CPU Issues

I'm trying to look at CPU usage as a diet plan: If I'm getting a warning, it means I'm larding up my tone with too many effects at the same time, and I need to trim back. Amp, Cabinet, some crisps and a salad. Reverb for pudding. Do I really need Trem, Rotary, Phaser, Flanger all on the same preset? Probably not, but having 4 channels is so tempting. I'm trying to not do the whole buffet table at every meal. Wish me luck.
 
artzeal said:
Do I really need Trem, Rotary, Phaser, Flanger all on the same preset? Probably not...
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I agree, I don't want or need kitchen sink presets. But I do want to have enough in a preset that makes sense as a useful and relatively complete set of effects for a song. I can generally do everything I want on the AX8 as long as I'm willing to make some compromises, but if improvements use up any more CPU it's looking like the FM3 might not even be able to match it.

As it is, reverbs take up a ton of CPU. Even the Spring is 15-17% which is a lot for an effect that's often just a "background" effect (not counting Gilmour-type sounds, ambient sounds, etc). Even though it's background, it's pretty essential for me - I really don't like a totally dry signal, so my typical setup has just a touch of Spring verb behind my sound - but also don't want to use that much cpu just to get a little bit of ambience. I'm hoping the Plex delay is a good option, or maybe the Room/Air settings in the Cab block would work (are they included in the FM3?).

Maybe they can create a less CPU hungry version of the verbs? Or just create one new verb type that's basically a low-res plate or room sound? They sound so good as they are, I doubt anyone would notice in a live setting and then we'd have a lot more cpu to work with.
 
Without entering speculation about potential optimizations, I think this CPU usage increase is the logical evolution. It is something to be expected that new algorithms and features in the AF3 will heavily impact FM3 CPU. It was already stated that the FM3 was not going to be a floor Axe Fx, and I think we as players tend to fool ourselves believing that because it's simply so beautiful. But there's an Axe Fx rack unit for a reason.

jefferski said:
Maybe they can create a less CPU hungry version of the verbs? Or just create one new verb type that's basically a low-res plate or room sound? They sound so good as they are, I doubt anyone would notice in a live setting and then we'd have a lot more cpu to work with.
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I do not own an FM3 yet, but for the usage I plan for it I would happily sacrifice quality for quantity and what you suggest is the approach I would prefer as well. This means that for ultra-detailed reverbs in the studio I will come to the Axe Fx, but for 90% of my meat-and-potatoes presets I need to be able to translate them into a single preset tuned down version for live use, so as I am still able to use scenes intra-song. The rest 10% are weird fx-intensive tones that I have already assumed will need to be in a separate preset.

That's why I did not sell my XL yet, BTW, because I might end needing too much from the FM3.

I think we need to have realistic expectations, again it is easy to trick yourself into thinking that's a Axe Fx what you have there.
 
TenorKeith said:
I thought they did that. When the FM3 was first announced, I think they said that the verbs would be at the lower quality level. No?
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I believe there's already an option to switch between something like "high fidelity" and "normal" reverb modes - the latter one saving some CPU.
 
The FM3 has plenty of processor power for any preset I ever use. The one thing that I had to change was to move to medium res reverb from high res reverb I was used to on the FX3. For live, I cant tell the difference anyway - I only notice the difference when playing alone, and even then it is not a big difference. That said, I understand that some people use a lot of deep/prominent effects and that is why they still sell the FX3. I ALMOST sold my FX3 when I got my FM3, but then decided to keep it around as a back up and it is nice to have an AxeFx always hooked up to my computer for recording.
 
Another thought: People who run out of CPU could always use two FM3s - still way easier to take to gigs and pretty much cheaper than an FX3 with an FC6!
 
Lohengrin said:
I think we need to have realistic expectations, again it is easy to trick yourself into thinking that's a Axe Fx what you have there.
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Agreed. I'd just like to be sure that we can do at least as much as with an AX8, or hopefully slightly more.
TenorKeith said:
I thought they did that. When the FM3 was first announced, I think they said that the verbs would be at the lower quality level. No?
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Yes, but from Chris' estimates, the lower quality (really "normal" quality) still uses about 26%, except for Spring which is 15-17. High quality are around 34. When you consider that a baseline preset already uses about 11% before we add any blocks, and we can only go to 80, that means that the reverbs are using between 1/3 to 1/2 of cpu power that we actually have to work with. Spring is about 1/4.
 
If they are going to improve the effects blocks on the FM3 (which is great), I wish they would compensate for the loss if CPU in some way. Otherwise, we're losing flexibility. I know this isn't an Axe III, but I think we've all had a year to plan what number of things it can do simultaneously based upon what we were told before these changes. If that becomes more and more restricted, it can make things difficult. Those who just use a comp > drive > amp > cab > delay won't be adversely affected. But for some, it becomes tricky.
 
