CPU Overload

[Syntho]

When I'm using SVP it's usually in midi-only mode. If I stop and start a song very quickly, I always get the CPU overload thing coming up. If I'm slower with it, no problem. I'm doing this on a 9600/350 machine, so maybe this is normal, but I'm guessing I'm being a little too fast for SVP. Anyone else get this?

[GaryN]

When you say "stop and start", do you mean pause and resume from that spot, or stop and restart from the beginning?
If the latter, do you have a bunch of stuff like patch changes etc. at the beginning?

You seem to be saying there's a whole bunch of data that needs to be processed and/or sent on restart.
Simply starting over is not a proc-heavy thing in itself unless there are other things happening as well.

I need more info: How many tracks? Does it gradually get slower as tracks are added? Are you sending or receiving any kind of sync? (especially MIDI beat Clock?)
* Try muting all but one and see - then add in more. Watch both the track count and if maybe one or more of the MIDI mod/synths is spitting something back it shouldn't be.
** Set a loop and/or reset the beginning so the song starts on bar 2 or 3 and see what happens.

The 9600 @350MHz should not be choking. If you don't actually hear any ill effects and it's just the overload indicator, it MAY be that SVP just "expects" more proc power (something other than a 604e) than plain vanilla Vision would have. This guess is based on absolutely nothing at all because …WhoTF really knows?

[Syntho]

I made a mistake in the setup info. I was actually running on the Acadia engine. When I would hit the stop and start button very fast (keyboard shortcuts rather) the system would come to a halt and the little box that shows CPU, Disk and Ram would have red flags by both the Disk and CPU. I switched it to midi-only and all is well now. I've also got the optimized Acadia file (I think it's called) for the 9600/350 in there. I haven't yet tested it with DAE since I only use that for Pro Tools so I wonder if it'll do it with that.

Off topic: I use Pro Tools for audio recording/editing, but man... SVP just seems awesome as an all-in-one DAW. I absolutely couldn't do what I do in PT in SVP, but I'm tempted to try the audio capabilities in SVP and see how I fare.

[GaryN]

……the little box that shows CPU, Disk and Ram would have red flags by both the Disk and CPU.

Off topic: I use Pro Tools for audio recording/editing, but man... SVP just seems awesome as an all-in-one DAW. I absolutely couldn't do what I do in PT in SVP, but I'm tempted to try the audio capabilities in SVP and see how I fare.

Flickering the Disk and CPU lights , especially when you don't have any digital audio tracks recorded, is not normal. There's probably something in the audio settings that's incorrect and you haven't found it because you've never really used SVP for audio. It's probably no big deal. It just might be the "wrong" Acadia or……? No big deal though.

That said, I really don't think there's anything OS9 PT can do that SVP can't. Seriously. I'd love to hear what exactly you "absolutely couldn't do what I do in PT in SVP". I'm really curious…

[Syntho]

The editing seems much quicker in PT from what I tried in SVP, and there is no Sound Replacer 

[GaryN]

The editing seems much quicker in PT from what I tried in SVP, and there is no Sound Replacer 

Well, how fast and efficiently basic editing goes (I say "basic" because "editing" is a really general term that can mean many things) is dependent on how familiar you are with the process. The more you do it, the faster it goes, of course.

And you are correct - There is no "Sound Replacer" an Avid plugin that only runs on PT 11 or later on OSX 10.7 or later.

So, if you're comparing SVP from the 90s on OS9 with a years newer PT on OSX……

Am I wrong? Does Sound Replacer run under OS9?

[IIO]

it doesnt run 100% stable, but it exists for TDM Mix and RTAS since PT 4.

[Syntho]

The editing seems much quicker in PT from what I tried in SVP, and there is no Sound Replacer 

Well, how fast and efficiently basic editing goes (I say "basic" because "editing" is a really general term that can mean many things) is dependent on how familiar you are with the process. The more you do it, the faster it goes, of course.

And you are correct - There is no "Sound Replacer" an Avid plugin that only runs on PT 11 or later on OSX 10.7 or later.

So, if you're comparing SVP from the 90s on OS9 with a years newer PT on OSX……

Am I wrong? Does Sound Replacer run under OS9?

I'm running Sound Replacer 1.1 on OS8.6 on my 9600. Indispensable Audiosuite plugin for me 

[Syntho]

it doesnt run 100% stable, but it exists for TDM Mix and RTAS since PT 4.

As far as I know SoundReplacer, at least the oldschool one, is AudioSuite only.

[GaryN]

Ah… so it's NOT actually RTAS… it renders. Well, I guess if your work is dependent on that, then it's the only choice.

I'm not gonna beat a dead horse here and I really don't care…but one plugin doesn't really count as an even semi-complete comparison of PT and SVP.

I'm just sayin'…

[IIO]

I'm running Sound Replacer 1.1 on OS8.6 on my 9600. Indispensable Audiosuite plugin for me 

i always wanted to know what you guys are doing with it.

[Syntho]

I'm running Sound Replacer 1.1 on OS8.6 on my 9600. Indispensable Audiosuite plugin for me 

i always wanted to know what you guys are doing with it.

Blending drum samples. That's it. It does exactly what it's advertised to do. I can probably get the audio-to-midi thing in SVP to do something similar by using the outputted midi file to trigger other samples, but SoundReplacer also blends the samples for you, basically. Up to 3 of them.

