Spark Issue PT10 Mac

[rindigo]

Hello

i watch blank screen in dpm

[stuey]

HI Kevin

I have just updated to Spark 1.7.2 and it's virtually unusable in PT10. I can run a 32 channel + mix with plug ins and inserts, yet cannot run a 4 track mix with Spark on an instrument channel. I'm getting severe audio drop outs and my CPU level is jumping all over the place, the second I pull the plug in from the insert, it's fine.

I have always used the Spark plug in from the Spark rtu menu in PT, there is also a spark plug in, in the Arturia folder with all the other instrument plug ins. This gives you the blank plug in window error.

I have removed any sign of Spark aax plug ins and only have the .dpm plug ins being used.

We know that PT has never really liked software instruments but is there a resolve that doesn't involve a paid upgrade

Thanks, Stuart

[stuey]

I have always set up my PT CPU's to use all of them -1, keeping that 1 CPU for the System. Host CPU usage at 99%. I think also somewhere on here Kevin M also recommends that.Now I think that with machine with 8 or more cores, it's worth lowering that further to give more CPU to the machine. In my experience, lowering from 15 to 8 and now down to 7 has really made a difference. As far as the blank screen plug in, i have no idea, I have always used the rtu option, which has always worked.

Quite why you actually *have* the option to choose a different plug in, is beyond me. Surely this could be omitted when installing Spark?

Thanks, Stuart

[Kevin]

Hi Stuey,
have you considered using Spark 2?
It is only available in AAX but it works with PT 10.3.8.

[stuey]

Spark 2 is actually worse. I haven't installed Spark 2 on my work machine (Cannot risk the potential issues )but installed a copy on my laptop (i5, 8 GB RAM, Pro Tools 10.3.7).
I actually send a tech case in (165899) as once spark was entered onto an instrument channel it just froze Pro Tools.

Are you saying that Spark 2 isn't qualified for 10.3.7?

From my below tests on my main audio machine, lowering the CPU's certainly helped the spikes but it really slows Pro Tools. The minute I remove the Spark plug in, I am able to run lots more channels. From another thread I posted, would you say the native aax support in Pro Tools 11 at 64 bit will go to improving VI support in Pro Tools?

Thanks, Stuart 

[Kevin]

Spark 2 is actually worse. I haven't installed Spark 2 on my work machine (Cannot risk the potential issues )but installed a copy on my laptop (i5, 8 GB RAM, Pro Tools 10.3.7).
I actually send a tech case in (165899) as once spark was entered onto an instrument channel it just froze Pro Tools.

I will have a look at this.

Are you saying that Spark 2 isn't qualified for 10.3.7?

Spark 2 is tested and supported on 10.3.8.
I am not sure 10.3.7 is supporting AAX plugin.

From my below tests on my main audio machine, lowering the CPU's certainly helped the spikes but it really slows Pro Tools. The minute I remove the Spark plug in, I am able to run lots more channels. From another thread I posted, would you say the native aax support in Pro Tools 11 at 64 bit will go to improving VI support in Pro Tools?

Thanks, Stuart

AAX is definitely more robust and better than RTAS so I would say yes

[stuey]

Spark 2 is tested and supported on 10.3.8.
I am not sure 10.3.7 is supporting AAX plugin.

It should do, not natively at 64bit. Pro Tools 11 will do that, but it should support AAX as the .7 release does. Certainly both .7 and .8 runs Spark 1.7.2 ok.

AAX is definitely more robust and better than RTAS so I would say yes

Hmm You see since version 1.x I've heard that it will better in the next version of the plug in. It's fine for me to upgrade Spark as I've paid for the upgrades. PT 11 is a £200 upgrade that might see me in the same position as I am now. I don't need Pro Tools 11 at all for any other reason. My sole upgrade path would be to support AAX for the arturia set of plugs. Are you willing to say for certain that this will cure the poor performance of the RTAS suite of Arturia plug ins?

If I upgrade and i'm in the same position, who foots the Pro Tools cost?

Stuart 

[Kevin]

As you said PT is very temperamental with VI and Spark is a very big/complicated one.

If 10.3.7 support AAX 32 bit it should work with Spark 2 but I'll advise you to update to 10.3.8 (if it's free).

It's true that we have less problem with AAX than with RTAS but I won't tell you to buy the upgrade to PT11 if you do not need it.

[stuey]

As you said PT is very temperamental with VI and Spark is a very big/complicated one.

That said, my other VI's work very well. Spark seems to be the only one that spikes the CPU in that way. Even other drum machines and things like Kontact player work fine, they are huge!

