Topic: Spikes and crackles auditioning samples…

Thats fine. Thanks. 🙂

@Zynewave wrote:

I’ve installed VSampler, and tried it briefly. I did not manage to quickly find the window you described. I found an ‘import wav’ command, that allowed me to select a folder with wavs. Somehow I managed to make the plugin pop up a crash dialog. I would rather not spend time on learning this plugin, as it seems to have a lot of features.

Hi Frits,

Ignore the input wav command. That is not where I had the problem, however let me answer your question first… 😉

Could you describe step by step what I need to do after loading the plugin on a track?

I may have gone into too much detail but Vsampler is vast, so take what you need from this post.

After loading a Vsampler on a track…

1. Click on view

2. Select the Editor view
At this point you should see some large buttons listed on the right side of the interface.

3. Click on the VS button (if you hold the cursor over the button it should show this tool tip show Vsampler rack).

You should now be able to see a screen which shows Bank 1, Bank2 e.t.c
There are nine buttons just above the key board which you should be able to see at the bottom of the Vsampler interface.

Namely…Instruments, Zones, Samples, Vol Pitch, Filter, FX, LFO, Step Env and Mod.

Right next to the Mod button there should be a browser selector box.

4. Click on this box and select Disk browser from the drop down menu.

Looking straight up the Vsampler interface from there, you should see another selector box of the same size, just under a button with none written on it, although it will likely be greyed out but you should still be able to see it, top – right of the screen next to the VS button

5 Click on the selector box under the none button as it will allow you to browse to any hard drive you have on your system.

Once you have selected a hard drive, the contents of it should appear directly below in the large browser box underneath it.

6. Drill down from there to any wav files you have and click on them.

This is where I started having problems and the CPU spikes began. It appears a second attempt to audition the same file does not produce the spikes but crackles and spikes at any stage of the production process are quite unaffordable as I am sure you will agree.

Please let me know if you need any further clarification.

Thanks 😉

My ASIO buffer size is 512 which gives me about 11ms of latency.

I have increased the buffer size all the way up to 1024 (I would not work at that buffer size = 20ms+) and I still get crackles when auditioning samples, possibly less but still there.

Mixer engine setting is at 32bits not 64bits as well.

I have worked with this setting before, using VSampler in other hosts without having this problem, so I am not sure why I still have this problem in Podium.

Any suggestions ❓

@Zynewave wrote:

Is it only when auditioning files that you get the stutter?

So far yes.

Is normal Podium sequence playback of a VSampler instrument working? If not, does it help if you close the plugin editor window?

Normal playback is fine.

I googled for ‘VSampler crackles’ and found an old user-review of VSampler on kvr that mentioned he got crackles, if the editor window was open.

Interesting find. However it did not solve the problem.

I suppose in a perfect world I would have been able to try the demo of Vsampler in Podium before buying it (it cost more than Podium) but as Podium was still being developed there was no chance of that.

However…the recent embedded list view is a superb browser and would have possibly replaced the Vsampler browser but I cannot drag a file from the browser to the Vsampler interface. I would have to browse to the same file from Vsampler once I had auditioned it in Podiums List view.

Twice the work. A simple drag and drop approach is definitely better and quicker.

I appreciate that sometimes certain VSTi’s can have odd problems with a certain host. That appears to be the case here. Kontakt has / had problems in Tracktion and there are many other similar stories.

I don’t really fancy leaving Vsampler to gather dust just yet, but I will have to try either a free alternative or possibly Independence but I would look to demo the plug in extensively first in Podium before buying.

What is Independence? You probably do not want to know! 8) Not yet anyway 🙂 It is possibly the most complex and powerful sampler ever made, I think it looks great! I thought Kontakt 2 was good…!

Ok then here is a screen shot for you and anyone else reading this thread…
8)

http://www.yellowtools.com/cp21/cms/index.php?id=399&shownews=416

Thanks for looking for a solution. A light weight freebie may work better in the short term 😉

FWIW I think Podiums hosting of VSTi’s in general is very good.

Thanks.