Screencast of Composing with DP and Bidule

[Gabe S.]

All good points Gabe... thank you. I will continue to mull, but I think you've turned me back around to my Bidule solution.

Thanks again for the response....
RobA

Sure. And you know, with a host like Bidule, it's easy to setup templates where can have a bunch of VI's already instantiated, and empty, so you just launch and go. Once you do the intital setup, you never have to figure out the MIDI or audio or anything again. Just load up sounds and go.

And for the record, I have no affiliation with Plogue at all. I know I keep mentioning Bidule, but I'm totally new to it. I'm just excited that it has up to 96 audio outputs available. That's what's been bugging me up to now. I hear of a lot of guys send an ADAT cable out and back in to route the audio from standalones....that sounds painful. There are so many potential sync problems, and you only get 8 channels....Soundflower never really interested me because it could only do 16 outputs, and Jack OS X seems a little too experimental for my tastes. Bidule solves that and so far, everything I've thrown at it has been just fine.

I was testing Omnisphere the other day in Bidule to see how well it worked hosted in there. You can hide the main Bidule Window and just leave Omni or whatever VI you've got hanging out there on it's own. It's not like everything is forced to live in the Bidule setup window. Honestly, after awhile, I forgot that Omni was outside of DP. And Bidule has never crashed in the week I've been messing with it, the sound has never crackled once, the MIDI has been stable. I'm really impressed so far.

Cheers.
-gabe

[instacue]

Glad that Bidule is working so well for you, Gabe.
Personally, I'd like to see interapplication audio implemented as part of DP - so we could input audio from standalone VIs running outside of DP directly into DP, instead of having to use ADAT outs and ins like we do now.
I believe the audio unit spec already allows for interapplication audio (AU Send and AU Receive plugins), but for some reason they don't work in DP...
Best,
--Stu

[superjeezus]

One thing that needs to be mentioned about Bidule when running in Rewire mode on multi-core computers:

In my experience, Bidule will only run on one core in Rewire mode. In my case, I have been working in Logic lately and the Bidule/Rewire method works fine with my projects. But I do see it using only one core in Logic's CPU meter. I understand that running Bidule in standalone mode with Soundflower allows plugs running in Bidule to utilize more cores, but I haven't tested that out recently.

I have seen one core run pretty high on some sessions when I am running lots of Omnisphere plus other VI's in Bidule rewired to my host. Just a heads up, it was a surprise to me when I discovered that. Maybe it's old news to lots of folks...I would love to hear anyone else's experiences with this, maybe there is a way around this limitation?

[Gabe S.]

In my experience, Bidule will only run on one core in Rewire mode. In my case, I have been working in Logic lately and the Bidule/Rewire method works fine with my projects. But I do see it using only one core in Logic's CPU meter. I understand that running Bidule in standalone mode with Soundflower allows plugs running in Bidule to utilize more cores, but I haven't tested that out recently.

I have seen one core run pretty high on some sessions when I am running lots of Omnisphere plus other VI's in Bidule rewired to my host. Just a heads up, it was a surprise to me when I discovered that. Maybe it's old news to lots of folks...I would love to hear anyone else's experiences with this, maybe there is a way around this limitation?

Hi Superjeezus.

Actually, that's been one of the most cool things that I have seen about the latest Bidule------it runs on all 8 cores. In fact, I'm blown away by how well it works. They just released a new version on March 13 that allows it work on 8 cores.

Check this out: I made a quicktime movie of a torture test I did last week. It shows Activity Monitor's CPU meters while DP is MIDI-triggering HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS of notes in Bidule. I have my full trailer template loaded with all my DSP plugins so DP is already working the computer pretty hard, and all the cacophony of notes is coming from Bidule. At it's peak, I'd guess it's playing over 800 notes----five instances of K2 just spewing notes. Yes, I know, the "composition" is very impressive.... hehe I did several reocrd-passes where I was just banging the keyboard with 10 note chords across many many tracks. (careful, it's pretty loud) But if you look, it's clear that both DP and Bidule are hitting all 8 cores pretty hard. No single core is being worked more than the others from what I see:

http://www.epicscore.com/online/cpu.mov

So, I'm pretty comfortable that the DP/Bidule combo is giving better access to both more RAM and CPU. That's my initial conclusion.

Cheers.
-gabe

[jroadrage]

One thing that needs to be mentioned about Bidule when running in Rewire mode on multi-core computers:

In my experience, Bidule will only run on one core in Rewire mode.

