Bypassed Plug-Ins and Processor Overhead

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Rick Cornish
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Bypassed Plug-Ins and Processor Overhead

Post by Rick Cornish »

I have built a moderately-sized template (about a dozen virtual instrument tracks with corresponding MIDI tracks, another 3-4 mono audio tracks, 7-8 groups, and a master). No UAD or VEP. Mostly Omnisphere, Kontakt, MF3, Stylus, etc. I insert 3-6 BYPASSED plug-ins on every instrument track as well as the groups and master... things I like to have handy as I work. Then I enable the plugs as I need them.

Today, I opened a project I've been working on for awhile, for the first time in DP9.12. Only a handful of tracks are active and 90% of the plugs are in bypass. Where it was playing back in 9.01 with the processor graph at the mid-point, I'm now getting the processing graph at full red and warnings of overloads and the MOTU audio system shutting down. Meanwhile, the playback graph is running at 10-15%.

I duplicated the sequence and deleted all the bypassed plug-ins and it plays back like a breeze and I can even lower my buffer size.

I always assumed when a plug is bypassed, it's effectively off, but apparently that's not the case.

Is this normal behavior?
Could I have a setting wrong someplace?

Thanks in advance for any light you can shed on this.
Rick Cornish

DP 11 on M2 Mac Studio (64mB mem. + 2tB int. SSD + two 2tB ext. SSDs, and Mac OS Sonoma). VIs from MOTU, Spectrasonics, NI, UVI, 8dio, Soniccouture, East West, Spitfire, Heavyocity, Vir2, and more; plus Waves 14, Brainworx, iZotope, Wavesfactory, Oeksound, Final Mix, JST, SPL, PSP, UVI, Valhalla DSP, and other FX plugs, Roland A-88, Apogee Quartet, iCON Platform Nano, Genelec 1032a and Westlake BBSM4 monitors, Gibson HR Fusion III. rickcornish.net
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MIDI Life Crisis
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Re: Bypassed Plug-Ins and Processor Overhead

Post by MIDI Life Crisis »

Dare I ask: did you repair permissions after updating to 9.12.
2013 Mac Pro 32GB RAM

OSX 10.14.6; DP 10; Track 16; Finale 26, iPad Pro, et al

MIDI LIFE CRISIS
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cuttime
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Re: Bypassed Plug-Ins and Processor Overhead

Post by cuttime »

This sure smells like pre-gen. Try disabling it in the plugin mini menu.
828x MacOS 13.6.5 M1 Studio Max 1TB 64G DP11.31
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Rick Cornish
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Re: Bypassed Plug-Ins and Processor Overhead

Post by Rick Cornish »

cuttime wrote:This sure smells like pre-gen. Try disabling it in the plugin mini menu.
Excellent suggestion! This will be the first thing I try when I get into my studio in the morning.
Rick Cornish

DP 11 on M2 Mac Studio (64mB mem. + 2tB int. SSD + two 2tB ext. SSDs, and Mac OS Sonoma). VIs from MOTU, Spectrasonics, NI, UVI, 8dio, Soniccouture, East West, Spitfire, Heavyocity, Vir2, and more; plus Waves 14, Brainworx, iZotope, Wavesfactory, Oeksound, Final Mix, JST, SPL, PSP, UVI, Valhalla DSP, and other FX plugs, Roland A-88, Apogee Quartet, iCON Platform Nano, Genelec 1032a and Westlake BBSM4 monitors, Gibson HR Fusion III. rickcornish.net
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Re: Bypassed Plug-Ins and Processor Overhead

Post by magicd »

A bypassed plug-in is still active and using CPU cycles. This is so the plug-in can be enabled or disabled in real time.

Keep in mind that with DP9.1 you are now getting half the latency at the same buffer setting as compared to earlier versions. So if you ran your Buffer Size at 64 in DP 9.02, the same latency and CPU load would happen with a Buffer Size of 128 in DP 9.12.

Dave
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Rick Cornish
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Re: Bypassed Plug-Ins and Processor Overhead

Post by Rick Cornish »

magicd wrote:A bypassed plug-in is still active and using CPU cycles. This is so the plug-in can be enabled or disabled in real time.

Keep in mind that with DP9.1 you are now getting half the latency at the same buffer setting as compared to earlier versions. So if you ran your Buffer Size at 64 in DP 9.02, the same latency and CPU load would happen with a Buffer Size of 128 in DP 9.12.

Dave
Appreciate the reply, Dave!

