PLUG-IN power?

  • Thread starter Thread starter ecktronic
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ecktronic

ecktronic

Mixing and Mastering.
I was just wondering how to get the best out of my CPU from using plug-ins on my computer (VST and DIRECT-X). Because when i add any more than say 10 the CPU usage meter goes into the red and the sound starts going all jittery.

What can i do so that my computer can handle more plug-ins?
What is it that actually drives the plug-ins? is it RAM or something?
Sorry i just dont have a clue about the workings of computers.

Any help would be brilliant.
 
it's really a combination of RAM and CPU power (not just the speed of the CPU, but how well it handles tasks).
www.musicxp.net has some tweaks for your computer, but i doubt any of them will dramatically improve your performance. make sure no other programs are running the background while you are mixing. RAM can help buffer your plugins so that the computer has time to process it and play it out the speakers for you, but CPU power determines how many plugins you can do at a time. also, certain plugins take up more power (a lot of reverb plugins are notorious for this). what's the specs of your computer, what plugins are you running, etc.?
 
Cheers Bennychico, I am using Waves plug-ins. I got the CPU HAWG programme taht tells you how much CPU power each plug takes up and the True-verb was ridiculous. It took up 8.82% of my CPU!!! crazy.
will check my specs soon as im in a hurry for a gig im playing tonight with ma band.
 
I doubt it's the ram if you have at least 512mb. It's more that likely the processor that's fouling things up.

Sounds like its time for an upgrade.
 
ahhhh....waves Verb is notorious for taking up processing power. this is one reason why using Aux tracks are so important.
 
Some are just pigs and take lots of processing power.

You can use programs like www.fxteleport.com to off-load your VSTs to another computer(s) on your network. You can also render down tracks (freeze) to save CPU power.
 
You can also save cpu by using heavier plugs like reverbs and delays on an aux bus instead of inserting onto each track
 
As has already been stated, using aux send/returns for time based effects whenever possible is very helpful, things like reverb, delay, chorus.

Another thing that could help with your problem is to adjust your recording/mixing program to have a higher latency when mixing, after the tracking is done.

If you have it setup with say, only 2 small buffers to allow for "live" input monitoring with effects while tracking, you can switch it to both more and larger buffer sizes after the tracking is done, this will give the CPU more time to do all of it's processing, if you're running at less than 5 ms latency for tracking, bumping that up to 30-100 ms for mixing should lower the CPU usage considerably and allow you to run more plugins.

:)
 
fretwire3d said:
I doubt it's the ram if you have at least 512mb. It's more that likely the processor that's fouling things up.

Sounds like its time for an upgrade.
Click to expand...
I have an Intel inside pentium 3 processor. Is that not good enough for plug-in mixing? How hard and much would it be to upgrade my processor?
 
bennychico11 said:
ahhhh....waves Verb is notorious for taking up processing power. this is one reason why using Aux tracks are so important.
Click to expand...
Kinda get you on the using aux's for reverb. But how exactly would i do this. Would i be setting up an aux channel with a reverb on it and then sending the tracks i want reverb on, to the aux? Wouldnt this mean that i could only have one wet% for my reverb? So all tracks would be as wet as each other?

Cheers all by the way. Great help. :D
 
ecktronic said:
Kinda get you on the using aux's for reverb. But how exactly would i do this. Would i be setting up an aux channel with a reverb on it and then sending the tracks i want reverb on, to the aux? Wouldnt this mean that i could only have one wet% for my reverb? So all tracks would be as wet as each other?

Cheers all by the way. Great help. :D
Click to expand...

that's exactly how you do it. set up an aux track, and create aux sends on all the channels you want to send to the reverb. when you create the aux send on each channel you will get individual controls over each channel as well...so you can decide how much you want sent to the reverb channel, so you won't get the same "wetness" all the time. Not only that you also have the original channel too....so no messing with the "Wet/Dry mix" on the reverb plugin. Now you can just balance wet and dry with the original tracks fader as well as the reverb aux track fader. And even better, set all your aux sends to prefader and any volume automation done on the dry track won't effect the level going to the reverb. This can be useful in many situations including adding reverb trails to your tracks.

you'll find that bussing effects to the aux track give you a ton more control than adding a time based plugin to the track. plus, you preserve CPU usage.
 
Brilliant Bennychico. Im gonna try that out right now. :D
You should get medals or something for your informative replies by the way!
 
But if I do an aux send from a track i want reverb on, then will it not send the track to the reverb channel and I wont be able to hear the original?
Im trying this in Cubase VST5 by making a group and adding reverb, and sending channels to the group. But i only hear the group and not the original track since i am sending it to the group with reverb.
Any ideas?
 
ecktronic said:
But if I do an aux send from a track i want reverb on, then will it not send the track to the reverb channel and I wont be able to hear the original?
Im trying this in Cubase VST5 by making a group and adding reverb, and sending channels to the group. But i only hear the group and not the original track since i am sending it to the group with reverb.
Any ideas?
Click to expand...

how are you sending it to the group? are you changing the outputs of the original tracks to the reverbed track....or are you using auxilary sends to do this?? you need to use aux sends to do it


sorry, i'm not familiar with Cubase so I don't know exactly the terms it might be called. although i think it's similar to Nuendo, yes?
 
you probably already do this anyways...but make sure you close all programs running in the background...especially anti-virus programs.
 
ilikecheese said:
you probably already do this anyways...but make sure you close all programs running in the background...especially anti-virus programs.
Click to expand...
Good point. I forgot about my anti-virus programme. Hopefully that might help a bit.
 
bennychico11 said:
how are you sending it to the group? are you changing the outputs of the original tracks to the reverbed track....or are you using auxilary sends to do this?? you need to use aux sends to do it


sorry, i'm not familiar with Cubase so I don't know exactly the terms it might be called. although i think it's similar to Nuendo, yes?
Click to expand...

Yeah, i was changing the output of the tracks to the input of the group with the reverb on it. I cant seem to find or even create an auxilary track. I think you are right that it must be called something else in Cubase VST.

There is a section for sends on every channel. It has 8 sends and i can choose from a pop up menu Group1, group1R, group2 etc. There is also a knob that im presuming is the amount of volume i send from the track to the group. There is also a pre button, which you mentioned was a good idea to use.
But i cant seem to get it working. I must be doing something wrong.
Thanks again Bennychico.
 
Nice one. I finaly managed to understand Cubase VST and i can now send tracks to a seperate channel that has a reverb plug-in on it. I used the pre as you said bennychico and it didnt effect the volume of reverb when i changed the original tracks volume. Brilliant. Only thing is that I have to send the tracks to a stereo group instead of a mono group as i would prefer because it means that i need to set the volume send on each track twice (left and right) and since there is no numbers indicating how much i am sending i have to do it by ear and eye so that i dont get an unbalanced reverb.
 
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