be a factor, and I can't guarantee anything with Cubase 7, I can't even install a demo of it under the OS I'm using. I have read of too many people having terrible issues with virtual instruments with that. But here are people that can't tolerate 512 in the buffer; and there are people that say they have a good experience. Not everybody's sandbox is the same. PT as slower than Cubase [ought to be] is not an uncommon belief.

    Okay, well Pro Tools wasn't the issue. Downloaded the Cubase 7.5 trial, duplicated my PT template into Cubase, and still get the same crackle issues. In fact upping the buffer size in Cubase didn't really have an effect while at least at 1024 in PT it's a little better. Really stumped here. If it's not CPU (according to activity monitor), and it's not drive speed (SSD), not RAM (64 GB 1600 Mhz), what is it? VE?

  • Do you have a wireless network adapter?  If so, try disabling that in the system bar and use VE again.  At least just to see if this is a factor.  I get this exact same problem when I accidentally connect wirelessly, instead of over Gigabit LAN.  

    Also, make sure you've followed the steps to create static IP addresses for both machines if you haven't already.  I like to use 169.254.1.X as my wireless network defaults to the usual 10.0.0.x.

    And try connecting the computer not through your router.  Try plugging a CAT6 cable directly into each computer's LAN ports.  See if these help.  This REALLY reminds me of the network issue I had.


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    @RootNDoo said:

    Also, make sure you've followed the steps to create static IP addresses for both machines if you haven't already.  

    did you follow my tutorial ? 

    http://cyrilblanc.fr/site_principal/slave_mac.html


    MacBook Pro M3 MAX 128 GB 8TB - 2 x 48" screen --- Logic Pro --- Mir Pro 3D --- Most of the VI libs, a few Synch... libs --- Quite a few Kontakt libs --- CS80 fanatic