Synthesisers

[Dave2002]

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

Indeed, but on a laptop, finding screen space for load indicators as well as the working area can be hard. Ideally I prefer my large desktops, but over the last year or so I've tended to use the smaller laptop more. Also it's faster than my two desktop machines - see post above, though in some ways not as nice to use. I can't afford (well actually I can, but I'm not going to, yet ...) to buy new desktop and/or laptop machines, though I suppose it might be good to have these if I survive CV19 this year, before eventually something comes to get me!

[Bryn]

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.

Thanks. A brief search-around has put me off the idea of upgrading, at least for the moment. It's a source of some ennui that my 1.85GHz 4-core i7 laptop is restricted to its on-board 8GB of RAM. That RAM is permanently installed to the motherboard. I upgraded the 2-core i7 laptop to 16GB a few months ago but its audio facilities are not as good as those on the 4-core machine. Swings and round-abouts, I guess.

[Dave2002]

Thanks. A brief search-around has put me off the idea of upgrading, at least for the moment. It's a source of some ennui that my 1.85GHz 4-core i7 laptop is restricted to its on-board 8GB of RAM. That RAM is permanently installed to the motherboard. I upgraded the 2-core i7 laptop to 16GB a few months ago but its audio facilities are not as good as those on the 4-core machine. Swings and round-abouts, I guess.

If you are thinking of doing video or enhanced audio in the future I would suggest either getting the maximum amount of main memory that you can afford, or make sure that the computer does have upgradable boards. That has been a problem with some Apple machines, particularly during the last 8 or 9 years. My two iMacs were both upgradable, though in fact putting the maximum memory in didn't make them any faster. However, it did significantly reduce problems with memory swapping and thrashing. My laptop unfortunately isn't memory upgradable (at least not officially, or by Apple). I think some recent machines (probably including PCs) still have soldered in memory chips, so it's not worth buying those if that limits future expandability for the most CPU and memory intensive tasks.

[MrGongGong]

Indeed, but on a laptop, finding screen space for load indicators as well as the working area can be hard. Ideally I prefer my large desktops, but over the last year or so I've tended to use the smaller laptop more. Also it's faster than my two desktop machines - see post above, though in some ways not as nice to use. I can't afford (well actually I can, but I'm not going to, yet ...) to buy new desktop and/or laptop machines, though I suppose it might be good to have these if I survive CV19 this year, before eventually something comes to get me!

I use 2 screens at home
15" Laptop and a secondary monitor

cheap and good for "parking" stuff while playing

[Bryn]

If you are thinking of doing video or enhanced audio in the future I would suggest either getting the maximum amount of main memory that you can afford, or make sure that the computer does have upgradable boards. That has been a problem with some Apple machines, particularly during the last 8 or 9 years. My two iMacs were both upgradable, though in fact putting the maximum memory in didn't make them any faster. However, it did significantly reduce problems with memory swapping and thrashing. My laptop unfortunately isn't memory upgradable (at least not officially, or by Apple). I think some recent machines (probably including PCs) still have soldered in memory chips, so it's not worth buying those if that limits future expandability for the most CPU and memory intensive tasks.

It now looks as if earlier advice I gleaned re the 4 core laptop might have been plain wrong. I will have to open it up to check and then, if it turns out there is, after all, a memory slot in addition to or in place of fixed memory, I will seek confirmation from Crucial that their 16GB SODIMM can indeed be used to upgrade the memory. If I get confirmation it will be around £60 well spent on the SODIMM. Looks like the SSD could also be upgraded but I think I will simply make a point of saving all data to an external USB SSD, rather than upgrading the internal one.

[Dave2002]

It now looks as if earlier advice I gleaned re the 4 core laptop might have been plain wrong. I will have to open it up to check and then, if it turns out there is, after all, a memory slot in addition to or in place of fixed memory, I will seek confirmation from Crucial that their 16GB SODIMM can indeed be used to upgrade the memory. If I get confirmation it will be around £60 well spent on the SODIMM. Looks like the SSD could also be upgraded but I think I will simply make a point of saving all data to an external USB SSD, rather than upgrading the internal one.

Good luck with that. I couldn't understand for some while why the Apple laptops couldn't have easily replaceable SSDs. Turns out, that for some reason which I don't know, that Apple decided not to use a standard form factor SSD, hence they are either impossible to do easily, or maybe some third party repairers/updaters can obtain larger SSDs to replace the originals. If your machines have standard size devices upgrading might be a lot simpler.

[Dave2002]

Safety warning re headphones and software synthesizers

One word of warning about software synthesizers, which I discovered very briefly yesterday.
It's possible to get them into a state in which they put out very loud noises very quickly. Wearing headphones if this happens is not pleasant and I suspect really dangerous. I found that when I tried to add in some reverb and EQ inside Logic. The sound level rose extremely fast due to what I assume was an unfortunate combination of effects.

I'm not sure if I could safeguard against this with another plug-in somewhere in the chain. Perhaps a limiter or noise gate on the output. My guess is that my ears have surivived, but I ripped my cans off very quickly.

