Topten Software

pj geerlings · Post by **pj geerlings** » Fri Jun 07, 2013 2:37 pm

On one laptop I was using I found that disabling the battery monitor service did the trick. (I had already disabled the wireless network support but there was still a nasty bump in the latency monitor)

-pj

pinkcanaru · Post by **pinkcanaru** » Fri Jun 07, 2013 3:37 pm

Hi there.
Go to App Data/Roaming/TopTen software. Open up the Cantabile folder(s) and delete the VST Cache file.
When you restart Cantabile, it should rebuild a totally clean list.

ludvicek · Post by **ludvicek** » Fri Jun 07, 2013 7:13 pm

Thanks a ton for your advice! Now it works like a charm.

godly · Post by **godly** » Fri Jun 07, 2013 9:05 pm

I've found some other trick also: setting the priority in the task managed. There's a program prio that saves the state for you

pinkcanaru · Post by **pinkcanaru** » Fri Jun 07, 2013 10:55 pm

Hi Godly -what does that do?

TiUser · Post by **TiUser** » Sat Jun 08, 2013 8:10 am

It's important to understand the difference between a thread and a process in Windows. Simply spoken a process is a separate program while a thread is a part within a program.

To my knowledge you can't externally manipulate thread priority within a process. Be sure developers take care of setting thread priorities for good reason. Usually changing thread priority does not speed up scheduling in general, so nothing really responds faster... The only easy to reach setting I know about is setting processing either to prioritze background activity or application activity. Some Server tasks work more efficient with background activity - which slows down scheduling speed.

Of course you can manipulate process priority in windows task manager. But again this doesn't help much in terms of speeding up scheduling and reaction. If you increase priority of a process you need to make sure that your processing is very short and fast, otherwise it simply blocks other tasks and make windows slow. If you decrease it some other process may interrupt what needs to be done and again the effect isn't quite appropriate.

I've played around with process priority too but concluded that it's not a very useful thing to change.

There are some things that can be done on other levels, but I haven't seen any ways to do that not programmatically. The point with tools that promise to boost performance is they are not made to purposes we need here for realtime music hosts and systems. I won't stop repeating that the point is not maximizing cpu performance but providing cpu power in time, when it is requested for audio processing.

Imagine an audio buffer needs to be calculated but the process/thread isn't scheduled yet and it takes 90% of the time to make the thread run - then only 10% cpu are left to really calculate the audio data before you get a dropout. In other words only 10% of your cpu are available for audio, regardless how fast your cpu is... That's in my eyes the bottleneck with windows scheduling and the point most people do not realize. So a faster cpu helps but it does not cure the main issue here.

godly · Post by **godly** » Sat Jun 08, 2013 8:57 am

Smart advice. In contrairy I literally experienced what the priority does
. My live host didn't Play the guitars well after I gave the host full priority.
It's not the host Indeed but the asio driver that needs it. So I set back to the low and others also. Al seems to worm much better. I Alonso learned that disabling some gui from certain vst means allot to CPU Use.

pinkcanaru · Post by **pinkcanaru** » Sat Jun 08, 2013 4:37 pm

If you increase priority of a process you need to make sure that your processing is very short and fast, otherwise it simply blocks other tasks and make windows slow.

Which is a good reason for using a fast processor, I guess.
The idea is to make the logjam irrelevant, IMO.
When you see that, with no plugins enabled, Cantabile idles at zero demand - and that introducing plugins one by one reveals that certain plugins are major culprits in the spike war, it moves your attention from blaming all ills on the OS.

Well, I guess that's not news but it has refocusd me on that fact as I went through each plugin, in turn, to see what it was doing in terms of consistent demand.

One thing that came to light is that some plugins make a MASSIVE demand when powered on from a muted state as opposed to a bypass. Example is the Mark 1 Mr, Ray Rhodes piano. From a muted state it spikes the meter at up to 2500% !!!
Rack mute and bypass and plugin mute ALL cause the massive spike. When using the plugin bypass within the rack - the meter barely moves.
As this plugin's CPU demand is low when it's not being played it makes sense to avoid the three super peaking options and only employ that one safe bypass option. You can imagine the havoc that can be caused when switching subsessions if a few plugins are behaving like THAT! This is really down to the dodgy code in some older plugins and some badly written new ones. Omnisphere... a real CPU hog, does not produce anything more than a small murmur when enabled any way you like.