Stu

[Demozic]

Hi

I also have troubles with V1.7.2 and Pro Tools 10.
I'm running both PT10.3.8 and 11.1.2 with OSX.8.5

AAX is definitely more robust and better than RTAS so I would say yes

Maybe, but there is compatibilty issues when you swap between PT10 and PT11 (see below).

i work flawless with v-collection
i remove dpm from plugin folder and all synth work very good with aax

only spark have trouble
aax have empty window
if i insert rtu(dpm) i see spark but its no sound and etc

Exactly the same here.

EDIT : except that for me, the RTAS (= .dpm) version of Spark works.
But I used to experience the same issue
(I get it sorted by removing plug-ins from the plug ins folder, but don't remind the correct process)

But want to add :

And the issue I have is :
1/ Spark (rtu) instances created with PT10 (RTAS) won't open in PT11 (plugin not recognized, even with Spark AAX installed)
2/ Spark instances created with PT11 won't open in PT10 (not recognized plugin, even with Spark RTAS installed)

This is really a big issue. Most work done with PT10 must be redone with PT11. I get it sorted by using load/save Projects feature but it is real pain.

@ stuey
About CPU Spikes, I cannot actually tell if it is better between PT10 and PT11 as I can hardly exchange sessions between both (must save projects and change the instance). But due to the issue above, I wouldn't recommand to ugrade to PT11 just for Spark compatibilty (especially if you created tons of sessions with Spark inside).

I agree with Kevin. Try updating PT to 10.3.8 (I didn't try 10.3.9). I notice better performances with 10.3.8 (not that much and not especially with Spark but, globally better). Even if PT11 run smoother.

Also I use 4 or 6 cores ( out of 8 ) @85%. If you processor is a core i7 (which support hyperthreading), I would set CPU by pairs (2, 4, 6 or 8 cores) and prevent from using odd values (1, 3, 5, 7). PT is seeing virtual cores (=threads) with such CPUs ( actual nb of cores is 4 out of 8 ).

@Kevin
- Why not AAX version support both AAX32 & 64 bits like other Arturia Plug-ins ?
-> If Spark AAX is only a 64bits plug-in, PT10 shouldn't see it.
-> The pb is, in fact, Spark RTAS and Spark AAX are like 2 different plugins : "Arturia/Spark" (as AAX) " and "Arturia rtu/Spark" as RTAS.

- There is also a lot of mess regarding folder structure. Arturia is the one of the 2 lonely plug-ins editors (with Ohmforce) that is putting some application folder directly inside :
[System HDD]/Library/

instead of :
[System HDD]/Library/Application Support/
or
[User]/Library/Application Support/

I have different Arturia folders inside
[System HDD]/Library/Arturia/ contains "/Spark", "/Analog Lab" and "/Oberheim SEM V" folders
[System HDD]/Library/Application Support/Arturia/ contains only "/Jupiter-8V2"

I wonder why all those files are spread accross the folder structure like this, and if it is not a source of issue.

Computer :
MacMini Core i7 (2012) 4 cores / 8 threads
OS : Mac OSX.8.5
PT10.3.8 / PT11.1.2
Spark 1.7.2 + VCollection 2.5.x + Analog lab 1.1

EDIT : correction of unwanted smilies

[stuey]

Hi, sorry lots of quoting here

Exactly the same here.

EDIT : except that for me, the RTAS (= .dpm) version of Spark works.

Yes, same here. There's essentially a bug in the software, Kevin noted this down on another thread I can't find right now. Basically it installs both RTAS and AAX. The rtu is purely RTAS and not AAX. With newer versions of Spark, it installs the rtu but is not needed. PT 10 will open the AAX version but won't work in true 64 bit as AAX is intended to. The AAX can be found under the normal spark menu (with the V collection etc)

PS. I would generally deactivate the Spark plug in when saving, that is, only if I intend to open a session elsewhere where they might have PT11.

@ stuey
About CPU Spikes, I cannot actually tell if it is better between PT10 and PT11 as I can hardly exchange sessions between both (must save projects and change the instance). But due to the issue above, I wouldn't recommand to ugrade to PT11 just for Spark compatibilty (especially if you created tons of sessions with Spark inside).

I agree with Kevin. Try updating PT to 10.3.8 (I didn't try 10.3.9). I notice better performances with 10.3.8 (not that much and not especially with Spark but, globally better). Even if PT11 run smoother.

Thanks Demozic.

