Aug Strings clipping when launched from Studio One 5

[Pariszone8]

Hello group,

I was pleased to see that after installing Augmented Strings, Presonus Studio One 5 automatically could "see" it, making it immediately available.

I chose a chord-melody nylon guitar track ("Somewhere in Time") for testing A.S., thinking the soft guitar notes would give A.S. a nice melody to work with. While I can hear the A.S. does indeed produce some nice cello-ish and violin-ish sounds, the entire track plays with loud pops, cracks, and garbled distortion.

Upon closer inspection, I can see the input from Augmented Strings is constantly clipping, as witnessed by the view meter on that track of Studio One. (Please see screenshot). This clipping continues unabated even if I actually turn the volume of the track completely down (or mute the track).

The actual volume level of the track is also extremely low, so if anything, I need to turn it up... not down. 

Has anyone else run into this issue? If so, I would be delighted to hear any suggestions you might have.

Regards,

      Paris

[LBH]

Hi,

Like you can read in the Platform specifications here:
https://www.arturia.com/products/software-instruments/augmented-strings-intro/overview
then Augmented STRINGS Intro unfortunately require a top notch CPU. It's a CPU hog as it is now.
I hope Arturia will be able to reduce the CPU load a lot.

My guess is, you are overloading your CPU. You can try to set a higher buffer for your soundcard, if that's the case.

[Pariszone8]

Hi LBH,

I'll give your suggestion to set the buffer higher on my sound card a shot (as soon as I figure out how to do that... There must be something on YouTube about it.)

So far, my CPU has been able to handle just about anything Studio One or Melodyne throws at it... but (as you said) if Aug Strings is a memory hog to begin with, the three programs used simultaneously push things too far.

Oh well... it was free. (I wouldn't be so understanding if I actually had shelled out hard-earned cash for it.)

Thanks again.

[LBH]

Your welcome.

Arturia does'nt hide it use a lot of CPU resources. It's not about memory.

Don't you use a external soundcard?
Your soundcard should have a panel where you can set things like samplerate and buffer settings. Perhaps you can open it from Studio One. In studio One you also set this settings for a song.

A way to free CPU resources is to convert midi tracks that use plugins to audio tracks.

[Pariszone8]

LBH,

Ya... my mistake... I meant to say it was a CPU hog.... not Memory hog.

My processor is an Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8565U CPU @ 1.80GHz   1.99 GHz. I see it shows up 8 times on my list of processors, so I'm assuming it is "8 core". (I'm not an expert on the technical workings inside a computer.)

I'm using a Presonus AudioBox22VSL for an audio interface, and (if I am understanding what my system settings are telling me), it acts not only as an input/output device but also has its own audio interface (as it is on the list of "Sound, Audio, and Game Controllers" (aka: soundcard?).

I must route all audio through it if I want programs like Melodyne to "play nice" and not have latency issues. So ya... I suspect the audio card in the audio interface is what is processing the sound, but having said that, I don't see any method for adjusting things like sample rate and buffer settings. It's always been pretty much "plug-n-play"... But I'll go to the Presonus site and see if there is some admin software available for it there.

I did have some minor success (cutting down on the clipping) by opening Augment String's interface as a stand-alone program and bumping up Buffer size to 2048 there. (Those controls were not in the interface that pops up from withing Studio One, for some odd reason). That did cut way down on the clipping but didn't eliminate it entirely.

Just for jollies, I watched the CPU monitor and (sure enough) the clipping does seem to take place during spikes in the CPU usage, although it never seems to go higher than 80 percent... with around 40-50 percent the norm. The clipping occurs simply during spikes, even if those spikes take the CPU to only 60 percent or so.

Curiouser and curiouser.

[LBH]

Your CPU has a low base speed (frequency), but a high turbo boost speed. Not sure that's too good. I allways go for a high base frequency, but things have developed over the years, so perhaps turbo speed work better now. The problem is, that you reaaly don't know which speed it give you when using turbo, as that's depending on other things.

Many audio processes put the load on one CPU core. So only when using many processes/ perhaps ie even multiple plugins many cores is an advantage.
You can see, if you overload a single core in Windows task manager. It's possible you can't see it in the CPU percentage usage you mention.

Have you set your PC to high performance mode? You should when you work with audio.
Also shut down all background tasks and programs you don't need to run.

Set your soundcard to a samplerate of 44100 or 48000 Hz. And try to start with the buffer at 256  or perhaps 512 samples. Higher buffer settings will give far to high latency when playing, but can be used when mixing to put less load on your CPU.
I will assume your Presonus soundcards control panel has been installed when you installed Presonus ASIO driver. If you have'nt installed and use this driver, then do so.
You find downloads here: https://www.presonus.com/products/AudioBox-22VSL/downloads

In Studio One when you are in OPTIONS, and click the tab AUDIO SETUP and the tab AUDIO DEVICE, then you can see your soundcard setup.
In that Windows you also find a button named SONG SETUP. When you click that, you can set the audio setup values for the song. Please consult your Studio One manual to read more about this.
Under the PROCESSING tab instead of the AUDIO DEVICE tab, you have further settings. I'm not a fan of this system - especially when using plugins. I suggest you deselect "Enable low latency monitoring for instruments" and set the Dropout Protection to MINIMUM.
You have a Presonus soundcard, so perhaps you have some functionality for this system, but you have to read and learn about it, and also test it to find out what works best for you.

[Pariszone8]

Hi LBH

Here is just a followup to this issue and your latest forum contribution.

An upgrade (version 1.1.0.2587) to Augmented Strings was released on 5 May. I just now got around to installing it (today is 10 June). Among the various upgrades/improvements/fixes listed for this new version was a statement that "CPU consumption improvements" had been incorporated in this latest version. (They weren't specific)

Whatever they did, the clipping issue I had been having is now gone. (Yippie! ). I can now push the plugin as hard as I want and get no clipping.

So as far as I am concerned, we can consider this issue resolved.

Thanks again for your contribution. 

[LBH]

Thanks Parizone8,   

I'm glad your issue is solved with the new update. Thanks for reporting back.