AFAIK this is one of the limitation of the rewire spec, no multicore awareness. The new version of Bidule (.9685) has the ability to address up to 8 cores, haven't experimented with it at all though.

[jroadrage]

Check this out: I made a quicktime movie of a torture test I did last week. It shows Activity Monitor's CPU meters while DP is MIDI-triggering HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS of notes in Bidule. I have my full trailer template loaded with all my DSP plugins so DP is already working the computer pretty hard, and all the cacophony of notes is coming from Bidule. At it's peak, I'd guess it's playing over 800 notes----five instances of K2 just spewing notes. Yes, I know, the "composition" is very impressive.... hehe I did several reocrd-passes where I was just banging the keyboard with 10 note chords across many many tracks. (careful, it's pretty loud) But if you look, it's clear that both DP and Bidule are hitting all 8 cores pretty hard. No single core is being worked more than the others from what I see:

http://www.epicscore.com/online/cpu.mov

So, I'm pretty comfortable that the DP/Bidule combo is giving better access to both more RAM and CPU. That's my initial conclusion.

Cheers.
-gabe

Nice vid, I did some similar 2 elbow multirecord enabled composing and even with only 2 cores assigned and really low DFD and instrument buffer settings in K3 I was amazed at the polyphony.

[superjeezus]

Hi Superjeezus.

Actually, that's been one of the most cool things that I have seen about the latest Bidule------it runs on all 8 cores. In fact, I'm blown away by how well it works. They just released a new version on March 13 that allows it work on 8 cores.

Check this out: I made a quicktime movie of a torture test I did last week. It shows Activity Monitor's CPU meters while DP is MIDI-triggering HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS of notes in Bidule. I have my full trailer template loaded with all my DSP plugins so DP is already working the computer pretty hard, and all the cacophony of notes is coming from Bidule. At it's peak, I'd guess it's playing over 800 notes----five instances of K2 just spewing notes. Yes, I know, the "composition" is very impressive.... hehe I did several reocrd-passes where I was just banging the keyboard with 10 note chords across many many tracks. (careful, it's pretty loud) But if you look, it's clear that both DP and Bidule are hitting all 8 cores pretty hard. No single core is being worked more than the others from what I see:

http://www.epicscore.com/online/cpu.mov

So, I'm pretty comfortable that the DP/Bidule combo is giving better access to both more RAM and CPU. That's my initial conclusion.

Cheers.
-gabe

Very cool Gabe (and very apocalyptic! ), is that in Rewire mode? Because I know Bidule is multi-core friendly in stand-alone mode, but I too thought that was a limitation of Rewire.

If that demo is with Bidule in Rewire mode, please share how you set up Bidule's/DP's preferences!

[Gabe S.]

...is that in Rewire mode? Because I know Bidule is multi-core friendly in stand-alone mode, but I too thought that was a limitation of Rewire.

If that demo is with Bidule in Rewire mode, please share how you set up Bidule's/DP's preferences!

Bidule is in ReWire mode.

There's really no secret to it. I'm not a Bidule expert. The basic settings I've started with have just worked so I haven't messed with them since.

DP and Bidule are at 512 buffer. I always work at 512 buffer in DP. (I've learned over the years that super low buffers tend to lead to all sorts of unexplainable problems. Plus you can't do as much as you can with a higher buffer. So, I just deal with the extra latency of 512.)

-I didn't make any adjustments in DP to work with Bidule.
-Here's a pic of the ReWire settings in Bidule: (remember, you can only change ReWire settings when Bidule is in standalone mode)


-Here's the Bidule DSP settings:


It's funny.....I've had a bunch of Giga patches that I use daily on my Giga pc that I've been avoiding reprogramming in K2 because I didn't feel like going through the pain.....Bidule has inspired me and I've spent the last week reprogramming them into K2. They had lots of layers and Giga's iMidi rules, so it was a pain to do it (hehe I was right to avoid it). Anyway, now that I have them in K2 programmed properly and hosted inside Bidule, I can get more notes out of K2/Bidule than I could with the Giga. I'm sitting here shaking my head. Most of the other Giga patches have simpler programming and load up no problem in K2 without much if any reprogramming needed. Plus, I'm getting the re-released K2 version of SAM brass and the K2 version of True Strike 1. True Strike 2 is already a multi-format installer, so I'll just reinstall that as K2 format. And that's most of the patches that sit on the Giga. Everything else on there can be dealt with on a case by case basis.

The beauty in all this is that I can leave all the Giga stuff intact if I have to go back to old sessions.

