Synthesisers

[Bryn]

eVen
somEone
Reading
mY books

before Going
Out
cOuld
Deduce


(hard to do with this clunky editor.... but Cage used Letraset I think?)

You're oinly making matters worse.

[MrGongGong]

You're oinly making things worse.

It's one way of improving the world ?

[Bryn]

It's one way of improving the world ?

A dicey business, indeed.

[MrGongGong]

A dicey business, indeed.

Or as they say in Yorkshire

Eeeee -

[Dave2002]

Check out the title of Cage's follow-up to "Silence". You need to do so before midnight today or the allusion will not work. May 18th would also have served but I was looking forward.

Got me stumped.

“Begin Anywhere”?

[MrGongGong]

Got me stumped.

“Begin Anywhere”?

“I am trying to be unfamiliar with what I'm doing.”

[Bryn]

Got me stumped.

“Begin Anywhere”?

No, but when it came to it, Cage and his friends did not get it together, after all their good intentions. What day of the week is it tomorrow, and how long will it then be until May 25th 2021?

[MrGongGong]

No, but when it came to it, Cage and his friends did not get it together, after all their good intentions. What day of the week is it tomorrow, and how long will it then be until May 25th 2021?

Of course, it could also be June 1st 2021
or June 8th 2021
or even
June 27th 2023

depending on where the original one is

(I usually hate "Round Britain Quiz" but maybe we have a question for them ?)

[Bryn]

Hmm, I think the day of the week concerned should be one of the two which are closest in time to the date I submitted the message. My message was posted 'mesoseptimanally' to the 18th and 25th, so to speak.

[Dave2002]

O

(I usually hate "Round Britain Quiz" but maybe we have a question for them ?)

So not a Number one hit in Germany, then!

[MrGongGong]

Hmm, I think the day of the week concerned should be one of the two which are closest in time to the date I submitted the message. My message was posted 'mesoseptimanally' to the 18th and 25th, so to speak.

[Dave2002]

OK - here's a more interesting question for me right now - since the DC issue is temporarily on hold.

How many sofware synthesizers can one have going at any one time? It's going to depend on the cpu and other factors obviously, and some may be less CPU intensive than others, but on my i7 based MBP it seems to balk around 7 or 8 in Logic. I could probably run most or all of the synths in Reaper, but I'm not sure it'd make any difference. I am using a collection of different synths. I suspect if I just stuck to a couple this might not happen, but I'm trying to see how far I can stretch this out.

If I know what I'm doing - which is doubtful - I could probably bounce the current workings to audio, or similarly bounce a couple of lines which I may have decided are OK to audio, in order to reduce the CPU loading.

Is there any kind of CPU monitoring which I can use while running the DAWs so I can perhaps use to decide which synths are soaking up cpu cycles?

[Bryn]

OK - here's a more interesting question for me right now - since the DC issue is temporarily on hold.

How many software synthesizers can one have going at any one time? It's going to depend on the cpu and other factors obviously, and some may be less CPU intensive than others, but on my i7 based MBP it seems to balk around 7 or 8 in Logic. I could probably run most or all of the synths in Reaper, but I'm not sure it'd make any difference. I am using a collection of different synths. I suspect if I just stuck to a couple this might not happen, but I'm trying to see how far I can stretch this out.

If I know what I'm doing - which is doubtful - I could probably bounce the current workings to audio, or similarly bounce a couple of lines which I may have decided are OK to audio, in order to reduce the CPU loading.

Is there any kind of CPU monitoring which I can use while running the DAWs so I can perhaps use to decide which synths are soaking up cpu cycles?

Hmm. There are, of course, i7s and i7s. I have two i7 based laptops. One has a basic speed of 1.8GHz, the other has a basic speed of 2.7GHz. The former is effectively the faster. It has 4 cores, the 2.7Ghz has but 2. I have just invested in an XILS 4 VCS4 emulator. The first site I consulted re hardware requirements claimed a minimum of a 2GHz processor was needed. However, an email enquiry to XILS-Lab gleaned confirmation that any i5 of i7 processor should be sufficient. I am toying with the idea of getting an i9 based, large-screened Laptop before proceeding too far. However, that's partly because I want to get into video editing, too.

[MrGongGong]

Is there any kind of CPU monitoring which I can use while running the DAWs so I can perhaps use to decide which synths are soaking up cpu cycles?

OSX had activity monitor
I run it all the time
Individual applications will usually have a CPU load indicator somewhere that you can use to make a judgement

[Dave2002]

Hmm. There are, of course, i7s and i7s. I have two i7 based laptops. One has a basic speed of 1.8GHz, the other has a basic speed of 2.7GHz. The former is effectively the faster. It has 4 cores, the 2.7Ghz has but 2. I have just invested in an XILS 4 VCS4 emulator. The first site I consulted re hardware requirements claimed a minimum of a 2GHz processor was needed. However, an email enquiry to XILS-Lab gleaned confirmation that any i5 of i7 processor should be sufficient. I am toying with the idea of getting an i9 based, large-screened Laptop before proceeding too far. However, that's partly because I want to get into video editing, too.

I just checked my laptop - it's a 3 Ghz 2 core i7 machine. I also have a 4 core i7 Mac Mini - which may be faster, or not, depending on the software used. I haven't powered it up to check the claimed rate. For "most" software I think my MBP was still supposed to be faster, but a lot of those benchmark tests don't take into account the software which will actually be used.

I'm not sure about the i9s. I have thought about spending around £5k to get a seriously fast machine - though once you've spent £5 what else is there to do other than to double the budget to £10k. It's easy enough to throw money at these higher performance systems.

Re getting into video editing - I've been there - done that. It will depend on how complicated you want to go. Until a few days ago I thought that video editing was more challenging (for the cpus) than audio. Earlier Apple systems - I have a couple - don't go fast enough for serious video editing - though in fact if one uses various compromise tricks it can be done - but not in real time. The way that works is to use proxy video files, which some editors will work with, then when the edits have been fixed, render the whole project using high quality sources.

Similar things can be done with audio, of course, but until very recently I hadn't thought that to be necessary. What I'm currently trying to do seems to thrash the cpu as I get up to around 7 virtual synthesisers - and yes - I do want to do that.

You can make things worse by doing both audio and video. Then I think you have to decide which has priority. Films also explain to some extent the rise of audio loops, as I'm told that many film makers work with sections of about 4 seconds long (or multiples of 4 seconds), to the backing muzack which is clearly not as important as the film video content has to be in 4 second chunks too. That's what I heard, anyway.