Let me make sure I understand you correctly: Should I be able to achieve reasonable performance (comparable to what I was getting in 9.01 on my late-2013 Mac Pro) if I leave the bypassed plugs in my sequence and just double my buffer from 256 to 512k?
Rick Cornish

DP 11 on M2 Mac Studio (64mB mem. + 2tB int. SSD + two 2tB ext. SSDs, and Mac OS Sonoma). VIs from MOTU, Spectrasonics, NI, UVI, 8dio, Soniccouture, East West, Spitfire, Heavyocity, Vir2, and more; plus Waves 14, Brainworx, iZotope, Wavesfactory, Oeksound, Final Mix, JST, SPL, PSP, UVI, Valhalla DSP, and other FX plugs, Roland A-88, Apogee Quartet, iCON Platform Nano, Genelec 1032a and Westlake BBSM4 monitors, Gibson HR Fusion III. rickcornish.net
stratology

Re: Bypassed Plug-Ins and Processor Overhead

Post by stratology »

Try to disable the bypassed plug ins one at a time, to see if one of them stands out in grabbing CPU cycles.
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Re: Bypassed Plug-Ins and Processor Overhead

Post by Rick Cornish »

stratology wrote:Try to disable the bypassed plug ins one at a time, to see if one of them stands out in grabbing CPU cycles.
Good idea. By "disable" do you mean "delete" from the insert slot… or is there another way to do it?
Rick Cornish

DP 11 on M2 Mac Studio (64mB mem. + 2tB int. SSD + two 2tB ext. SSDs, and Mac OS Sonoma). VIs from MOTU, Spectrasonics, NI, UVI, 8dio, Soniccouture, East West, Spitfire, Heavyocity, Vir2, and more; plus Waves 14, Brainworx, iZotope, Wavesfactory, Oeksound, Final Mix, JST, SPL, PSP, UVI, Valhalla DSP, and other FX plugs, Roland A-88, Apogee Quartet, iCON Platform Nano, Genelec 1032a and Westlake BBSM4 monitors, Gibson HR Fusion III. rickcornish.net
stratology

Re: Bypassed Plug-Ins and Processor Overhead

Post by stratology »

Rick Cornish wrote:By "disable" do you mean "delete" from the insert slot… ?
yes
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Re: Bypassed Plug-Ins and Processor Overhead

Post by magicd »

Rick Cornish wrote: Appreciate the reply, Dave!

Let me make sure I understand you correctly: Should I be able to achieve reasonable performance (comparable to what I was getting in 9.01 on my late-2013 Mac Pro) if I leave the bypassed plugs in my sequence and just double my buffer from 256 to 512k?
Yes that should give you roughly the same performance.

There are two ways for a plug-in not to use CPU cycles - delete from the insert or disable the track (ENA column in Tracks window)

Dave
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Rick Cornish
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Re: Bypassed Plug-Ins and Processor Overhead

Post by Rick Cornish »

magicd wrote:There are two ways for a plug-in not to use CPU cycles - delete from the insert or disable the track (ENA column in Tracks window)

Dave
Brilliant—disable it is! Thanks again!!!
Rick Cornish

DP 11 on M2 Mac Studio (64mB mem. + 2tB int. SSD + two 2tB ext. SSDs, and Mac OS Sonoma). VIs from MOTU, Spectrasonics, NI, UVI, 8dio, Soniccouture, East West, Spitfire, Heavyocity, Vir2, and more; plus Waves 14, Brainworx, iZotope, Wavesfactory, Oeksound, Final Mix, JST, SPL, PSP, UVI, Valhalla DSP, and other FX plugs, Roland A-88, Apogee Quartet, iCON Platform Nano, Genelec 1032a and Westlake BBSM4 monitors, Gibson HR Fusion III. rickcornish.net
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Re: Bypassed Plug-Ins and Processor Overhead

Post by Rick Cornish »

stratology wrote:Try to disable the bypassed plug ins one at a time, to see if one of them stands out in grabbing CPU cycles.
Ran a few tests this afternoon and was surprised to find that VPS Scope seems to be the biggest processing hog. Out it goes!
Rick Cornish

DP 11 on M2 Mac Studio (64mB mem. + 2tB int. SSD + two 2tB ext. SSDs, and Mac OS Sonoma). VIs from MOTU, Spectrasonics, NI, UVI, 8dio, Soniccouture, East West, Spitfire, Heavyocity, Vir2, and more; plus Waves 14, Brainworx, iZotope, Wavesfactory, Oeksound, Final Mix, JST, SPL, PSP, UVI, Valhalla DSP, and other FX plugs, Roland A-88, Apogee Quartet, iCON Platform Nano, Genelec 1032a and Westlake BBSM4 monitors, Gibson HR Fusion III. rickcornish.net
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