# DAW Performance Test Results



## Dewdman42 (Jun 2, 2019)

I wanted to post these test results for everyone's FYI and any further discussion which might come out of it.

The main purpose of this test was to take a real world orchestra mockup and play it using several different DAW's, both with and without VEP7, to compare them to each other, and also to see the impact of using VEP together with a DAW in terms of performance.

_UPDATE: Cubase 10.1.30 drastically improved performance on the mac, see new results here now._

















Full Spreadsheet here: 

*Procedure*


90 track score from VSL's website was used as test project. This contains 90 tracks of ViPro, with MirPro on each track and Miracle reverb on the master bus.
The same 90 track score was used in all cases, and every attempt made to optimize each DAW to similar optimized settings
Audio Buffer of 1024 used in all cases.
Score was played through same section of score, for 3 minutes, sampling the average CPU % every 3 seconds, using following command line, started at same point of score playback:

```
iostat -w 3 -I -c 60
```


*Summary*

Most of the tested situations averaged around 35% cpu usage over the test. In the graph above you can see a cluster of graph lines, some slightly better or worse then others, but all reasonably close and acceptable in performance, both with and without VEP. DP was the worst performer, but only slightly; LPX performed significantly better then everything else with and without VEP, but especially with the new AU3 version of the VEP plugin. In general, everything performed _slightly_ better with VEP than without, except for DP9 which performed better alone, probably related to pregen feature. (_See below_)


LogicPro alone: *25%* average cpu usage.
LogicPro+VEP-AU3: 2*4%* average cpu, this is the clear winner in terms of CPU usage!
StudioOne+VEP *33%* average cpu usage
StudioOne alone: *35%* average cpu
Cubase+VEP: *33%* average cpu usage.
Cubase10 alone: *34% *average cpu usage
DP9+VEP: *38%* avg cpu
DP9 alone: *35% *average cpu. Audio buffer at 2048. _Also tried DP10 which performed 5% worse then DP9 and the GUI as extremely laggy compared to DP9, so there is that._
Reaper5+VEP: *35%* avg cpu
Reaper Alone: *33%* avg cpu

*System Specs*


MacPro 5,1 12 cores x 3.33ghz, 128gb ram, OSX 10.14.5 (Mojave), RX580 video
LogicPro 10.4.4
Cubase 10.0.30
Studio One 4.5.1
DP 9.52
Reaper 5.978
VEP 7.0.826
Audio Buffer at 1024
*Future Tests*

Here are some additional tests that would be interesting to do

How many tracks can be added before it starts dropping out audio, at various buffer sizes.
All of the above at lower audio buffer sizes
A test using generic instruments so that everyone can try the same test on their DAW, instead of using a real world cue, try to max out the max number of tracks in each case to see how big each DAW scenario can go before running out of steam with dropouts.
How low latency can each scenario go before getting drop outs


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## tabulius (Jun 2, 2019)

Thanks for sharing! I found it surprising that Studio One beats Cubase. On my Windows machine Cubase 10 wins Studio One 3.5 in CPU performance. I had serious audio dropouts with S1 but the same project was fine on Cubase. And in your testing Cubase couldn't handle a project that Studio One ran in 35% average CPU. Interesting.

My specs: i7 6600K, 64Gb ram.


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## samphony (Jun 2, 2019)

@Dewdman42 

Which Kontakt settings (multiprocessor etc) and Version was used? 

Did you use AU or VST versions in Studio One?


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## Victor N. (Jun 2, 2019)

i am not surprised to see a program perform better on a windows system than on a mac. i have seen that happen many times before. in fact, the entire pc game industry avoids the mac platform for example. but as a mac user i think the platform is not well understood. i could be wrong though. i am no expert in real time audio and graphics programming.

would love to see these benchmarks on a windows machine.


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## MatFluor (Jun 2, 2019)

Would also be interesting to throw Reaper in the mix, since it's known for being CPU efficient


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## Dewdman42 (Jun 2, 2019)

I started to do reaper but it was too hard and painful to use so sorry it probably won’t happen.

I hear that cubase runs better on a pc then Mac but I am not equipped to test that, I leave it to someone else. Cubase is by far the worst on my Mac


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## Dewdman42 (Jun 2, 2019)

samphony said:


> @Dewdman42
> 
> Which Kontakt settings (multiprocessor etc) and Version was used?
> 
> Did you use AU or VST versions in Studio One?



