CPU

A

Atari Wolf

Member
Hi all,

I have really been enjoying playing with the icon. I find myself jamming with it in standalone while I'm watching YouTube. It's a great de-stresser and man the sound is just fab.

Anyway I plan to use it on my recordings going forward as it's the best clean sound I've experienced using computer software.

The problem is it's seems to be a resource hog on when using it with my Daw as a vst input effect. So I've got to be careful with the buffer size on my audio interface so as to avoid pops and crackles (256). This introduces a slight latency when I play, unfortunately

Anyone else having issues? Anyone got any tips?

I'm using Cubase 15, Win 11. My computer is about 5 years old now so I'm a bit concerned it can't handle new software. However, it's a strange thing cos STL Amp Tones, Tonex and Guitar Rig 7 don't have the same issue.

I've read that it could be an issue with the use of multiple cores within Cubase.

For example I struggle with neural amp and ML Soundlabs guitar software as it to pops and crackles if the buffer is lower than 256. I discovered that they may be using one core of your CPU instead of spreading the load across multiple cores within cubase. This may be an issue with Cubase. I could be completely wrong though as Im not an expert.

This makes me wonder that even if I got a more up to date computer that it may not make much difference.

It would be good to try it with another DAW. I may try Reaper as an experiment and see if it copes any better.

I'd love it if I could find a way for icon to be more efficient with my CPU whilst recording.

Thanks for reading, and congratulations to Fractal for porting the Fractal sound into my computer.
 
I believe that DAWs distribute plugin load themselves, using one core per channel or some such.

Regarding other plugins you mentioned, I would definitely expect Icons to consume more CPU.
 
Atari Wolf said:
Hi all,

I have really been enjoying playing with the icon. I find myself jamming with it in standalone while I'm watching YouTube. It's a great de-stresser and man the sound is just fab.

Anyway I plan to use it on my recordings going forward as it's the best clean sound I've experienced using computer software.

The problem is it's seems to be a resource hog on when using it with my Daw as a vst input effect. So I've got to be careful with the buffer size on my audio interface so as to avoid pops and crackles (256). This introduces a slight latency when I play, unfortunately

Anyone else having issues? Anyone got any tips?

I'm using Cubase 15, Win 11. My computer is about 5 years old now so I'm a bit concerned it can't handle new software. However, it's a strange thing cos STL Amp Tones, Tonex and Guitar Rig 7 don't have the same issue.

I've read that it could be an issue with the use of multiple cores within Cubase.

For example I struggle with neural amp and ML Soundlabs guitar software as it to pops and crackles if the buffer is lower than 256. I discovered that they may be using one core of your CPU instead of spreading the load across multiple cores within cubase. This may be an issue with Cubase. I could be completely wrong though as Im not an expert.

This makes me wonder that even if I got a more up to date computer that it may not make much difference.

It would be good to try it with another DAW. I may try Reaper as an experiment and see if it copes any better.

I'd love it if I could find a way for icon to be more efficient with my CPU whilst recording.

Thanks for reading, and congratulations to Fractal for porting the Fractal sound into my
Click to expand...
Once you determine the tone you like with the song you are recording, record the processed guitar to another track or tracks. Then you turn the plug-in off and mute your dry track.
 
BROCKSTAR said:
Are you using ASIO, if so make sure it's up to date.

https://asio4all.org/
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Yes, I'm using Prism Lyra's latest asio driver. Sometimes I wonder if their driver could be improved. I wonder, for instance, whether an RME driver would fare better, as they are renowned for rock-solid latency performance. I'm not complaining, though, as I've had my Lyra for 15 years now!
 
vangrieg said:
I believe that DAWs distribute plugin load themselves, using one core per channel or some such.

Regarding other plugins you mentioned, I would definitely expect Icons to consume more CPU.
Click to expand...
Yes, I agree. It's kind of frustrating because certain VST effect instrument manufacturers perform more efficiently in Cubase than others. Some say it's because the coding may be too bloated or poorly written, while others place the blame on Steinberg. The MLSOUNDLABS plugins are the worst for me, yet they sound bloody amazing!
 
Atari Wolf said:
Yes, this is a good idea, thanks.
Click to expand...
To piggyback on this, I’m not sure the function Cubase does but Reaper allows you to freeze a track, which takes just a few seconds and the result is the fx printed on the track and the fx moved into an offline state. The great thing is you can unfreeze if you want to make adjustments.
 
stm113 said:
To piggyback on this, I’m not sure the function Cubase does but Reaper allows you to freeze a track, which takes just a few seconds and the result is the fx printed on the track and the fx moved into an offline state. The great thing is you can unfreeze if you want to make adjustments.
Click to expand...
Yes, Cubase does this. Thanks
 
Not on a PC but with my M1 Mac I haven't had any issues in Cubase 15 with ICONS. Possibly slightly better latency when running standalone but I guess that's expect given less resources being used. Difference is so small I may be imagining it.
I'm at 64ms for both going thru my Apollo twin quad.
 