I've had the same issues since version Spark 1.5, and we know that PT isn't too hot with VI's, but i've done extensive testing with spark. I started using it in PT 9 and it has always worked better when lowering the amount of cores available to PT's. That's across all versions of Pro Tools and Spark. When using Spark with the optimum pro tools set up (All CPU's -1 set to 99%) It just freezes and dies. All other Pro Tools VI's and other plug ins work very well like this. Admittedly I am only using UAD 2 plugs via UAD Duo, but still, CPU is generally very good without the introduction of Spark. Once Spark is introduced to a session, it's then I have to start moving things around, changing delay compensation changing H/W buffer and Host processors. This is consistent from version 1.5 up to version 1.7.2



I'm on 10.3.7 on my laptop and 10.3.8. on my main machine. Spark 2 may have been tested on 10.3.8 but I can't image that it was ever tested on 10.3.9 as that wasn't released when they must have been tested Spark 2.

So that said, updating to 10.3.9 is a very minor fix and I don't see that changing a single thing.

Also I use 4 or 6 cores ( out of 8 ) @85%. If you processor is a core i7 (which support hyperthreading), I would set CPU by pairs (2, 4, 6 or 8 cores) and prevent from using odd values (1, 3, 5, 7). PT is seeing virtual cores (=threads) with such CPUs ( actual nb of cores is 4 out of 8 ).

I dont; tend to do a great deal on my i5 laptop 2 Core 2.4Ghz. I have 4 CPU's in PT's but don't tend to bother changing around as i'm never doing that much heavy lifting on the laptop.

On my main machine I do, as mentioned above I tend to use 15 out of 16 CPU's at 99%. Using that same method, halving the amount, minus 1 (7 cores at 99%) seems to work well. I have tried other ways, like using pairs. So I started at 14, then 12, 10 etc. I didn't see that much difference until I got to about 10, so stuck with my original idea of using half the cores.

Hope that made sense

Stu

[Demozic]

PT 11 will open the AAX version but won't work in true 64 bit as AAX is intended to. The AAX can be found under the normal spark menu (with the V collection etc)

Spark AAX works with PT11. The issue is that it can't manage to open session created with PT10.
Other old session with RTAS plugs open fine in PT11 as far as the equivalent AAX plug is there (including Arturia V Collection).

But it is not the case with Spark. So I wanted to warn you...

So that said, updating to 10.3.9 is a very minor fix and I don't see that changing a single thing.

I agree. I don't think 10.3.9 would change anything. I thought you were working with 10.3.7. I saw some good bugfixes with 10.3.8 (over 10.3.6) but skipped 10.3.7 and would certainly skip 10.3.9 also.

Hope that made sense

Yes it does.
To be honest using pairs of core is more an "idea" than a true scientific rule.

Modern CPUs are using hyperthreading -> meaning a 8 core (physically) CPU is shown as a 16 core (virtual) by OS and applications. But I actually don't know which core is virtual and which one is a real one (and their correct order) inside PT :

Hypothesis 1/
( 1 physical core + 1 virtual core ) + ( 1 physical core + 1 virtual core ) + ( 1 physical core + 1 virtual core )  etc..
-> using pairs of core would make sense because using 1 or 2 following cores would still use 1 entire physical core
or
Hypothesis 2/
8 first cores are physical) then 8 last cores are virtual
-> then using half cores makes more sense (especially if PT10 doesn't deal well with hyperthreading (and I am pretty sure it doesn't))

On the other hand, the (ALL - 1) core was ruled when we had multi-CPU or multi-core without hyperthreading (G5, Core2duo, Core2quad, older Xeon) to let 1 free core for the OS.

But in my experience (I had different CPU bi-G4, bi-G5, Core2duo, Core i7), it really depends on the generation of CPU, no absolute rule. Must perform some test and choose the 2 best settings : one with a low buffer setting (<128 samples, for tracking/composing), and another one with comfortable buffer setting (512 samples or more, for mixing).

[stuey]

Spark AAX works with PT11. The issue is that it can't manage to open session created with PT10.
Other old session with RTAS plugs open fine in PT11 as far as the equivalent AAX plug is there (including Arturia V Collection).

But it is not the case with Spark. So I wanted to warn you...

Maybe the problem is that it's a completely different plug in, whereas it's a patch for the other arturia plugs.

I also believe that there's an install error in the install package of spark which doesn't remove the RTAS plug in. So if you upgrade to version 2 from 1.7.2 or below, it would still remain the . Brand new installs would't have the legacy plug in, in place.

The install paths of system prefs and presets are a real mess. I've had to dig around all over the place to find what i needed to have two systems look and feel the same.

 

Thanks for the info

[Kevin]

Hi guys,
thanks for your report about PT10/11 compatibility.
I really do not know why sessions created with PT10 are not working with PT11.
I have to investigate this. I will try to find some time in the upcoming days.

Kevin

[Demozic]

Hi Kevin,

Thanks about investigating on this one.
Just for information, I submitted a support ticket about this (Case 167466, in French).