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  • Clicks When Using Dimension Strings

    D
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    Hello-

    This is my first post here. Hoping to get some help. I've built a really beefy PC slave and I'm having performance issues that are very suspect.

    I'm running VEP in standalone mode and transferring the audio via MADI to my DAW. Everything is locked to a Big Ben clock.



    Here are the specs of the machine:



    2 x Intel Xeon E52697 v2 Ivy Bridge-EP 2.7 GHz LGA 2011 12-core Server Processors (2 cpus, 24 cores total)

    64 GB (4 x 16gb 1600 MHz ECC Registered Server Memory (RAM)

    Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64-bit

    Everything Running on SSDs

    SSL MadiXtreme 64



    I am getting clicks in the audio as if the CPU is overloading and I can't imagine that it is supposed to be. There are only 4 patches playing together in this audio example. 1 VL-All, 1 VA-All, and 2 VC-All. All 4 are on the performance legato articulation. I would hope that a machine this intense could handle 4 legato strings playing back at once at a reasonable buffer setting. As it stands I have to set the buffer to 512 for the clicks to stop.





    Here's an audio example of what is occuring:

    VEP_Clicks.aif



    Here is a screenshot of VEP during playback:

    VEP_Playback.png



    Here is a screenshot of the CPU usage of the machine:

    CPU_Usage.png



    Thanks in advance for any insight!
  • D
    D
    1. Have you checked the voices in VI Pro to see if it is going red (overload)?
    2. What is your preload buffer set at?
    3. Are you using humanization?
    4. What is the maximum number of voices set to?

    DG
  • D
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    Hi DG-

    Thanks for the response. Sorry for the lag. Finally got out of the studio to get some family time over the holiday weekend.

    OK here are the answers to your questions:

    1. The voices are maxing out at around 720 for the example i previously posted which seems like it shouldn't be an issue.
    2. 16384
    3. yes but i have tried turning it off and it did not solve the issue
    4. 4096

    Here's the update:

    I was able to get the previously posted passage to play with no clicks by setting the preallocated voices to a higher value. I am still unable to get faster legato patches to play back without pops between the notes at any setting I've tried.

    Here are 2 simple arpeggios and the screen shots of the settings they were performed at:


    Example 1:

    Audio Clip 1
    Screen Shot 1

    Example 2:

    Audio Clip 2
    Screen Shot 2

    I'm still puzzled as to why I would be having performance issues with this monster of a machine. Any help would be very greatly appreciated.

    Thanks Again

    Danny
  • M
    M

    I also have a beefy system and have voice limit problems with Dimension Strings. The weird thing is that if I play the sequence a few times, the SSD kind of "wakes up" and will play it correctly. I'd love to know what is going on!
  • O
    O

    Same on my system. I play only one note and the voices run out ( red) and the sound break.

    It seemed the drive (SSD) wakes up some time. But switching on release samples and velocity x fade it gets unusable.

    For what a machine is this library made? Future rockets? You need 4 machines for violins,viola,celli and KB. And it still crackle.

    I run 7 pc spread out all my librarys , but dimension still overload the voices.

    Study the manual twice, just tryed the latest updates - no change

    Rainer

    Windows 7 Intel Core 3.07 Ghz - 24 GB RAM  1GBSSD Drive

    Instruments pro

    Ensemble Pro 5 Server
  • D
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    Hi Guys-

    Thanks for jumping in Rainer but I'd like to be perfectly clear. My machine is NOT in the red. It is NOT out of voices. Even though that is the case I get the results that I posted above. Pops and cracks in between legato notes.

    While working on a project yesterday I found that if I use all the individual player patches and not the "ALL" patches I get better performance results. Still occasional pops but not as severe.

    Anyone have anymore clues?

    Thanks So Much,

    Danny
  • D
    D
    Anyone? Please? (Click click pop)
  • PaulP
    VSL Team
    PaulP

    Hi Danny, 

    I´ve been trying to get my hands on a similar machine as you have, but without success so far. 

    The "ALL" patches contain 8 players, and if you are using Velocity Xfade and Release Samples, that quickly adds up to quite a high voice count.

    I´ll see that I can check soon.

    Best,

    Paul 

    Paul Kopf Head of Product Marketing, Social Media and Support
  • B
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    @Danny Dunlap said:

    Anyone? Please? (Click click pop)

    If you render offline, and your DAW informs VI that it's offline, and VI interprets that info right, CPU limitations should not cause audio problems; so it might be interesting for you to render offline and compare results.
  • M
    M

    Please mention which SSD drive you are using, along with information about the settings applied in VIPro (max voices, instance voices, buffer etc)
  • M
    M

    In my case, 2 x  Samsung 840evo 700gb. Preallocated voices: 8192. Max Voices 8192, Instance Voices: Max. Streaming Threads: 4. ASIO Buffer 512. Directory Manager: Dimension Strings, 8192; other libs: 2048

    Thanks
    MOH 
  • M
    M

    - How are the drives configured? As single drives with one large NTFS partition each?

    - What is the voice count (in ViPro Advanced/Perform tab) when you press a single key?

    - What is the voice count (in ViPro Advanced/Perform tab) when you experience clicks/pops?
  • M
    M

    Is there any update on why this might be happening? I need to play my sequence back at least 3 times before the dirve kind of "wakes up" and plays smoothly before I get voice count errors. Even at low voice counts of 200-300, depending on whether or not I've played through that part of my sequence. 

    Drives configured as single NTFS partitions on SATA III ports. Basic.

    EDIT: After further checking, I see now that when I first load my template my RAM usage is at 35 GB. Then when I play my sequenceslowly starts to crawl upwards to 37GB. So it's like some cells are disabled even though I have ensured that they all are enabled. 
  • M
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    @mohurwitzmusic said:

    Is there any update on why this might be happening? I need to play my sequence back at least 3 times before the dirve kind of "wakes up" and plays smoothly before I get voice count errors. Even at low voice counts of 200-300, depending on whether or not I've played through that part of my sequence. 

    Drives configured as single NTFS partitions on SATA III ports. Basic.

    EDIT: After further checking, I see now that when I first load my template my RAM usage is at 35 GB. Then when I play my sequenceslowly starts to crawl upwards to 37GB. So it's like some cells are disabled even though I have ensured that they all are enabled. 

    I cannot explain why your system behaves this way. Your machine should be fast enough to handle this kind of workload. It sounds like there is a bottleneck somewhere in the storage subsystem. Perhaps some drivers or BIOS needs updating?

    Regarding RAM usage: I suppose this is the Windows RAM usage you are referring to? The VEP process usage should not increase during playback - unless you are running out of reserved voices inside of VI/VIPro. The Windows RAM usage may increase due to Windows disk caching.
  • M
    M

    Update: I redownloaded and reinstalled Dimension Strings and the problem went away. Not sure what happened. Thanks for your kind attention.

    MOH