Get rid of switching Audio GAPs p2/6 - Technical measurements and info

[BobXX]

[ Part 1 here - Measurements and Info ]
[ Part 2 here - Measurements and Info ] current
[ Part 3 here - Measurements and Info ]
[ Part 4 here - Tips & Tricks ]
[ Part 5 here - Tips & Tricks ]
[ Part 6 here - Tips & Tricks - GAP "FILLER": GAPLESS Proof of Concept ]


Finally from the measurements shown, we can divide the blocks (on the audio gap point of view) into three groups:

1. "Gapless" blocks, regardless the number of blocks, channel and types changes
2. Small gap blocks with a 12ms typical minimum gap
3. AMPs... that induce a typical gap of 40ms

For the group 1, let's see this extreme crazy preset even going a littlo beyond the "safe" limit of 80% CPU, but using ONLY "gapless" blocks:



I set Scene 1 with all blocks set to Channel A,
and Scene 2 with all blocks set to Channel B, even selecting a different type of block than channel A (17 block type changes).
so toggling scenes 1 and 2 it switches channel and types of all blocks ,

NO AUDIO GAPS !

Here's the audio out:



I didn't believed my ears and eyes... it's a really extreme preset.
Suspecting that echoes could cover a gap, I set all delay&reverb effects and modulations to 100% dry: no gaps again.




Not convinced yet.
As a counterproof, I tried to substitute first block of the chain with a COMPRESSOR (gap inducing block), I chose to put it at the beginning on purpose to capture every following time modulations.





The audio gap appears... (~100ms):


(This image is "zoomed out" so every division is 20ms)


This seems to confirm that all those "gapless" blocks (see the list in Part 1) in all my tests, for the time being, never induce audio gaps.

QUESTION: "Using gap inducting blocks, do they cause gaps in all sound chains of the preset?" ANSWER: No.
AFAIK, it appears only in the sound chains that have a "gap inducting block" (see list here).
More precisely it appears in the part of the chain in series that has this type of blocks. Any parallel processing seems not to be affected. We will se that this allow some interesting trick.

For instance in this case we have the first chain 100% made of gapless blocks, the second chain has only a CHORUS, not gapless:



This is the output of OUT3, first huge chain, no gaps:



This is the output of OUT2, second chain, only 1 block, a gap of 90ms appears.
We will see in Part 3 why is not the 12ms reported as its minimum in table of Part 1:




If I entirely remove the big chain IN1-OUT3, leaving in the preset only 1 CHORUS, the gap narrows to its minimum 12ms.

NOTE: It appears to me pretty strange that given the extreme crazy complexity of that gapeless chain, where AXE FX3 is able to manage everything - I mean, even 17 block's type changes in a shot - without any sound gap.
On the contrary if all AF3 huge power have to deal with just 1 CHORUS or 1 COMPRESSOR and nothing else in the preset, we get a gap.
It looks like a bag or something forgotten. Maybe developers will fit this in the future.

Let's see now what happens when more "gap inducing" blocks have channel switched:

[ Part 3 here - Measurements and Info ]

 

[iaresee]

I set Scene 1 with all blocks set to Channel A,
and Scene 2 with all blocks set to Channel B,

Were they running different configurations on the channels? The delays, for example, did they change from one algorithm to another?

 

[unix-guy]

FYI, the word you want is "gapless" not "gapeless"

 

[BobXX]

Were they running different configurations on the channels? The delays, for example, did they change from one algorithm to another?

I didn't tried e.g. ALL delays configurations, but yes, I even changed from channel A to B the delay type and their settings. No gaps.
Obviously you may hear the artifacts due to delay setting suddenly changing, as usual.
If you want me to try a specific case you can send me the preset to test, I have the measurement system still connected to check it for you.

What I understood is that it doesn't matter if the type is different or not, I didn't see in my measurements any kind of optimisations for identical types. The same if settings are the same or not.
For "gap inducing blocks" I have seen that the complexity of the target effect type may get different results. For instance loading a simple Tweed AMP is faster than a Recto, with minor gap.

 

[iaresee]

I didn't tried e.g. ALL delays configurations, but yes, I even changed from channel A to B the delay type and their settings. No gaps.
Obviously you may hear the artifacts due to delay setting suddenly changing, as usual.
If you want me to try a specific case you can send me the preset to test, I have the measurement system still connected to check it for you.

What I understood is that it doesn't matter if the type is different or not, I didn't see in my measurements any kind of optimisations for identical types. The same if settings are the same or not.
For "gap inducing blocks" I have seen that the complexity of the target effect type may get different results. For instance loading a simple Tweed AMP is faster than a Recto, with minor gap.

Just wanted to make sure the types changed as the channels changed.