Optimizing DP for fast response

[Tripi]

I guess this could have gone in the trouble shooting section, but I'm looking at it more as a way to optimize DP than as a bug or problem.

Recently, I've been working with some very large templates and complex routings. I have a full Vienna Ensemble Pro session running with all of my samples loaded, and 3 instruments+15 aux inputs for all of the VEP returns. I'm running 32bit in DP, but I have tons of RAM left (32gig total in my system). Everything is playing back ok, but DP is so sluggish. Every time I do something, it's a beach ball for a couple of seconds. Remove plugin, add bus send, reorder track, switch mixer view, change screen set, open sequence editor...... they all bring up the BB. I guess I can keep pushing through (slowly), but it's causing such a drag in my workflow. When you're focused on composing and ideas are flowing, it sucks to have your sequencer slowing you down. I don't think it's an issue with my computer or specs, so I'm trying to figure out how to best optimize DP for my workflow. I have monkeyed around with the Quanta, Prime Seconds, Preload, and all that, but I don't see any real change. So, I'm open to suggestions from anyone else working with big orchestral / trailer / scoring project templates.

Surely this isn't the best DP can do? I don't think so..... and don't call my Surely.

thanks!

[labman]

Hey trip ... The only thing that bring our big templates to their knees is when we turn on the euphonix stuff. Any eucons being used?

[Tripi]

No... nothing that exotic hooked up. VEP is the only thing "outside" of DP.

[Kubi]

Silly question, but did you do the VE Pro disconnect thingy? I forget what it's called, but you basically divorce VE Pro from DP while still routing data back and forth. You change that either in the VE Pro plug-in in DP or in VE Pro proper, don't remember (can you tell I rarely use it...?) Anyway, maybe too obvious, but it was one of the bigger Aha! moments I had when I did a VE Pro heavy project...

Sorry for the somewhat cryptic post due to inexperience of this poster, but maybe still helpful?

[Tripi]

I did check that Kubi, and I have de-couple turned on for all VEP plugins.

I tried another experiment last night, and imported all of my chunks in to a fresh blank session. This seemed to help things a little bit, but it's still more sluggish than I would like.

Has anyone found a better setting than the default for the work quanta or preload amounts? I have a feeling these two settings affect the overall responsiveness the most. Although, VEP seems to be really hogging the resources too.

Thanks!

[studio_651]

i have a very large VEP template too (35 event input plugins, 30 stereo audio channels returning to DP). other than trial and error spent tweaking the "configure studio settings" (every system will be different, but mine are prime seconds: 2.50, work quanta: 80, max work percent: 80%, automatic latency compensation: off, pre-fill buffers: off), i found a few things that help a lot with DP's "snappiness":

1) quit all other programs and offload your VEP instance to another computer if you can. DP doesn't seem to like fighting with VEP for processor resources. i originally used one small instance of VEP on my master mac and one large one on my PC, but when i moved everything to the PC, things got a LOT better. the PC still has plenty of CPU to spare even with 25 instances of VI Pro (VSL winds, dimension strings, chamber strings I&II) and 34 instances of kontakt (LASS, 8Dio, Cinesamples, Spitfire, etc.). you can build a PC slave these days with a 6-core intel 3930k processor, 64 GB RAM, a caviar black 1 TB boot drive, 4 samsung 256 GB SSDs, and a corsair H100 liquid cooling system for about $2500 - and it runs circles around my 6-core mac pro from 2010 that cost 2-3 times as much after upgrades (granted, RAM and SSD prices have come down quite a bit since then, but still!).

2) deselect all tracks that you don't absolutely need access to in the mixing board track selector. this really helps! i use a channel strip in the consolidated window for access to MIDI channels and less-frequently used tracks like FX. i only leave about 24 tracks in my mixing board.

3) disable any event input or aux return tracks to/from VEP if you don't need them. for example, if you rarely use a harp, or that sixth kontakt instance of percussion, disable the MIDI channel (event input plugin) that feeds it and/or the stereo audio channels that return to DP from VEP. they'll still be routed and ready to go if you need them, but in the meantime you can make things run a little quicker.

4) try to use as few busses/subgroups/aux channels/plugins as possible when working at low latency. this is very important.

5) when working with a quicktime movie, reduce its file size, pixel dimensions, and data rate as much as you can. i've been working with 960x540 .mov files, H264 compression (even though they're not perfect sync-wise) with a data rate limited to 1000 kbps. that keeps a 15 min video to about 92 MB but it's still watchable and inspiring enough. i'd recommend exporting several .mov files from quicktime using different compression settings and then test their effect on how much processor DP uses with each of them (via activity monitor). i was able to shave a few % off of DP's processor load this way.

6) use very fast drives (SSDs running at 6G connection speed if possible - OWC has hardware for this via pcie card) for audio and video files, and separate where your video files / DP project folders / sample libraries are.

7) disable plugins you don't absolutely need just in case they might be causing some conflicts. i ran into this with the colortone plugin - i had so many IRs loaded into its menu that it started causing dropped notes and crashes.

that's all i can think of for now. good luck! matt

[studio_651]

by the way, i'm still on DP 7.24 due to the issues i've read about on here (especially with movie files). and i'm using VEP v5.1.11849 - i had trouble with the version after that and had to revert back. i know there's an even more recent version, but i'm mid-project and don't have time to test it.

