Why reverb, why?

[sixways]

Just curious here, maybe someone can explain to me. I am now a protools guy, bought M-Powered Protools 7 this week after toying with the demo for a few days. Recommended system is 2.8 ghz P4 (check) 512 RAM (check)...I open the box, it now says 1 gig RAM (uncheck). Enough of that rant..


Anyway, I quickly ran into problems with CPU resources and did a bit of research online. It said that REVERB eats up a processor like nothing else. Why in the world would reverb be the killer? I would have thought surely it was guitar rig or sampletank...but digidesign says they have a problem with its built-in reverb eating up resources.

I intend on doubling my RAM to 1 gig when I get back home from the in-laws for Christmas...should this help my problems significantly?

6

QUOTE from Digidesign:

DAE error -9128 when trying to use D-Verb plug-in even though my CPU should not be overloaded. Also the CPU meter is up around 90% but I am not using many plug-ins.

There is currently a problem affecting D-Verb especially when using certain Algorithm settings. Room 2 suffers from this problem, although other algorithms could be affected as well. This problem is more common on Pentium 4 processors.

Workarounds:
1) Use a different Algorithm (e.g. Hall).
2) Insert a plug-in (e.g. POWr Dither) before the D-Verb.

Platform: XP Pro, XP Home ID: 27137 Created: 08/12/2003

 

[bennychico11]

your problem is probably not the reverb. if you're saying your CPU meter is really high with only a few plugins, then it's probably all the other crap you have running in the background on your computer. Antivirus, Internet Explorer, AIM, Microsoft Word, e-mail, etc. etc. All these things (especially antivirus programs) eat up your processor. I suggest when you're recording, turn off anything that you do not need. A good site for some tweaks is http://musicxp.net

This will help with your CPU issue. Reverbs DO eat up a lot of CPU power, but if you have a fairly good processor you should be able to use a few before it begins to bog down. Especially the D-Verb plugin. Other ones, however, eat up more...it's just the nature of the beast that is reverb. A tip is use Aux tracks and place reverbs on there...and then bus your tracks to them. That way you only utilize one or two reverbs per session (plus, that's how reverbs are traditionally used anyway).

As far as RAM goes, 1 gig is always recommended as opposed to 512. I'd say 512 is the bare minimum you should run Pro Tools or most any recording program on for that matter.

 

[easychair]

Just pulling out of my a**, but reverb is a pretty complex effect, essentially many many many many echoes, designed to mimic the natural reflections in a real acoustic space like a room or hall. I'm no computer FX knower, but that seems to make sense to me as to why it can suck up the processor power. Some excellent multiFX units offer you the choice of reverb only, or all the other effects, for instance, and some have a dedicated processor chip just for reverbs.

Sounds like you may have a different problem, but in general, I think this is why good reverb takes a lot of horsepower.

 

[sixways]

Yeah, I've done the musicxp mods and those suggested by Digi prior to install. I honestly don't have much going on in the back ground. I had a total of 4 tracks up...a drum track, instrument track with sampletank, and 2 guitar tracks. I had 1 insert effect on guitar 1 and 2 insert effects (one being a reverb) on guitar 2. That's when I got this:

DAE error -9128

I'm going to do some more tweaking when I get back tomorrow. Looking through the digidesign answer base tonite, it mentioned running msconfig and turning everything off...I'll check on that tomorrow too.

Ironically enough, I never had these problems with Nuendo, a program which appears that it would be much more of a memory hog.

6

 

[bennychico11]

yes, use msconfig....if you're new to it, you need to especially look at the Startup tab. Remove anything you don't really need on startup.
you may also try changing the Hardware buffer size and/or CPU usage limit.

you might also try this: http://protoolsforum.com/DigiPrefs.html

 

[modson]

Dont know if this'll help
Try going into the playback engine (in options) and increasing the buffer size etc.

cheeres
chris

 

[sixways]

Things seem to be running a bit better today. Thought I was doubling my RAM, wound up only adding another 256 (didn't know I had two 256's instead of 1 512, manufacturers description was a bit misleading). I'm still having to constantly reset my M-Audio Firewire 410 though...everything keeps getting all garbled up.

I am a bit overwhelmed by Protools thus far. I guess I had gotten so accustomed to the Steinberg products that this is just a hard switch for me. This is my first experience ever trying to actually use a tempo track, and its been quite a headache thus far. Mr. Beat Detective is whooping my ass right now...I wish PT came with a freaking manual. I've got a CD ROM tutorial, but It'd be easier for me I think to read it.

Will try all suggestions.

Thanks,
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[RivetedOne]

reverb

Reverb usually doesn't completely devour your shiite unless you're using a convolution reverb plugin like altiverb.If you have the computer power though,convolution reverb will be a godsend.

 

[bennychico11]

I wish PT came with a freaking manual.

it does...in digital form. look under Help-->Pro Tools reference guide. It's a very very complete manual that you should refer to often.
It will also be under C:-->Digidesign-->Documentation-->Pro Tools

most people get frustrated with Pro Tools quickly because they don't have the patience to learn how it works. Take it slowly, your music isn't going to disappear.

 

[peeky1323]

Drivers up to date

Hi,

Are your drivers up to date? I see on the M-audio site there was a driver released in October fro your 410 device. This will most likly not have been shipped with your product. I had all kinds of wierd system instabilities happening with my Tascam device untill I got the latest driver There is also a note on the 410 driver download page:

Note Added (11/14/2005): This driver has been qualified for use with Pro Tools M-Powered 7.0

Get it from here:

http://www.m-audio.com/index.php?do=support.drivers

Cheers,

Matt

 

[sixways]

I've updated to the newest driver already. I feel like it has to be an IRQ conflict somewhere.

I've got the .pdf manual, and yes, it is quite extensive....I just wish they would have printed a copy of it too.

The reverb problem has been fixed with the increase in RAM.

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[Zetajazz44]

I've been using ProTools with the Digi001 ever since it first came on the market... Digi's reverb, DVerb, is a CPU hog under certain circumstances. It has a real problem processing silence. This could happen if you have a track that only has a short intro, say a few seconds or so, and they for the rest of the song it is blank and you have DVerb as an insert. While the intro is playing all is well, but as soon as the intro ends and DVerb starts "processing the silence" is starts eating up CPU resources very quickly.

A way around this is to put Digi's PoWr dither plugin on the track just before the DVerb. The dither plugin will make a tiny amount of high frequency noise and give the DVerb something to process and it won't eat up so much CPU. You might think that 'bypassing' the DVerb would 'turn it off', but it seems to eat more CPU in the bypass state than it would in normal mode, so bypassing it is not a good route to take.

I also agree with some of the others here about having AIM, IM..etc running can cause the same thing. I used to have a 'tweak list' for a ProTools PC that I built new PC by about 2 years ago and it works flawlessly... If I can find it, I'll pass it along to you. Some of the things are to NOT have a desktop image, just use 'blank'. Turn your video card color down to 16 bit, don't use 32 bit...etc... If you can, a dedicated PC is best. This way you can disable the onboard NIC, if it has one, disable onboard sound if it has this...etc... All of these things add up after a while... This is the route I took a few years back and I've not had any troubles and I can run many instances of DVerb if I need to... I usually use the Waves Renaissance Reverb or the Waves IR-1 Reverb... Waves addressed this issue of processing silence in their plugs when they were written so I rarely ever see an issue like this with them...