I did not use kontakt

I was using vst on s1, vst3 for vep


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## Geoff Grace (Jun 2, 2019)

I've been on the fence about crossgrading to Cubase before the sale ends tomorrow. As a Mac user, your tests are a pretty compelling reason for me to not take the plunge. Thanks for posting your results, @Dewdman42. 

I am curious as to how Pro Tools 2019 compares, especially as it now supports Mojave. 

Best,

Geoff


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## samphony (Jun 2, 2019)

The problem with vst is that it is always processing and consuming cpu cycles. AU in Logic is implemented to not consume cpu cycles if there is no midi under the playhead or the DAW is idle. Kind of a dynamic plugin processing. Vst3 has a similar feature set but the developers have to enable it in their DAW. As far as I know presonus hasn’t enabled that feature set for vst3 nor au in studio one. 

That is my understanding so far and that might be why logic performs better when hosting au Plugins inside Logic.


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## benatural (Jun 2, 2019)

Good test and good work! Thank you! I have many questions...

How much ram was being used by the instruments?
What interface were you using?
What kind of hard drives were the libraries on? How were they connected to the system?
How many VEP instances were active? Connected?
How many VEP audio channels per instance? MIDI ports?
How many cores per instance of VEP?
Multi-core processing on in Kontakt if you use it?
Multi-core processing on in each DAW?
How many VEP buffers per instance?
VEP on the same system or a slave?
Were the DAW sessions exactly 90 tracks each?
How dense was the MIDI activity?
What libraries?
So many variables involved, it's hard to know where to start, trying to wrap my head around these results.


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## charlieclouser (Jun 2, 2019)

Also I think Logic is able to do some sort of pre-processing, almost like an invisible-to-the-user freeze function, so that tracks / instruments that are not record-enabled are being calculated when the transport is stopped, so that when playback begins the cpu is just spooling a pre-rendered file instead of calculating the instrument + plugins in real time.

Not sure if that is still a part of Logic's audio architecture, but for sure the "dual buffer" thing is, where Logic calculates all non-record-enabled tracks at some obscenely huge buffer while all record-enabled tracks are calculated at the actual buffer size you've set in Preferences - and stuffed onto that last cpu core as well. So, some pros and some cons with that approach.

But I am always amazed at how efficient Logic is. My biggest sessions that use only EXS and audio can have hundreds of instruments hammering away at 16th notes and they play equally well on my 12-core cylinder and on my 2012 quad-core laptop, rarely going above 50% cpu.


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## MatFluor (Jun 2, 2019)

Dewdman42 said:


> I started to do reaper but it was too hard and painful to use so sorry it probably won’t happen.
> 
> I hear that cubase runs better on a pc then Mac but I am not equipped to test that, I leave it to someone else. Cubase is by far the worst on my Mac



Alright - I find Reaper quite easy to set up and painless in many aspects. If you still want to do Reaper, just hit me up and maybe I can help you, since I use Reaper+VEP daily


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## Dewdman42 (Jun 2, 2019)

MatFluor said:


> Alright - I find Reaper quite easy to set up and painless in many aspects. If you still want to do Reaper, just hit me up and maybe I can help you, since I use Reaper+VEP daily



Might hit you up at some point because I am curious also. Won’t have time this week


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## José Herring (Jun 2, 2019)

tabulius said:


> Thanks for sharing! I found it surprising that Studio One beats Cubase. On my Windows machine Cubase 10 wins Studio One 3.5 in CPU performance. I had serious audio dropouts with S1 but the same project was fine on Cubase. And in your testing Cubase couldn't handle a project that Studio One ran in 35% average CPU. Interesting.
> 
> My specs: i7 6600K, 64Gb ram.


In the past and I don't know if it is still true, Cubase does better on PC than on Mac.


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## Geoff Grace (Jun 3, 2019)

josejherring said:


> In the past and I don't know if it is still true, Cubase does better on PC than on Mac.


It's probably far better today than it was during the Cubase SX days, but the evidence here seems to indicate that there's still some work to do.

Best,

Geoff


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## garyhiebner (Jun 3, 2019)

tabulius said:


> Thanks for sharing! I found it surprising that Studio One beats Cubase. On my Windows machine Cubase 10 wins Studio One 3.5 in CPU performance. I had serious audio dropouts with S1 but the same project was fine on Cubase. And in your testing Cubase couldn't handle a project that Studio One ran in 35% average CPU. Interesting.
> 
> My specs: i7 6600K, 64Gb ram.