[IIO]

sure, but why

[GaryN]

Blending drum samples. That's it. It does exactly what it's advertised to do. I can probably get the audio-to-midi thing in SVP to do something similar by using the outputted midi file to trigger other samples, but SoundReplacer also blends the samples for you, basically. Up to 3 of them.

That's true. The SVP audio-to-MIDI will do that very well indeed - and you can use common MIDI editing techniques to level / change level etc.

[Syntho]

sure, but why

It depends on the style of music. Some people want their drums to be completely acoustic/natural while others like me like something more over the top and we augment our recorded kits with samples for some more beef.

[GaryN]

sure, but why

This is a really common technique. You can take well-played drum tracks on a shitty, rattly kit and turn it into well-played tracks on Vinnie Colaiuta's drums. You can change the drum sound after the fact, retune them or as Syntho says, just augment the sound with samples.

You can even have a drummer who would never "lower himself" to playing triggers and samples, lay "real" tracks then augment or substitute HIS drums with samples afterwards and you know what? You do it well and you can convince them that they're hearing their drums and that's just how good they sound and how good an engineer you are. Yes, I'm dead serious.

[Syntho]

sure, but why

This is a really common technique. You can take well-played drum tracks on a shitty, rattly kit and turn it into well-played tracks on Vinnie Colaiuta's drums. You can change the drum sound after the fact, retune them or as Syntho says, just augment the sound with samples.

You can even have a drummer who would never "lower himself" to playing triggers and samples, lay "real" tracks then augment or substitute HIS drums with samples afterwards and you know what? You do it well and you can convince them that they're hearing their drums and that's just how good they sound and how good an engineer you are. Yes, I'm dead serious.

I've read of this happening a whole lot, especially on editing the drummer's timing. They stay hush about it to avoid arguments   I've also heard of some guys, like bassists or guitarists, who were so shitty that when they left, the engineer learns, plays and records all of the parts themselves 

[IIO]

playing games with the drummer and impress people? not enough cause for me.

i never got the point in playing drums live but then later replacing the sound. even in 1990 you could have used miditriggers from akai to do the same live. or even use a midi drumset. which were expensive, but so are microphones.

you personally, do you also layer the samples with the original audio track?

[GaryN]

i never got the point in playing drums live but then later replacing the sound. even in 1990 you could have used miditriggers from akai to do the same live. or even use a midi drumset. which were expensive, but so are microphones.

Seriously? You're working on a project. You want it as good as you can get it. So, you get a real drummer. Or just as likely, you're working with a band. They have a drummer.

Now, the drummer wants to play his drums…not a MIDI kit or anything else… his drums. That's what he's comfortable on and will play his best on. So, you do your best to mic those drums. Trouble is, you not only do not have a great room to record drums in, you also don't have 5 or 10 grand worth of mics laying around to use. So you do the best you can with what you have.

Trouble is, it doesn't come out the way you wish it would. The performance is great - timing etc, spot on. You just wish you could get a better recording of the guy's drums, but you can't. So, whaddya gonna do?

You're gonna fire up your Drum Replacer plugin and use his great performance to trigger samples of great drums recorded in a great studio with great mics and you end up with great drums. It's not rocket science. This is no different than playing samples of a $40k Steinway on a keyboard controller.

Recording musicians - solo, duo or entire bands is NOT the same as working alone in your personal room.
Technology is now at the point where we can and do a lot of stuff to the recordings in a quest for the best possible result.
Is it cheating? That's debatable. There are degrees of murder and their are degrees of "cheating."
Auto-tuning the shit out of a singer who can't hit a note or busting ass to get 8 good bars of rhythm out of an amateur guitar player then copying/pasting those through the entire song is certainly 1st-degree cheating.
Having a "guest" player in on a track who does a basically good job and then maybe rearranging what they play after the fact - swapping the 2nd and 3rd verse around or similar, because it "feels" better (something I've done more times than I can count) technically is cheating but just barely. He DID actually play the parts after all.

Using digital tech to virtually bring a fantastic piano or drumkit into the studio to sound a great performance with is hardly the same thing.

[Syntho]

playing games with the drummer and impress people? not enough cause for me.

i never got the point in playing drums live but then later replacing the sound. even in 1990 you could have used miditriggers from akai to do the same live. or even use a midi drumset. which were expensive, but so are microphones.

you personally, do you also layer the samples with the original audio track?

It depends on your style like I said. For playing modern rock/metal (by 'modern' I'm talking post-1987 or so) you usually want at least your kick drum to be replaced because it's impossible to get a clear tone the faster you play. Some guys are so fast on their kick that you don't even hear the transients, rather just a bunch of constant rumble. Using a kick sample that's been processed will have enough bass and punch for sure, but more importantly it has much much top end so that you actually hear the attack of it.

This is considered 'cheating' I guess, but there's really no other way to do it. I've heard some nice, fast double kick drums that were completely acoustic, but that style of production is a nod to the olschool and isn't what a lot of people want. I personally don't care if it's cheating or not, I just like the sound.

For me, I usually (95% of the time) replace the kick entirely but will use the actual sound from the kick on slower songs (or sometimes a blend of the acoustic kick and a sample). The snare is always blended, the toms are blended too, and all cymbals are natural. That's what works for me.