[Tripi]

Hey Matt, that's all very good info. I'm curious about how turning off the auto delay compensation affects things. Doesn't VEP neep that enabled to keep all of the instruments in sync with DP? Having two computer definitely sounds like it would help, but there are some really nice benefits of having everything on one computer.

thanks!

[studio_651]

yes, disabling automatic latency compensation will affect your setup with DP8, but not DP7 because it never actually worked until DP8 (or so i've read - i haven't installed DP8 yet). i disabled it because i was having tons of dropped notes with ALC enabled (especially when i had any UAD plugins on a channel that contained audio returning from VEP). i suspected it had to do with the extra latency involved with both VEP and UAD plugs, so i disabled it and all of a sudden everything worked nicely. ALC used to work fine for me before my template got so big, so i'm thinking that was just one of the first symptoms that showed i was asking too much of DP.

i would love to install DP8 and be done with nudging my MIDI notes ahead of the beat and testing by ear against the click track, but unfortunately it sounds like i'd trade the DP7 headaches that i know for worse ones in DP8 (especially the quicktime issues). things are working "fine" for me with my current configuration, so i'm just going to sit tight until i hear that MOTU has released a proven stable update (the equivalent to DP 7.24 or 5.13).

i hear you about wanting to keep it all in one machine. i spent a LOT of money maxing out my mac pro (faster processor, RAM, SSDs, a 6G mini-SAS pcie card and mercury rack pro from OWC, etc.) in an effort to keep my setup to one computer. but i've realized that if you have a lot of instruments that you want quick access to, it's worth it to use a VEP slave. i wish i would have just done that in the first place and saved some of the money i spent tricking out my mac pro, but live and learn i guess! at least now i know that PCs aren't as hard to build or maintain as i thought, and you can definitely get a lot for your money that way. plus, this way i'm flexible platform-wise in case either PCs or Macs start lagging behind the other. in fact, my experience with the power of my PC has been so good that once DP is stable on windows (which at this rate probably won't be for a couple of years), i'm going to seriously consider making my next DAW all-PC (after 15 years of mac-only). crazy talk, i know, right? but seriously, i was shocked by how powerful my PC was once i set it up this past fall. 34 kontakts (with 16+ instruments each via LASS' ARC) and 25 VI Pros! and even during busy cues, VE PRO's meter only goes up to about 45-50%. and even with 64 GB of RAM and 4 SSDs, it's still the same price as a starter mac pro with no RAM or hard drive upgrades. just a thought! : )

[frankf]

Tripi, is there a reason you are staying in 32-bit DP8? I'm still in 10.6.8, but have been able to ditch VEP at least temporarily, running DP8.01 64-bit, now that Korg plugs are 64 bit. DP is not competing with any other app for processing power, and can utilize all of the 32gb ram on my MacPro3,1. Running smoothly here with several Kontakt 5 and even Kontakt 4 ( memory servers off), plus others. If processing power is the issue, you will need to either change graphic card or farm out to second processor and use VEP for that. I've not had to do that yet. If the bottleneck is disk I/O, then the solutions mentioned spreading samples over several physical drives or using SSD can help. I spread over several drives myself.
Frank

[Tripi]

I guess I could try to load everything in to one enormous DP session, but the main reason for using VEP is to keep instruments loaded all the time, in between switching cues (in seperate DP sessions). Very convenient that way. I'm going to try Matt's suggestion about turning off ALC for now, and see where that takes me.

[frankf]

I guess I could try to load everything in to one enormous DP session, but the main reason for using VEP is to keep instruments loaded all the time, in between switching cues (in seperate DP sessions). Very convenient that way. I'm going to try Matt's suggestion about turning off ALC for now, and see where that takes me.

That's reason enough to keep using VEP for sure.


Frank Ferrucci

[Tripi]

So, I tried turning off the ALC and pre-fill options, and ran a pretty intensive DP session that was giving me problems. My CPU in the audio performance window is still hitting red occasionally, but VEP definitely seems to be working better and dropping less notes. DP is also a little better about locating and starting playback quickly. I didn't hear any noticeable difference in timing from VEP, but I will need to test that more carefully. Thanks for the good idea Matt.

[studio_651]

you're welcome! i'm glad to hear it's working a little better for you.

[DaveB]

I've noticed something strange in DP's performance when using VePro. I have a very large template which uses two instances in the VePro Server; one for Orchestra with 30+ instances of Kontakt; and one for Omnisphere, RMX, etc. I have 12 or so Event Input plugins and about 90 stereo audio tracks coming from VePro into DP. Now, sometimes when I open a session and the buffer is on anything under 512, I get the processing meter red-lining even when DP is idle. But if I delete the 90 stereo tracks that are receiving audio from VePro and then "undo" -returning all 90 tracks - the processing meter instantly drops down to barely a blip. Even when playing back a voice/track heavy section the meter barely gets above halfway. Weird.
The other thing that seemed to make a huge difference for me was turning off multi-processor support in Kontakt and letting VePro take care of how many cores to use.