Studio One is a bit of a CPU hog on Windows compared to it running on Mac.


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## JohnG (Jun 3, 2019)

Interesting comparison. Thanks!


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## MarcusD (Jun 3, 2019)

If only we had all these on Linux...


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## EgM (Jun 3, 2019)

Glad to see Studio One doing well, switched from Cubase Pro 9.5 a while ago for a game I'm working on and I've been pleasantly surprised.


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## Dewdman42 (Jun 3, 2019)

I bought S1 about a week ago, through classifieds, got a good deal. I wasn't expecting to be as impressed with it as I am. I'm quite impressed with many aspects of it, including performance, but also workflow. I feel drawn towards using it and learning it. The devs are very responsive and are working really hard on it, it has a very bright future. One thing that stood out...S1 was able to use the VST3 version of the VEP plugin, which means it easily handled multiport to a single VEP instance, much like Cubase and DP can (and Logic can't without hacks and work arounds).


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## EgM (Jun 3, 2019)

Dewdman42 said:


> I bought S1 about a week ago, through classifieds, got a good deal. I wasn't expecting to be as impressed with it as I am. I'm quite impressed with many aspects of it, including performance, but also workflow. I feel drawn towards using it and learning it. The devs are very responsive and are working really hard on it, it has a very bright future. One thing that stood out...S1 was able too use the VST3 version of the VEP plugin, which means it easily handled multiport to a single VEP instance, much like Cubase and DP can (and Logic can't without hacks and work arounds).



Yeah, lots happened since the 4.x release. The fast workflow alone made me sacrifice Cubase's advanced MIDI editing. Would've probably stayed in Cubase if it had the ability to focus VSTis to screen when you change tracks like Logic and Studio One does.

Cubase Pro 9.5 worked perfectly for me in terms of speed and stability, but the windows scattered everywhere, jittery display speed and subpar mixer was too much for me.


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## Dewdman42 (Jun 3, 2019)

benatural said:


> Good test and good work! Thank you! I have many questions...



Will address some of your questions, but not all as some are irrelevant and distracting from the actual test. The point of the test was simply to compare a real world performance between several DAW's, attempting as much as possible to keep the test equal. Other tricks to increase performance or analyze specific aspects of performance such as particular sound cards, etc..are a test for another day.



> How many VEP instances were active? Connected?



One VEP instance in all cases. Note that for LogicPro I had to use my multiport macro templates in order to accomplish that. And notably, it performed very well.



> How many VEP audio channels per instance? MIDI ports?



One VEP instance in all cases, it used 8 midi ports. There were 90 channels. I can share some project files if people are interested, but because I used all VSL instruments, it will not be interesting for the vast majority of people. A better test would be to use freely available instruments of some kind in a methodical test that anybody can run on any system, but unfortunately I don't have that as of this time. But anyone else could use the same approach I used and try such a thing and I look forward to seeing the results!



> How many cores per instance of VEP?



On my 12 core system I had VEP configured for 18 threads per instance, with a single VEP instance. Could have probably set it to 20, but main point was consistency between each DAW..they all used the same configuration of one instance and 18 threads per instance in VEP.



> How many VEP buffers per instance?



The VEP buffer setting in the plugin only effects live operation, it does not effect playback. In any case I had it set to either 1 or 2, can't remember now, but it was the same for all tests.



> VEP on the same system or a slave?



Same system



> Were the DAW sessions exactly 90 tracks each?



yes exactly same midi tracks were used. The specific project I used is the E.T. score mockup that is available for free download from VSL's website. You need a lot of VSL products to use it though. In all cases, its 90 tracks of midi, feeding 91 instruments (the apassionata and orchestral basses are actually doubled from the same midi track). Each channel goes into MirPro and there is an instance of Miracle on the master bus, Also room tone added. Kind of a typical setup. Its the same configuration in each DAW, same configuration when hosted with or without VEP, the only difference between that without VEP, the DAW is hosting 91 ViPro instruments with MirPro and miracle rather then having those hosted in VEP. 

As I said, the point was to have a consistent scenario between each DAW in order to compare them all essentially playing the same thing.