Intel I14, Win 11, Cubase 15, Audio Interface is FXIII and running at buffer of 64. Absolutely no problems running the plugin, or multiple instances in the same chain even.

I believe that there were a run of Intel chips around somewhere between i12 and I14 where there were manufacturing faults causing performance issues (saw a lot of that on the Cubase forum). Possibly you are unfortunate enough to have one of those?
 
I can run about 20 Amplitube 3 plugins, 8 Amplitube 5 plugins, and 4 or 5 Fractal plugins. This is on Cubase (10, 12, 13, 14) on an i7 10700k 64gb ddr4 rtx4060 build done back in June 2022.

The new system i built two weeks ago is the same build only 32gb ddr5 and an i7 12700k. I can run the exact same amount of plugins. I only use steinberg ur824 or ur44 sound cards.

One way round this is to only use one plugin and "hard print/render" each take. In Cubase there is an option to "render in place" and when it does it, it makes a copyright of the DI in case i need to go back. Also being on the latest OS and having all the latest updates isnt always a good thing. Im still on win10 and im a bit of a stick in the old mud with updates. I hate them. Most updates make a machine slower, klunkier and in some cases downright unusable.

I almost never do this as I like to tweak each giitar part post recording.

With regards to the ICONS plugins my own gripes are:

1- no mono input selection on standalone. This is a real sticking point for me as my system has a DI box my my guitar input channel on 4, but on 3 is my mic, so when im doing remote teaching I can't use ICONS unless im in a DAW setting.

2 - the tuner mute button causes complete havoc. My guess is its an ASIO thing as it introduces endless glitches and artifacts. Workaround for this is i just dont use it lol.

Ive used the FM3 once when recording as plugins are much easier to use. But the FM3 gets used 100% of the time when on location at studios or on live streams.

When IK released AT5 it was hugely klunky and I saw no sonic improvement from 3. So I just decided to stick with 3 as I can run a heap of them. The ICONS is surprisingly lightweight but it has the edge because of the immedicacy of the plugin. Im super excited to finally have the fractal sauce in my DAW finally. Plus the effects... man... the effects... lol 😆
 
One thing you might consider trying (if you're not doing it already) is leaving off time-based effects like delay and reverb in case that lowers the load, and just using FX sends in Cubase. Saves a lot of processing (at least in usual DAW-use, not sure if the plugin uses less resources if using less fx).
Other than that as has been mentioned, the freeze function is a good idea. Have you turned on the channel-latency monitor in the mix console? Would tell you exactly how much latency it's introducing.
 
wesleyamltd said:
How much RAM do your computers have? What’s the processing capacity? What else is running in the background?
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I have some browsers open (Firefox) and maybe discord, and sometimes discord live chat room where I share my screen. 32gb should be an absolute minimum and ideally 64gb. it depends on the OS, I'm firmly on Win10 rn, as Win11 is a complete resource hog. I wish we could install MS-DOS again LOL.
 
FractalAudio said:
The amp modeling is a complicated algorithm. This means lots of CPU. We prioritize sound/feel quality over CPU usage.
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100% justified because of the immediacy, feel and tone of the plugin. you've bottled the Fractal feel 100%. I'm not a Fender guy, but I'm blown away already. seriously top job to all at FAS. plus the iLok is software so no USB dongle. Thank you FAS!
 
Running in discord in a video chat with 10 people, all watching a movie, and got Cubase 10 running, with EZDrummer3, EzKeys, Omnisphere, and 3 insances of Fractal plugin. Total CPU use 19% - Cubase 9%.

On windows 11, that would be double. so 20% CPU Use.

Hence why I stay on Win10. on Windows 7, on my old 1st Gen 970 i7 with DDR3 24gb ram (Gigabyte X-58A-OC) I was able to run double of everything, they call that progress? don't want to move over to Mac (again) so we're stuck with Microsoft sticking more bits of code onto an already bulkier OS. lol.


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steveforward said:
I have some browsers open (Firefox) and maybe discord, and sometimes discord live chat room where I share my screen. 32gb should be an absolute minimum and ideally 64gb. it depends on the OS, I'm firmly on Win10 rn, as Win11 is a complete resource hog. I wish we could install MS-DOS again LOL.
Click to expand...
32g of RAM is more than enough to run a bunch of DAW stuff! Anything running in the background will eat resources, like extensions and other stuff that you may not even be aware of. I just got a new computer and it has win 11, I got rid of most blotware and shut down start-up stuff and background stuff to optimize for DAW operations. So far it’s excellent except for this annoying bitCrush thing it like to do when it’s processing something in the background I haven’t found….
 
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