Brian May collection CPU usage?

[dakfat]

Hello, I used to have an Intel Core I7 3770 CPU (4 cores at 3.4ghz) and a single instance of certain Brian May presets like "Live Magic" would push the cpu meter in Studio One to 70% in a 44.1 khz session with a buffer of 64 samples. I thought it was a hungry plugin, but I put it down to my ageing computer.

I bought a new pc, a Core I9 10900 CPU (10 cores at 2.8 ghz able to go up to 5.2 ghz with Turbo Boost). The results are the same when I run Brian May collection. A single instance of "Live Magic" will push one of my cores to 70% load in a 44.1 khz session with a buffer of 64.

Any other Amplitube collection like Satriani or Mesa Boogie would usually show a 3 or 4% CPU use under the same conditions.

Is anyone else seeing this with Brian May? Is this expected behavior?

Thank you!

[Peter_IK]

That doesn't sound normal. Have you reported this to IK Support?

[Ryan_IK]

Just to piggy back onto Peter's reply.

Check your Activity Monitor / Task Manager whenever looking for performance. The DAW meters aren't always showing the true full performance of your system and these can be more accurate.

I will say, from my experience, some AmpliTube Brian May presets can tend to be more CPU intensive than some other collections (depending on what you're comparing). This is mainly due to the complexity of some of his rigs and the processing required to offer that sound as realistically and organically as possible.

Remember, the PREFS menu (Lower left side of your screen) can be used to optimize your performance a little bit further, but you might want to try a higher audio buffer size if your system is having any audible trouble keeping up at a size of 64.

Check out the articles below, Sweetwater suggests a size of 256 for most uses and Sound On Sound goes really in-depth as to why a really lower buffer, like 64 can really increase the need for processing power. While personally, I use 128 when I need it, remember your amp to your ear at 5 feet is a 5 millisecond delay. At a 256 audio buffer size, that's pretty much the same amount of latency you will hear, so it shouldn't really give you too many problems when playing along.

https://www.sweetwater.com/sweetcare/ar ... in-my-daw/

I've also mentioned in the past (notably in SOS June 2003) that the setting for audio interface buffers doesn't only affect latency, but also CPU overhead. However, many musicians forget this as they struggle to achieve the lowest possible latency for their system. The problem is that while the audio interface drivers take a negligible CPU overhead of their own to get started each time before the actual buffer filling and emptying takes place, and then to terminate afterwards, this small constant overhead can become increasingly significant at lower latency values. If, for example, your buffers are running with a sample rate of 44.1kHz and have a 12ms latency, they only need to be filled and emptied about 86 times per second. But if you attempt to reduce buffer size to 64 samples at 44.1kHz, to achieve a latency of 1.5ms, you have to fill these buffers 689 times a second, and each time you do the drivers consume their little extra overheads."

-Martin Walker

Source: https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/optimising-latency-pc-audio-interface

[dakfat]

Thank you for your insight Ryan. I don't have this problem in Reaper so I am thinking that there is something going on between the way Studio One balances the load across cores and that specific preset that is overloading the CPU.

[Aichin]

A little late, but I've been trying to get the Brian May package to run properly in AT5 as well, on a Core i7 9750H (up to 4 GHz turbo boost). The built-in DAW, as well as Studio One, are only working as long as I restrict myself to one track with active effects. As soon as I try to playback one or two rhythm tracks with effects, and solo over that, it all falls apart. Heavy sound skipping, stuttering, slowdowns, it becomes completely unusable. I'm using Reaper now instead, and the difference is night and day.

I could narrow this behaviour down to the fact that both AT4/5 and Studio One seem to be operating strictly in single core mode (I suspect it's even limited to one thread). Under heavy load, AT5 stand-alone is using exactly 16.7% of my CPU (as displayed in Task Manager). 100% / 16.7% = 6 Cores. Not a coincidence.

Reaper on the other hand is a proper multi core application, and believe it or not, I can easily stack 10 tracks with active effects, and it's still running fine. CPU is fully utilized according to Task Manager, just as you would expect, instead of being locked down to only one core.

On a side note, using Reaper, I can also run multiple tracks on my Surface Pro 2017 (Core i5 7300U, 2C/4T), which was utterly impossible before.

[thomas.brunkard]

I made a preset that's more CPU efficient for any one that gets got with this (just noticed it's two years old after all the effort!)

Search for "Live Magic 1986 Redux". You only need one amp with chorus in the Queen era. I've put some EQ improvements on it too. It just uses the kit from basic Amplitube Brian May but to use my other presets, consider upgrading.

For more Queen presets search for me "ThomasBrunkard" on Tone.net