Multi-instrument (timbral) Plug-In CPU Usage

Plugins
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So I did an experiment with some of my multi-timbral plug-ins and a special combination of plug-ins to determine their CPU usage. I used 6 instruments per multi-timbral plug-in (2 different pianos, rhodes, wurly, pad and strings).

My combination special was 3 plug-ins which consisted of pianoteq (because you can map a widget to program change and select whichever preset you want), Roland XV-5080 for pad and Korg Triton for Strings. I’m on a macbook, m3 with 16gb ram.

Results:
Kontakt 7: 1%
Korg Triton Extreme. 25%
Sample Tank 4: 32%
Special Combo (pianoteq, XV-5080, Korg Triton): 25% (pianoteq 1%, Triton 12%, Roland XV-5080 12%)

I just did opened a new gig with a single rackspace and did the bypass plug-in test method. I didn’t alter any instruments or effects just went for it. First time I have tried this and I have been using GP since version 3. Kontakt whooped that a…!

If curious here were the instruments I used in the mulit-timbral plug-ins:

Kontakt 7: grandeur, maverick, scarbee mk1, scarbee A200, retro machines, session strings
Korg Triton Extreme: BD Grand Concert, Rock/jazz piano, Pad Strings, The Pad, Tine E. Piano, Rockin’ Wurly
Sample Tank 4: C7 Grand Pop Piano, C7 Grand Rock Piano, Wurly, 1973 Stage Electric, Mid Cellos, Soft touch

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I wouldn’t expect sample tank to use so much as it’s mostly based on samples

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IK isn’t too concerned with plugin efficiency it seems. B3-X is the only plugin of theirs that I tolerate the CPU usage because it’s still the best sounding Hammond plugin. Mainly due to the Leslie sim (which uses nearly the same amount of CPU by itself so I can’t even save much using Blue3 plus TRacks Leslie)

And things like Amplitube just crash GP half the time when added

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4

Same here… Luckily most songs needing Hammond are rock songs which mostly need piano or simple synth sounds. When I need a Hammond sounds with many other sounds I use the native instruments organ but it’s considerably less good.

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5

Are you talking about the original GG Audio Blue3? I don’t have it, but the new Cherry Audio release of Blue3 has several different Leslie emulations (accessed via the Cabinet button). Would that work?

Blue3 Leslie
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I suspect their view is that you would insert that plugin in a DAW, record, and then freeze the track, thereby bypassing the plugin

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I agree. They seem to be more DAW oriented

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I have both. It’s possible they’ve done some minor improvements but still a bit away from B3-X. I feel like a lot of companies don’t get the drive right.

In the past I have used Softube’s Saturation Knob to improve the sound

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9

Interestingly enough, I did an experiment yesterday using Audiogridder hosting the B3-X inside GP. I had 9 (that’s right, 9!!) B3-X plugins in one rackspace with no issues. With these types of plugins that are CPU-hungry, its all about balancing the processor load in whichever ways you can. BlueCat Patchwork also allows for Multi-core processing, though not as thoroughly as Audiogridder.

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Could you eleborate on this, please. I am relatively new to GP and so far I thought the way to balance cpu power is to use several instances of GP. How does hosting of plugins in Audiogridder work in GP?
Thanks a lot!

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Here’s a blog article: [blog] How to offload the processing of audio plugins to remote computers using AudioGridder

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Thank you, I appreciate it!