My conclusion is that there is no 'silver bullet' but a combination of disciplines and experience in producing a reliable low latency system that you can PLAY through. (And that's what Cantabile is for.)

1. Optimise your system and avoid demanding graphics.
2. Use hardware with well written audio drivers
3. Acknowledge that some plugins are problematic and that many issues will simply evaporate if you use well written plugins.
4. Invest in a computer that is capable of meeting your expectations. The more you invest there, the less careful you have to be with item 1.

TiUser · Post by **TiUser** » Sat Jun 15, 2013 9:24 am

Which is a good reason for using a fast processor, I guess.
It does not change the principle. As long as high priority processes run, lower priorities are blocked. Priorities make things not faster, just blend away interruptions from lower priorities.

plugins make a MASSIVE demand when powered on from a muted state as opposed to a bypass
I've observed this too. Some plugins also show this behavior when loading banks from disk or other tasks. That's all a good example for the fact that there is no resource control... VST's just grab as much cpu as they just need. You also see how much system headroom this will need to avoid... Guess it will take a long time 'til we have 25x cpu power/speed... what we actually see is more parallelism, less frequency increase and that's only great when resouces are managed clever. But I agree to your strategy to keep all running (if you have enough cpu) - if there were not the switching behavior issues with some plugins...

no 'silver bullet'
...work only for pc's made in transilvania... LOL

PC's always forced us to deal with tasks that are not related to what we want to do, rather spending hours for "optimizing" system and application performance. Ok, this can be a challenge but when you're just about getting your stuff done it's pure waste of time.

It's this tradeoff between unlimited flexibility and preconfigured in a box solutions we have to choose from. Either way we have to pay the "price".

...demanding graphics.
This is true - but a pity. Using high quality gui is one benefit pc's can offer. My conclusion is it would be best to have two machines, one for gui and another doing the pure audio work. Strange, that reminds me on the old way, controller + sound module - how ever these two componens may be realzed.

SoftMachine · Post by **SoftMachine** » Thu Aug 29, 2013 8:08 am

Hello !

Audio Channels (Ctrl-A) is disabled when Racks and Plugins pane is out of focus (inactive).
So are there any implications of this issue?

Kind regards, Alexander

pinkcanaru · Post by **pinkcanaru** » Fri Aug 30, 2013 7:10 pm

(Ctrl-A)is the Windows standard for Select All. Cantabile has employed that command for Audio Channels. If a Cantabile rack or plugin doesn't have focus where should it apply the command?

SoftMachine · Post by **SoftMachine** » Mon Sep 02, 2013 9:11 am

Yep, Cantabile is in focus indeed

.. try to click another pane in Cantabile (media files or midi routing table for instance) and voila -- Audio channels becomes disabled.

If a Cantabile rack or plugin doesn't have focus where should it apply the command?

-- in my opinion it should be enabled all the time, by default...
It is kinda global thing (or not?)

==
Regards, Alexander

pinkcanaru · Post by **pinkcanaru** » Mon Sep 02, 2013 4:33 pm

A rack or plugin needs to be selected. If you are in media files - an area where audio routing is not applied in that fashion - then the command is not relevant.
As far as I can see the cntrl A command is specifically tied to rack or plugin selection and it is probably that action which releases the command from the Windows standard.

ludvicek · Post by **ludvicek** » Thu Oct 03, 2013 7:21 pm

Hi, is it possible to set the default "Tools" in "Media Files" to different one? So that I wouldn't always have to disable Snap Selection, Lock Play Range and enable Loop Mode when loading new tune? And a second one - how exactly does "Enable Output Limiter" work? For example the default Treshold 80% - eighty percent of what? Do you use it to prevent damaging your monitors?

pinkcanaru · Post by **pinkcanaru** » Fri Oct 04, 2013 4:21 pm

It ain't gonna save your monitors if you play loud enough.
It's to prevent overs at the master output which would cause clipping.
So 100% is the full bit register and limiting the output is any amount below that.
You are MUCH better off setting your levels carefully and not allowing that limiter to mess with your sound.

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Some bugs or frustrating probs in Cantabile