A perhaps more universal version of this test would be to use some freely available instruments and plugins and build up something that just throws a long stream of 16th notes or 32nd notes or something that will impact the CPU in a manner similar as a real project would do..then create that project on each DAW with and without VEP and measure it the way I did. Then everyone could run that on their system at home to compare one DAW to another, but of course...my results can't be compared to your results. we have different hardware. I can only compare my own results against my own results of different DAW's...and other people would need to do the same thing to have meaningful analysis.


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## rgames (Jun 3, 2019)

Interesting. But 1024 is a pretty large buffer - what VI Pro buffer did you have? Assuming it's 1 buffer then your total latency is 2048, which is really large for modern hardware. I'm also assuming you're running at 44.1 or 48 kHz (maybe you said...).

I bet if you tested down to buffers where you start getting dropouts that you'd see different results. What you showed is that except for Cubase w/o VE Pro, all the DAWs can run the project just fine at 1024 buffer.

But which ones can run at 96? Which at 128? Etc. I think that's a more useful measurement.

rgames


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## Nick Batzdorf (Jun 3, 2019)

The most important takeaway is that every one of them was able to play the sequence without hurting anyone.


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## A.G (Jun 3, 2019)

Dewdman42 tests are based on a Mac OS X system - thanks for your time D42!

The same test could be totally different on a PC Windows system. In any case it is a hardware specific (partly audio interface, driver etc).


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## VinRice (Jun 3, 2019)

Write in Cubase, mix in Logic. Works for me.


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## Dewdman42 (Jun 3, 2019)

rgames said:


> Interesting. But 1024 is a pretty large buffer - what VI Pro buffer did you have? Assuming it's 1 buffer then your total latency is 2048, which is really large for modern hardware. I'm also assuming you're running at 44.1 or 48 kHz (maybe you said...).
> 
> I bet if you tested down to buffers where you start getting dropouts that you'd see different results. What you showed is that except for Cubase w/o VE Pro, all the DAWs can run the project just fine at 1024 buffer.
> 
> ...



The point of the test was not to see what my macpro was capable of in low latency, that would be another interesting test. The point was to compare the daws to each other with and without vep. 1024 is a good size to use for mixdown of many tracks. You don’t need low latency for that. Anyway vep tends to impose more latency during playback UNLESS you have a track in live mode. Cubase couldn’t even play it at 1024 much less a smaller buffer.

I encourage you to run your own tests at low latency and please share the results.

Testing for ultra low latency brings many other factors into play about which soundcard you’re using and the hardware you are running on, while somewhat fun to find out what your machine is capable of it doesn’t really give us any information that would be useful to everyone. Everyone’s specific setup would be different. I suspect however that the relative performance of each daw compared to the others would probably be about the same as above, but with some hardware you might be able to go lower latency then others with modest cpu, but the comparison between daws would probably be very similar as above.


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## Dewdman42 (Jun 3, 2019)

VinRice said:


> Write in Cubase, mix in Logic. Works for me.



Or maybe mix in protools. But it’s not as much to write for orch if you can’t hear all the tracks playing back. I think vep is absolutely essential for using cubase on a Mac with large track counts (more then 50)


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## Nick Batzdorf (Jun 3, 2019)

Dewdman42 said:


> But it’s hard to write for orch if you can’t hear all the tracks playing back



We're so spoiled!

There was a time when it was considered wimpy even to use pencil on a score rather than pen, and forget about playing the music on the piano first to hear it. People scoffed at Vangelis - a professor of mine called him Vaginus - for recording the parts to Chariots of Fire directly onto tape one track at a time. Anyone could do *that*!

On one hand, I don't miss staying up all night to copy parts for a session; on the other hand, there's nothing like hearing your music the first time played by real musicians.


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## VinRice (Jun 3, 2019)

I've just finished a 5 minute cue in Cubase 10 with 53 active tracks and 500 additional unloaded kontakt instances. It played back fine and saved very quickly. It would not however Quit after a save, nor would it do a multitrack bounce. I simply did a bounce-in-place for all the tracks and dragged the files into Logic for mixing. I wouldn't dream of mixing in Cubase, there's no way it would stand up. 

I found the medium (default) ASIO guard setting is the best - both low and high settings (strangely) would bring it to its knees. I've noticed that opening 3rd Party plug-in user interfaces or indeed Kontakt can start the CPU spike death spiral on occasion. I'll force quit and re-open on a fairly regular basis and that seems to keep thing tickety-boo. 

