ForumsSoftware ← A couple CPU queries

Every patch I open is chugging every last bit of cpu it would need to run at full voice capacity. Even with no keys pressed and the sequencer not running.

Can this be improved ?

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Besides that just on the general topic of CPU hungriness check out the factory preset by Sounds Devine called 'SD Q Factor'
This runs at 34% on my dual-core 2ghz OSX 10.6 machine (whether you're playing it or not - see the opening statement above)

Seems a little hungry for the returns, no? but I can't remember if this is an actual improvement since I haven't been regularly using Aalto since the Live7/GUI problem until now.

At any rate I can handle the overall cpu hunger if it's what's needed, but would love to see it at least optimized in such a way that it's not using all it's potentially required CPU before even pressing a single key

cheers

Aalto is very CPU intensive. I made no secret about this, and to some extent it has to be, to make the sounds it does.

Your subject "not so optimized" is a little unfair to me, because of all the work I have put into optimizing. The 34% you are seeing would have been about 50% in the previous version, so I feel pretty good about my progress.

The question about constant CPU use is a fair one. Unlike a lot of soft synths, Aalto is modeling circuits that are on all the time, just like the circuits in an analog synth. This is what makes it such a good free-running drone machine, and is also somewhat responsible for the good sound. I can imagine adding code to find out when a voice is making sound, and save some CPU on that voice (while keeping its free-running state), but this is not a trivial thing to do.

No sweat Randy,
Just checking.

I'm very happy with the way Aalto sounds and works, so if this is the CPU price that has to be paid then so be it. I guess I had to ask because I couldn't remember just how hungry it was when I last used it on a project, and thought maybe it was another Live 7 issue.

For what it's worth FAW Circle does the same thing (re: using up as much CPU as the patch would need before hitting a key). Another favourite of mine, and another modular type affair. I guess it's the nature of the modular beast!

Cheers!

Didn't know that about Circle, thanks for the info.