CPU spike when soloing one track

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vier-personen
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Post by vier-personen »

Shooshie wrote:
Solo in DP isn't always as simple as on, say, a Mackie mixer. Solo can act as a 2nd play setup, so that you can A/B two groups of tracks. Is it possible that you're enabling some big plugins or VI's when you hit "Solo?"

oh, I overlooked this reply. no, I also don‘t have any VI‘s in the project, only audio tracks with motu & apple + W1 plugins (I removed all 3rd party plugins and this didn‘t help).

I also didn‘t have time yet to investigate further (deadlines, oh the deadlines!), but shooshies post made me think - could it have to do something with realtime running of plugins? although I can‘t imagine one soloed track‘s plugins that now run in realtime (?) would double Cpu usage..

anyway, as soon as I find the time I will try to pinpoint the cause of this and post it.
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Matcher
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Post by Matcher »

A while ago, I put all my plugins to always run in real- time mode and it made no difference.
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Post by Matcher »

Ok, I got a reply from MOTU. They adviced to remove all the plugins from the project and see if the problem still exists. So, I removed them and the CPU spiking was gone.

I'll get back to MOTU with my results and see what comes up.
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rcannonp
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Post by rcannonp »

Did you ever hear back on this? I'm having the same problem, and some others that are probably related.
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Post by Matcher »

No, I'll try e-mailing them again.
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monkey man
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Post by monkey man »

I assume you tried opening the MOTU AU Test Results file at the root of your Documents folder?
I've found the test predicts those plugs that'll cause hassles pretty darn well.
Any plug that earns the "passed, but may degrade performance" tag is probably worth removing, IMHO.

Good luck
MM

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Post by Matcher »

Ok thanks for the tip MM. All the plugins are MOTU bundled ones, so they should pass the test with flying colors, I assume..but will check that out!
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Post by monkey man »

G'day, Matcher.

Oops, sorry; I thought you had freebies on there.
It was vier-personen.
The MAS ones aren't even examined by the app.

As far as freebie AUs are concerned, those that "semi-fail" the test as I described are best removed.
DP's so solid under OSX that I've literally seen it fall apart only to the extent of the "semi-failed" plug loading.
The more semi-sus ones are in there, the more quirky graphic and functional glitches I've observed whilst DP soldiers on.

These plugs definitely compromise stability.
I feel we're a little too lax here as a hangover from the OS9 days where a plug would either bomb DP or run.
Those days are gone. Now most seem to run "just fine".
I've learned to trust the examiner.

Hope this means something...

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aletheian-alex
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I have been struggling with this

Post by aletheian-alex »

I have been talking this bug over on some other forums...

The MOTU Masterworks plugins do it every time. The problem is readily repeatable in the same project or across different projects, and only occur with Intel processors... not with G5 or G4.

It occurs when a plugin is either processing silence, or muted itself or muted when another track is soloed.

Freebies have not been an issue, nor have any of my 3rd party plugs. I have downloaded and tried out everu freeware and demo that i could find in univeral format that would pass the AU inspection fully. I don't get the issue with any of them except for a similar issue with some of the PSP demos. A few that I have tried are: Freeverb, Camel Fat, W1, RMS Buddy, SoundHack and Airwindows suites, Drumagog, Roger Nichols, ReValver, Blue Tubes, Warp Drive, Fuzz+, etc.

I e mailed Tech support and only got back the standard "you must be a newbie so try this" reply... even though I use DP every day and have been a user since my days of DP2 on a beige 601 chip machine... no respect I tell 'ya.

This is obviously a MOTU bug, and I have only been able to keep my productivity up by avoiding their bundled plugins, and using all freeware and 3rd party stuff... which avoids the issue, but they have bugs of their own.

I have yet to purchase any 3rd party Intel plugs because i am still feeling out the stability before I commit, but i just hope that whevever a DP 5.1.2 or 5.2 patch comes out, that it is before my demo period expires on those bundles... or else I am screwed, and will have to import all my active projects into another DAW.
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Post by rcannonp »

I posted this over at BBL, but here it is again.

I figured that if the silence was causing a problem then adding noise might help. I dithered the soundbite being processed by a MW EQ and the problem ceased. It's not a great fix to have to go and dither every soundbite being processed by a MW plug, but it was interesting that it stopped the spiking.
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Post by Timeline »

Is the fact that the release cpu on mutes button that used to be available in Automation setup and now not available in DP/5.11 have anything to do with this?
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Re: I have been struggling with this

Post by Matcher »

aletheian-alex wrote: The MOTU Masterworks plugins do it every time. The problem is readily repeatable in the same project or across different projects, and only occur with Intel processors... not with G5 or G4.

It occurs when a plugin is either processing silence, or muted itself or muted when another track is soloed.
This is "good" to know..I hope it's fixed soon.
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vier-personen
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Re: I have been struggling with this

Post by vier-personen »

Matcher wrote:
aletheian-alex wrote: The MOTU Masterworks plugins do it every time. The problem is readily repeatable in the same project or across different projects, and only occur with Intel processors... not with G5 or G4.

It occurs when a plugin is either processing silence, or muted itself or muted when another track is soloed.
This is "good" to know..I hope it's fixed soon.

+1 - thanks for sharing the info!
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Post by monkey man »

rcannonp wrote:I posted this over at BBL, but here it is again.
I figured that if the silence was causing a problem then adding noise might help. I dithered the soundbite being processed by a MW EQ and the problem ceased. It's not a great fix to have to go and dither every soundbite being processed by a MW plug, but it was interesting that it stopped the spiking.
This makes me wonder whether it's related to pre-rendering of plugs.
Have you tried turning it off?

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rcannonp
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Post by rcannonp »

That makes it worse.
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