Obviously this is not an optimal situation but it's workable for the time being and I'm not on a particularly powerful machine (2014 4GHz 32gig Quad iMac running High Sierra). I'm sure things will improve with a machine update. I love the writing workflow in Cubase and the mixing efficiency of Logic.


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## rgames (Jun 3, 2019)

Dewdman42 said:


> The point was to compare the daws to each other with and without vep.


Yes, but the results shows that there's no difference. They all work. Running an orchestral mockup at 1024 buffer is not an issue these days (as you've shown). So, where are the differences? I think they're in low latency performance, particularly on Macs.

It's like testing to see if watching Game of Thrones causes cancer. I presume the test would show that watching Game of Thrones makes no difference on whether people get cancer.

Therefore the more useful question is: what causes cancer?

rgames


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## Dewdman42 (Jun 3, 2019)

except Cubase performance was extremely poor with VEP and incapable of even completing the test without VEP at one extreme....and LogicPro performed 10% better without VEP and better then everything else; at the other extreme.

Otherwise, i agree....they were mostly all clustered in the middle with similar performance with and without VEP. StudioOne was slightly better then LogicPro which was slightly better the DP when used together with VEP, but not enough to be concerned about. Cubase performance was horrible at best and LPX alone was exemplary.

low latency performance is a hardware concern.


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## Dewdman42 (Jun 3, 2019)

and by all means, if you would like to run tests across different DAW's at lower buffer settings I would be interested in seeing the results, but I have done enough testing for this year...


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## Geoff Grace (Jun 4, 2019)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> We're so spoiled!
> 
> There was a time when it was considered wimpy even to use pencil on a score rather than pen, and forget about playing the music on the piano first to hear it. People scoffed at Vangelis - a professor of mine called him Vaginus - for recording the parts to Chariots of Fire directly onto tape one track at a time. Anyone could do *that*!
> 
> On one hand, I don't miss staying up all night to copy parts for a session; on the other hand, there's nothing like hearing your music the first time played by real musicians.


I remember those days well, *Nick*. Don't forget about transposing parts for each instrument in the proper clefs, and keeping the concert pitches straight while reading and writing the individual parts and conductor's scores. After centuries of that time-honored approach, we were probably the last generation to do it that way. (Well, maybe a few Gen Xers too.)

How quickly we go from being youthful agents of change to the last of a dying breed...

*Sigh*

What were we talking about again? 

Best,

Geoff


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## rlw (Jun 4, 2019)

I’ve just decided to purchase Cubase 2 days ago. My frustration with having to work around live mode in Logic breaks my workflow so badly. I do large orchestra, 166 tracks including aux with VEP. I use spitfire orch with the extended mics and use about 115 gigs of my memory plus 58gig on a PC slave. All my expression, modulation, vibrato etc are done after I lay down my tracks. Sometimes the performance gets so bad that I must draw in my parts. I have a 10 core iMac pro with 128 gigs of ram and a PC 6700 slave with 64 gigs. My templates have one track to a separate Vep session with 4 to 5 kontakt instances and I use Artz Switching for articulations. I have to select a track to get midi window focused on part. Then decouple midi window, then select a muted audio track. So that I can play and edit the CCs properly. My work flow is horrible. I could help my Cpu if I didn't use the extended mics with the Spitfire Orchestra but I love the sound I can architect with the 8 mics. But to have all the articulations available with 8 mics available not only eats up memory but Cpu when I have extensive CC automation. If logic only had a switch to cut off live mode I would be able to make my workflow work. I am very happy with the sound but workflow is horrible for me. Trying to see if my work will improve with Cubase.


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## JohnG (Jun 4, 2019)

rlw said:


> I use spitfire orch with the extended mics



That must sound awesome.

Maybe a couple more PC satellite computers? I'm down to three, but it helps a lot. Raises complexity in other ways of course.

Mixing on, and monitoring through, a separate PT Mac also helps since the DAW computer isn't suddenly taxed with mixing and recording tasks on top of everything else.


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## rlw (Jun 4, 2019)

Question.. If I redesigned my template so as to reduce the number of VEP sessions by increasing the number if ports in VEP, does anyone know if I would reduce my Cpu pressure? For instance, I was considering putting all my Strgs in one session by increasing the ports in VEP to house maybe 40 plus kontakt sessions. Would that increase performance


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## A.G (Jun 4, 2019)

Cubase needs a good graphic acceleration and a proper graphic card driver, otherwise it may take more resources for graphics than audio mixing, arrangements etc. Most of the Mac applications need a good QE (Quartz Extreme) acceleration (this is called OpenGL in PC machines). One of the major reasons that Cubase does not runs well on Mac is the GPU.