Here's something of a more realistic torture test I just did tonight with DP and Bidule with some of the patches I just reprogrammed: I played this in live without any fixes, so forgive the sloppiness. It's more than 10 patches playing simultaneously inside three instances of K2 inside Bidule all ReWired back into DP and then processed in Dp with live DSP plugins. The whole thing is live. These patches have multiple velocities, round robins, K2 scripts, etc. I'm showing the voice counters for all three instances. You can see the combo adds up to over 300 stereo voices during the playback. It's completely clean--no clicks, pops, crackles, etc. (The quality of the audio kinda stinks because Snapz Pro is not the best audio recorder.) Anyway, neither Bidule nor DP seems to be struggling to do this.

http://www.epicscore.com/online/Plogue- ... -notes.mov


I think my next step is to experiment with Bidule/K2 on my Giga PC and see how well it works on PC using the RME 9652 card coming back into the Mac. If it works well, I'll fully ditch Giga, and my life will be one step simpler. (I never really learned how to program efficiently in Giga, so it's always been somewhat of a mystery for me. I'm fairly comfortable messing around in K2, so it makes me feel more at ease to have all my important stuff in K2.)

Cheers.
-gabe

[superjeezus]

Thanks for the detailed reply, Gabe! I will mess with my setup some more and see if I can get the multiple cores working in Bidule in Rewire mode. I have been working with a buffer of 256, and some of my other Bidule settings are different from yours too, so I will play with that.

I have a quad-core 64-bit PC host that has an HDSP 9652 in it, and I did experiment with Bidule at one point. Seems that I ran into some weirdness with the ASIO drivers, but I don't remember the details. I didn't spend too much time on it. My main template on that slave has been using Sonar to host lots of Kotakt 3 and VSL, and it has been working fine.

Just a side note--I just started experimenting with VSL Ensemble 3 over the network, and so far it is very cool! No need for a 3rd party host application, MIDI-over-LAN, or a sound card in the slave. Really simple to use, too.

Cheers!

[tonester]

Thank you Michael, that was very inspiring. While I don't possess anywhere near your arsenal of sound libraries, I like your template setup, and plan to fashion something similar for my own endeavors.

I have always aspired to do film and TV scoring at some level. Keep these types of videos coming!

Thank you,

Tony

[Gabe S.]

I have a quad-core 64-bit PC host that has an HDSP 9652 in it, and I did experiment with Bidule at one point. Seems that I ran into some weirdness with the ASIO drivers, but I don't remember the details. I didn't spend too much time on it. My main template on that slave has been using Sonar to host lots of Kotakt 3 and VSL, and it has been working fine.

Interesting. I bought Sonar years ago to try it, but shied away from it because Sonar's ASIO audio drivers weren't compatible with other drivers. So I was going to have to switch audio drivers when switching from Giga to Sonar or VSTack to Sonar.....whatever it was, it was something I didn't feel like dealing with, so I stopped considering Sonar.

Now I'm just looking for something viable to replace VSTack. The performance in VSTack is fine enough, but the timing-out issue in VSTack, where it stops responding to MIDI after 10-12 hours is just annoying. I'm hoping that Bidule has matured since you tried it and becomes a solution for me on the pcs.

(btw, I left the whole DP/Bidule setup running overnight and it's all fine this morning.)

Phew, lots of setups are gonna change here. I think in the end it will be for the better.

Cheers.
-gabe

[claude]

Hi everyone,

i opened up an instance of Stylus RMX in Bidule and tought that rewire would transmit the tempo changes coming from DP to Stylus. If i recall when you have Reason running in ReWire with DP, Reason is effected by tempo changes in DP.

Am i missing something?

Best,

Claude

Nevermind i just found out how to do it. You just select Bidule Rewire in the Sync pane that gets added to plugs within Bidule. Wow, this thing is great!

[Gabe S.]

i opened up an instance of Stylus RMX in Bidule....

HI.

Just a thought-----RMX might be one of those apps you keep inside DP since you drag MIDI files from RMX to the DP sequence (if you use RMX that way).

Cheers.
-gabe

[claude]

HI.

Just a thought-----RMX might be one of those apps you keep inside DP since you drag MIDI files from RMX to the DP sequence (if you use RMX that way).

Cheers.
-gabe

Hi Gabe,

i just tried it and you can drag&drop midifiles from RMX to DP even if RMX is in Bidule

Wow again!

Best,

Claude

[dpdan]

Hi Gabe,

is this cpu meter in OSX?



Thanks,
Dan