Digital Plugins and Aliasing

My specialty! 😂😂

After reading Dan's posts and going back to what Fabien from TDR had been saying about high rates, I just converted all my 88/96 stuff to 44k and used Metaplugin to upsample stuff like Hornet tape. When I originally switched to 88/96 almost 5 years ago, I was using very different stuff. I hadn't been able to buy the Cranesong stuff and a lot of what I use now didn't exist. So my 44k plus upsampling mixes and masters sound better than what I did at 88/96. Plus I barely break 50% on my cpu now. I've been running a Ryzen 1700. It's barely overclocked, set to 3.2. At 88/96 I needed it set to at least 3.7. Supposedly UAD doesn't even save cpu resources anymore. This guy Undertow over at GS was explaining how the extra stuff the computer has to do to communicate with the satellite or whatever ended up being less effective than just getting a better cpu. Kinda makes sense because when I first got my Octo, my sessions would run out of cpu even though less native plugins were enabled. Doesn't really matter much now. You could probably get by with something like a Ryzen 1600 easily. Overclocking them is simple to do and you can use the included Wraith Spire. For the RAM, I just have a 3000 speed with 8 gigs. X-Amp was off and paging file set to auto. The computer slowed to a crawl following MixxBusTV's advice on that stuff, but he was running an Intel 9900k I believe. So I'd say try it without overclocking and then if you do overclock, just change the cpu speed a little and don't mess with the RAM stuff beyond setting it to the stock speed. At least for these original Ryzen chips. My board is B350 gaming pro. I'm sure the newer stuff is a lot more advanced and perhaps even more flexible.

@ viciousbliss not following your comment about UA not saving cpu, as ua runs and does their oversampling on its own chips, how can it not save computer cpu?

How is 96k a problem today, when computers have been powerful enough for 100 track for 20 years? Have we regressed? Nebula plugins?

I wonder if it’s the vi? I ran 96 in logic, with UA plugs and others on a 2012 mbp i7 typically without problems other than when my hard drives got full,’: 2 internal ssd snd 16g ram ?

I made some improvements to my default template. I reduced the amount of un used plugins, channels. Also turned off all drum mixing plugins until they are actually needed.

Also started freezing instruments when the performance is done. It's a trivial thing to do, that I needed to learn. It made me be able to run a session at 64 buffer rather than 4096 buffer, big difference.

Still not running at 96K, still haven't figured out how to implement system-wide oversampling although some of my plugins do oversample already.

I can't even imagine worrying about that stuff. Who has time for all that.

I tried the MetaPlugin thing today and it didn't work for me. Too much extra complication, can't even save presets, or create organized plugin folders, which is a big time waste. I know everyone has a different workflow. I'm honing mine in right now, seems like I'll stay at 48K given how I usually work. Maybe 96K for the occasional project that 'needs' it.

I work a lot at very low buffer settings, for virtual instrument monitoring, so that's probably part of why I'm reporting a lot of high CPU meters.  Some of my main plugins are super heavy too, like Elevate, so that's another part of it.  Regarding what I've been reporting about my sessions.

Much bigger problems are sidechain aliasing leading to ineffective, oft random processing and oversampling with minimum phase filters. The former sounds stupid most of the time and results in poor dynamic control. The latter causes well over a thousand degrees of phase shift in the treble and wrecks guitars, cymbals, and space. This is the same thing that happens in bad converters, eg Alesis Adat, Focusrites, some Behringers. This kills the effectiveness of many otherwise great plugins from Overloud and Noise Ash simply because you can’t use them in many cases without harmful phase shift.

Audible Harmonic aliasing is easy to avoid. Gainstage! Rip out bad plugins. Stop putting Decapitator in every track. Use a milder distortion plug like the Fuse ones, Klanghelm SDRR 2, Shattered Glass, UAD 2, or even the PSP Infinistrip pres gainstaged right. Even Waves hit lightly is okay.

Exacto. Look at what Variety of Sound did ten years ago with x86 assembly and synth edit and now consider that there are less advanced plugs than his coming out today from big brands.

Overloud is the Simulanalog guy and he still crams more into no CPU use plugs than anybody. The same with PSP and PSP doesn’t use bad oversampling or 32-bit rounding in their plugs. Overloud looks incompetent in their fx coding practices compared to them.

Or the Softube Weiss EQs vs Sonnox Oxford. What the hell? One is legendary, the other has a heavy GUI and some rounding.

Sonnox (Sony Oxford Dynamics) and Waves (Renaissance and L1) had effective digital dynamics and peak limiting in the 90s! They had high imd but the worked! The compressors couldn’t peak limit but the workflow worked and the coding was great. The spent hundreds of thousands to millions in r&d with the best audio coders around. Compare that to most of what comes out now and the current stuff is a slapped together joke. Most of the current Waves plugs (with some exceptions like the sick RS124) can’t hang with their late 90s output.

Oh and the tape plugs all suck except for the two guys who build mathematical models of tape machines almost a decade ago, including programming the high frequency bias oscillators. U-he Satin and the UAD Ampex ATR 102 are still unmatched. When they came out, they are computers and DSP chips alive. Satin has no competitors for it’s flexibility. They both have to run at 352 or 384 kHz. Nobody else has even bothered since and the sound is proof. Yes you need to read the Satin manual or know how to calibrate a tape deck to use it without presets but it’s worth it.

Then we have ridiculous bullshit like the Pulsar compressor plugs where the behavior on 1x oversampling sucks so bad they put in a lookahead, the distortion sounds cheap, and the cpu use is insane if you enable oversampling to make the behavior better. Compare them and Acoustica ir plugs to the Tokyo Dawn compressors and they just can’t hang.