There are very good PC machines with powerful multi-core GPU which can run Cubase with tons of resources. For example, I own two MSI gaming laptops 17'', which came with very good NVIDIA cards which can be replaced like in the desktops. Cubase Pro ran perfectly with the factory GPUs. Later I replaced the laptop cards with NVIDIA Quadro (CUDA) which totally improved the Cubase performance.

It is known that a few PC Pro Video apps offer an extra CUDA rendering option. If your machine is equipped with a good CUDA GPU then the Video rendering is many times faster than the default CPU rendering option.


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## rlw (Jun 4, 2019)

A.G said:


> Cubase needs a good graphic acceleration and a proper graphic card driver, otherwise it may take more resources for graphics than audio mixing, arrangements etc. Most of the Mac applications need a good QE (Quartz Extreme) acceleration (this is called OpenGL in PC machines). One of the major reasons that Cubase does not runs well on Mac is the GPU.
> 
> There are very good PC machines with powerful multi-core GPU which can run Cubase with tons of resources. For example, I own two MSI gamer laptops 17'', which came with very good NVIDIA cards which can be replaced like in the desktops. Cubase Pro ran perfectly with the factory GPUs. Later I replaced the laptop cards with NVIDIA Quadro (CUDA) which totally improved the Cubase performance.
> 
> It is known that a few PC Pro Video apps offer an extra CUDA rendering option. If your machine is equipped with a good CUDA GPU then the Video rendering is many times faster than the default CPU rendering option.


I have an iMac Pro which has the Radeon Pro Vega 56 with 8GB of HBM2 memory which is a better GPU options on the other Macs. Hopefully this is much better than the other mac computers. However if I go to a PC option that will be something I consider for sure. My biggest concern is how I have configured my templates with VEP.


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## Dewdman42 (Jun 4, 2019)

People with newer macs keep telling me that Cubase is running great for them. I wish one of them would do a comparative test as I have done in order to find out for sure. I have a metal GPU and everything else on my mac increased performance substantially under Mojave...but Cubase10 just runs like a dog...and increasingly so with more tracks added, which means...its probably the DSP that is causing the problem more then anything. Move the DSP to VEP and it runs considerably better, though still not nearly as well as the other DAW's with VEP. We can only speculate what the problem with Cubase is, Steinberg has to be the one to figure that out.

If you want to use Cubase on a mac, my recommendation is absolutely use VEP. It can still be used for workflow reasons, just realize its going to use more CPU then the other offerings. But as long as you can play all the tracks you want to play and play with low enough latency..does it matter if the CPU is pegged to 60% vs 40%? Not really. I could not playback 90 tracks on my system without VEP, but with VEP it could play it..though using a lot more CPU..I don't know when and where it would max out... but it could still be perfectly usable if Cubase workflow is what you want and need! But I highly recommend you plan on using VEP with it.


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## rlw (Jun 4, 2019)

JohnG said:


> That must sound awesome.
> 
> Maybe a couple more PC satellite computers? I'm down to three, but it helps a lot. Raises complexity in other ways of course.
> 
> Mixing on, and monitoring through, a separate PT Mac also helps since the DAW computer isn't suddenly taxed with mixing and recording tasks on top of everything else.


John, I really like the sounds I am getting for the SF Orchestra. I am really much happier wth SF brass now than before the extention. It is so much more improved. I really used the Cinebrass alot before I acquired the mic extentions. My only issue is that my CPU performance was impacted. I expected the memory to be impacted but I have double the kontakt instances now due to the fact that the extended mics are in a separate session. I have each instrument with all the mics and articulations in one session of VEP. Then I do a shorts track and and Longs Track in Logic. The memory is not hurt with the duplication because VEP and Kontakt use the same samples in memory, but the Midi traffic is multiplied with the setup. I use Artz-id for Switching. That part works great and I created Instruments in Logic that automatically create the VEP session. However, I find after about 20 tracks are recorded, I have to begin freezing and/or having to manually avoid the Live mode. If I had a big gig now, I would choke because my workflow is so badly affected. I was hoping my powerful iMac Pro would give me head room. I run a buffer of 256 and at times 512 buffer. Playing in and recording is limited far more than I like. I am having to compose and record tolerating the cracks and studders that accompany the hot CPU core problem. Once I get out of Live mode for playback everything works great. I do not want to sacrifice the sound of the additional mics for workflow. I am trying to see if Cubase will help my workflow. I know that it crashes alot more and saving time can be a really challenge. I may have to go to an additional slave computer to see if that will lighten my CPU pressure.