Reverb is a CPU hog for sure. Maybe try using the diffusion parameter in the delay block to add some reverb like wash for a bit of ambience. Uses much less CPU than the Reverb block.
 
artzeal said:
I'm trying to look at CPU usage as a diet plan: If I'm getting a warning, it means I'm larding up my tone with too many effects at the same time, and I need to trim back. Amp, Cabinet, some crisps and a salad.
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Yeah, this is the most compact offering from FAS ever and is THE reason I'm coming back after a really long absence. It has plenty of horsepower for what I need. If you need 20 effects at once don't buy it, just not the product for you.
 
I wonder if it'd be possible for Fractal to create a combined delay and reverb block that contains the algorithms for more straightforward reverbs and delays. You could then use either in a channel within the block but not both simultaneously. This would give you the ability to toggle between Reverb and Delay from a single block, with less CPU than having individual delay and reverb blocks loaded.
 
zerolight said:
I wonder if it'd be possible for Fractal to create a combined delay and reverb block that contains the algorithms for more straightforward reverbs and delays. You could then use either in a channel within the block but not both simultaneously. This would give you the ability to toggle between Reverb and Delay from a single block, with less CPU than having individual delay and reverb blocks loaded.
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Where does the reduced cpu come from?
 
Factory Preset 061 runs about 85-90% and sound cuts out after about 1 second of playing. I sure hope this is all fixed soon.
 
chris said:
Where does the reduced cpu come from?
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Well I'm assuming if you have a block that can only run either delay or reverb instead of having both blocks running then you'd have less cpu overhead since they could never be run together in that block. It's not like the reverb block is running every single reverb algorithm at once. Given the two effects are closely related, I'd imagine a single block with a few basic reverb and delay algorithms based on similar code would take up no more CPU than a regular reverb block but give you delay or reverb options. A Time block if you like. No super fancy big reverbs or multi-tap delays. Just a nice dual delay and plate/spring/room reverb (not together, one per channel).

For me, if I have a reverb block and a delay block in a preset, I don't necessarily need to run them both together, so one block could be bypassed but still using up CPU resource. If it were possible to roll them together into one then in that situation you'd just have one Time block and toggle between reverb and delay algorithms via channels. As has been said in other threads, reverbs are like very complex delays, so there are similarities that might allow a single Time block with less complex delays and reverbs individually selectable.

I'm not saying it's possible, just throwing the idea out there, that it might be, it feels like it should be, and that it might save a blocks worth of CPU. People already suggest the Plex Delay as a reverb like alternative. So the notion of Reverb and Delay in one block is there in a pseudo fashion already. I'm just suggesting taking that idea and fleshing it out a little bit more.
 
chris said:
Where does the reduced cpu come from?
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The reduced CPU comes in because, if I understand what he is suggesting, he wants to use either delay or reverb, not both. So, having one block that could function as one or the other would reduce CPU as compared to using two blocks in the preset.

Similar to this, I have often thought that FAS should add a "modulation" block. Personally, I would never run chorus, flanger, or phaser at the same time. One block that could function as any of the three based on the channel selected would be a huge CPU savings over having all three blocks in the preset. But this is really only useful for "kitchen sink" presets and I tend to build per-song presets with only the effects that I need in a given preset so I have never put this up on the wish list.

Edit: I see @zerolight just posted and beat me to it.
 
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You can do so much with the Multidelay and the Plex Delay blocks. Here's a pair of presets (created on 1.04 beta 7) that use 4 channels on each block to create a dual delay, reverb, chorus and flanger.

I totally understand the appeal of dialling up a block and selecting an effect type that based on a beloved vintage effect. At the same time, working with the ingredients we've got at hand can be a creative and rewarding process with the potential to unlock sounds we may not have previously had access to.
 

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@2112 Oh yeah, I totally get that. Sometimes it's really just a mater of time. I don't have time to dig into all the options and flexibility of different blocks and out of convenience or laziness it's so much easier to pull up a chorus block and select the type, make a small adjustment to rate or depth and be on your way. Not everyone has the knowledge to get a flanger out of the Multidelay block, to the time to explore all the possibilities.

Anyway, thanks so much for the preset examples. I'll be sure to take a look at these.

Edit: Maybe it's a 1.04 Beta 8 channel related problem, but all four scenes on these two presets sound identical. I can see the channels changing but the effect type is the same for each channel. Tried rebooting, and got the same results.
 
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