[MrGongGong]

One word of warning about software synthesizers, which I discovered very briefly yesterday.
It's possible to get them into a state in which they put out very loud noises very quickly. Wearing headphones if this happens is not pleasant and I suspect really dangerous. I found that when I tried to add in some reverb and EQ inside Logic. The sound level rose extremely fast due to what I assume was an unfortunate combination of effects.

I'm not sure if I could safeguard against this with another plug-in somewhere in the chain. Perhaps a limiter or noise gate on the output. My guess is that my ears have surivived, but I ripped my cans off very quickly.

A few words on this , in my experience

1: Use decent headphones (I'm usually using Bayer DT250's these days)
2: Have a PHYSICAL volume control before the headphones .... run it through a mixer/amp/even a cassette machine in record/pause (the old method)
3:Put a limiter at the end of the chain in the software
4: There are some great things you can do with "No Input" methods in virtual synth environments BUT always have the limiter at the end.Sometimes the "unfortunate combination" gives rise to the most interesting results (think Black Pepper on Strawberries )

[Dave2002]

Todays offering OB-xD

This is what OB-xD looks like from Mainstage.

I've not figured out how to resize it so it doesn't fill the screen. Maybe it's not possible on my Retina display, or perhaps I have to change the MacBook Pro resolution before taking the screen copy.

Maybe I'll try that, and delete and repost this one.



Indeed, that "trick" of using the highest resolution on the Macbook, then doing a screen grab, then cropping the result does work. It's a pity it doesn't seem possible with some of these to actually resize them in the software they run in. Additionally, with my Retina MBP at least there is a warning that performance will probably be compromised, if the resolution used is too high, and not a native resolution.

Re doing lots of synth demos - (next post) - I agree in principle, but I did find a list of some recommended ones, and this OB-xD is one of them. A few do seem to have unique features, or good presets, while some of them are just ... sameole, samole .....

[MrGongGong]

That seems at a glance more basic than Helm
Nothing there to make me have a look or listen

If you start on the whole "demoing" synths thing you will simply spend all your time doing that
and none of it making music

[Dave2002]

That seems at a glance more basic than Helm
Nothing there to make me have a look or listen

If you start on the whole "demoing" synths thing you will simply spend all your time doing that
and none of it making music

You're right, - many of them are really quite similar. I'm amazed that some people seem to look for marginal "improvements" in one model over the next, or from another manufacturer. It's interesting to see what some of them can do, though - and I've perhaps not completely done that yet.

[MrGongGong]

You're right, - many of them are really quite similar. I'm amazed that some people seem to look for marginal "improvements" in one model over the next, or from another manufacturer. It's interesting to see what some of them can do, though - and I've perhaps not completely done that yet.

Some people like to make things
Some people like to collect lots of versions of what might appear to be the same thing to others
Some people seem to have lots (and I mean a HUGE number) of different versions of the same "piece" ... but maybe the "different" versions are really different "pieces" ?

[Bryn]

Some people like to make things
Some people like to collect lots of versions of what might appear to be the same thing to others
Some people seem to have lots (and I mean a HUGE number) of different versions of the same "piece" ... but maybe the "different" versions are really different "pieces" ?

I (and, I suspect, you) listen to different versions of 4'33" every day, and I like it.

[Dave2002]

I revisited the OB-xD synth. It has a few problems, but also some quite good features.

The first problem is that the front GUI panel does not resize, so it can't be shrunk to put out of the way. It does have a View button, which in some other synths does rescale the image, but that doesn't work with this one. One way to make things a bit easier with this synth, which works in Logic, is to use Screen sets - generate a duplicate screen, then a screen set, then delete the parts which one doesn't want in that view.

I have no idea how to make it work. This does seem to be a problem with a fair number of these things. There are knobs, buttons, and some have labels - which indicate oscillators etc. Maybe if one has a lot of experience these do make sense. Also, I'm not sure that the people who develop these things are into manuals and documentation - probably a more hands-on and intuitive approach, so unless one has ESP it's not going to work for many people. Am I right, or completely wrong - which I could be?

At least with some other synths some of the controls do make sense - this one doesn't, but that's probably just me!

However .... after playing around for a while one discovers the presets. Some of the presets are quite good. There are a few insect related ones - Bees, Wasps - but they're not very good. There are Bells which seem OK, and some of the others, could serve as useful harpsichord like instruments.

I'm not sure how I could achieve similar sounds using Helm, or some of the other synths. Trying to build up sounds from basic tones, using 2,3 or 4 oscillators seems tricky. Another approach might be to look for presets in a synth, then modify the sound, with perhaps EQ or reverb.

With some synths it seems good to simply search through the ready made presets - I found some really good ones - IMO- in other synths - or is there another way? Then either use those as is, or modify the sounds.

I also discovered how to do something like that with noise earlier on, using the ES2 synth to generate noise.

[MrGongGong]

I (and, I suspect, you) listen to different versions of 4'33" every day, and I like it.

Certainly do

Trying to build up sounds from basic tones, using 2,3 or 4 oscillators seems tricky.

So is playing the violin

You need more of these chum










“If something is boring after two minutes, try it for four. If still boring, then eight. Then sixteen. Then thirty-two. Eventually one discovers that it is not boring at all.”


It's never "boring"