Zynewave's Forum Page
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ZynewaveKeymaster@swindus wrote:
After working some time with the new 1.97 beta I noticed this:
No problems with all my plugins at all. They are all recognized as they should.
But from time to time Podium is crashing while working with effect tracks in compact mode. For example when changing the plugin map on an effect rack to another plugin Podium disappears completely without any error message. So far I was not able to reproduce this error but it happens only in compact mode. After switching to expanded mode all is working fine without crashing. So I would assume that there is still a problem in compact mode while changing things on effect tracks, in my case switching the device map to another plugin.
Anyone else encountered this problem?
Thanks for the project file you emailed me. This bug is now fixed in the new beta4.
The beta4 zip also includes an updated zPEQ dll that supports up to 32 channel processing. With the new speaker arrangement support in Podium, this single dll can be used both for mono/stereo and surround processing.
I’ve also further trimmed the creation of alternative surround mappings during import. Now only mono, stereo and all-channel mappings are created for plugins that seemingly support all possible speaker arrangements.
ZynewaveKeymaster@Reject wrote:
Is this a known bug?
When you highlight a track segment, and then highlight an insert-fx (in compact mode, clicking on the wee box/up-arrow to the left), both are highlighted at the same time. When you then press delete on the keyboard, the track segment gets deleted, rather than the insert-fx which you highlighted last.
Not a bug as such. So far it has been possible to select a different focus track for editing in the inspector, without this causing the current segment/event selection to be reset.
But your post made me change my mind about this behaviour. I’ve now changed it so that any track selection will always reset any segment or event selection.
ZynewaveKeymaster@acousmod wrote:
Please, can you suppress the automatic creation of “secondary” surround mappings ?
I mean all the mappings that have less channels than the plugin ?For example, when I import PristineSpace with the beta 2, Podium creates 12 mappings from which only the last three ones correpond to something really usable.
Like in nearly all multichannel effects plugins, all the mappings with mono or stereo input that goes to another number of channel have no interest because these plugins do a parallel processing of the channels. Only mappings with equal number of inputs / outputs have an interest.I’ve already done some work on this earlier today. Please check out the new beta3.
If the plugin reports that it supports all the speaker arrangements that Podium tries to set, Podium will now assume that the plugin reports “technically” possible configurations, instead of “sensible” configurations. Podium will then create a reduced set of sensible mappings, e.g. 5.0 and 7.1 configurations are discarded.
If you’ve enabled the surround import option, Podium now also creates surround mappings instead of stereo pair mappings for multi-channel effect plugins that does not support the setSpeakerArrangement function. One such plugin is the “Absynth4 Surround.dll” which now is imported as a surround mapping.
ZynewaveKeymaster@Technophobia wrote:
I’m afraid the Beta does not like my IK Multimedia ARC plugin. I would presume the Set speaker arrangement function is causing the plugin to fail because the ARC plugin definitely does not support multiple speaker setups as yet.
I have to go back to 1.96 to get it to work.
Is there any way to provide the setSpeakerArrangement function as an option that can be turned off ? Otherwise I will have to stick to 1.96 I guess
Please try this again with the new beta 2. Podium now skips the setSpeakerArrangement calls if the plugin is stereo only. I assume ARC only supports stereo in/out. Let me know if you can use ARC with this beta.
ZynewaveKeymasterCan you tell me exactly for what use you want to know the actual CPU usage? The fact that it is shown by most other hosts is not reason enough for me. You’ll also find posts on forums for other hosts, where users complain that they experience clicks and overload way before their CPU meter is maxed out.
it’s to avoid having to juggle CPU calculations between the mix meter and Windows task manager when one really should be focused on making music.
I don’t see the point of showing that your CPU may only be using 25% of the available power, if you cannot make use of this power due to plugin routings. The current indicator is a general indication of how much you can do in Podium, before reaching the limits of your PCs resources. Ignore the actual CPU usage numbers, and just focus on making music.
ZynewaveKeymasterHowever… it appears Podium crucially still does not provide a simple way to see exactly what the actual CPU usage is at any given time.
Why is this so important..?
Indeed, why is it important? Is it to satisfy your technical curiousity? I don’t see the point of showing how hard your PC is working when that info by itself is useless. It is much more important to know how close you are to overloading the processing before clicks and pops will occur. Let me give you a worst case example of relying on actual CPU usage:
On a quad-core machine you happen to have set up a chain of four plugins that each consume 25% CPU. An actual CPU usage would show 25% load, but in reality the engine is using 100% of the time allowed by the ASIO driver, causing frequent overloads. On an octo-core machine the worst case scenario would cause overloads at 12.5%, etc.
There are other ways than the task manager to monitor the actual CPU usage. In Vista you have the CPU usage gadget in the sidebar. You can download gadgets that display the usage for each core. For XP I think you can find CPU monitoring utilities that e.g. run as a status indicator in the taskbar.
January 5, 2008 at 10:23 in reply to: Restricted to Podium license ownersZynewaveKeymasterThis content is restricted to Podium license owners.ZynewaveKeymasterThe first percentage shows how much of the available CPU power is being used to process plugins and mix audio
Maybe that is an inaccurate description. How about replacing “power” with “time”:
The first percentage shows how much of the available CPU time is being used to process plugins and mix audio.
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ZynewaveKeymasterThe percentage shown in the Podium CPU indicator shows the duration of the total processing compared to the max time available before an ASIO buffer overload would occur. Notice that it is the duration and not the actual CPU usage that is indicated. The actual CPU distribution you see in the task manager will depend on serial/parallel routings of the plugins in your the arrangement.
For example, in the screenshot at the start of this topic you have a plugin chain with a Messiah VSTi routed into a Nebula3 Reverb. The Messiah plugin must be processed fully before its output can be processed by Nebula3. In this example it is likely that the first core processes the Messiah VSTi and the second core processes the Nebula reverb, making it appear that the CPU load is lower in the task manager. The CPU load is distributed on the cores, but the plugin on one of the cores needs to wait for the output of the plugin on the other core. The core that is waiting will of course not use any CPU while it waits.
This also means that you will be able to add plugins to other tracks that can be processed in the idle time of the cores without affecting the Podium CPU indicator. You can try this out by setting up an arrangement with a single track that has an effect chain using a substantial amount of CPU. You will be able to add a second track with the exact same chain without affecting the Podium CPU indicator, but the task manager CPU usage will of course double.
I hope this wasn’t too technical.
ZynewaveKeymasterHappy new year to all.
The next Podium release will show “2008” in the splash screen and the about box 🙂
ZynewaveKeymasterBtw. do you have any recommendations on Anti-Virus software under Vista? It seems to be the only thing missing from Vista, with regards to security.
ZynewaveKeymasterMany thanks for the useful tips and links. I’ll go through them eventually. To begin with I’ll leave my Vista installation at defaults, to test that Podium and all my development tools are working like I was used to with XP.
ZynewaveKeymasterIf I remember correctly, then your Soundblaster only supports a sample rate of 48000, which explains why the default sample rate box is grayed out with 48000 as the only option. So you need to use a sample rate of 48000 in your arrangements. If you do this, do you get the error message saying it couldn’t initialize at 48000?
Also make sure there are no other applications running that uses the soundcard. If an application is using the soundcard it may prevent Podium from initializing the soundcard.
ZynewaveKeymasterZynewaveKeymasterwhy do two folders open?
When you move focus between tracks with plugins assigned, Podium will expand the folders containing these plugins. If the Zynewave folder unfolds by itself, it must be because you have a track with a Zynewave plugin assigned.