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## rlw (Jun 4, 2019)

Dewdman42 said:


> People with newer macs keep telling me that Cubase is running great for them. I wish one of them would do a comparative test as I have done in order to find out for sure. I have a metal GPU and everything else on my mac increased performance substantially under Mojave...but Cubase10 just runs like a dog...and increasingly so with more tracks added, which means...its probably the DSP that is causing the problem more then anything. Move the DSP to VEP and it runs considerably better, though still not nearly as well as the other DAW's with VEP. We can only speculate what the problem with Cubase is, Steinberg has to be the one to figure that out.
> 
> If you want to use Cubase on a mac, my recommendation is absolutely use VEP. It can still be used for workflow reasons, just realize its going to use more CPU then the other offerings. But as long as you can play all the tracks you want to play and play with low enough latency..does it matter if the CPU is pegged to 60% vs 40%? Not really. I could not playback 90 tracks on my system without VEP, but with VEP it could play it..though using a lot more CPU..I don't know when and where it would max out... but it could still be perfectly usable if Cubase workflow is what you want and need! But I highly recommend you plan on using VEP with it.



For sure I am using VEP.


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## Dewdman42 (Jun 4, 2019)

you have a few interesting dilemmas that makes it not an easy choice for you. Since you are depending on ArtzId, then you can't give up LogicPro unless you're ready to figure out a new solution for articulation management. 

Using VEP slaves will definitely help. With the Artzid approach you are probably generally creating a VEP instance for each instrument track, yes? That might be an issue depending on how you have the VEP preference set for threads per instance. 

But when you use VEP slaves there will be some limit to how low you can go on latency, not much way around that.

Live mode in LPX can be a PITA, I empathize. What do you have your LPX audio preferences set to for the multithreaded setting?


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## Dewdman42 (Jun 4, 2019)

Cubase will not work with Artzid. FWIW. 

On my system Cubase performance is really really bad. I will be interested to hear your results with it on your hardware.

I use a large process buffer range mostly. I find that I get dropped midi notes from dense midi tracks without it.


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## rlw (Jun 4, 2019)

Dewdman42 said:


> What do you have your LPX audio preferences set to for the multithreaded setting?



Here is how I have Logic Currently Set and the memory used. I have 66 VEP sessions on the iMac Pro DAW and on the PC Slave I have 53 sessions. I some times switch Multithreading to Playback & Live when I am trying to record live. But then I go back to just Playback Tracks. The Process Buffer Range seems to work best with "Medium" I am open to suggestions. I don't have Cubase yet to play with but I should have it in the next week.


Dewdman42 said:


> Cubase will not work with Artzid. FWIW.
> 
> On my system Cubase performance is really really bad. I will be interested to hear your results with it on your hardware.
> 
> I use a large process buffer range mostly.



I know about Artzid not working. That will be another issue I will need to address. Hoping I can use the expression maps to address articulation change.


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## rlw (Jun 4, 2019)

JohnG said:


> That must sound awesome.
> 
> Maybe a couple more PC satellite computers? I'm down to three, but it helps a lot. Raises complexity in other ways of course.
> 
> Mixing on, and monitoring through, a separate PT Mac also helps since the DAW computer isn't suddenly taxed with mixing and recording tasks on top of everything else.



John, you have PT on a seperate Mac ? How are you monitoring in real time with the PT set up ?


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## JohnG (Jun 4, 2019)

rlw said:


> John, you have PT on a seperate Mac ? How are you monitoring in real time with the PT set up ?



The sounds leave all four computers and go straight into PT interfaces -- they never return to the DAW. The DAW hosts some sounds and runs all the midi.



rlw said:


> John, I really like the sounds I am getting for the SF Orchestra. I am really much happier wth SF brass now than before the extention.



Me too! Though I still use other libraries, Spitfire is my most-used one today.

The rest of your workflow sounds pretty frustrating. I agree about the mic positions. I don't use as many as you, but I like a lot of them.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Jun 4, 2019)

Geoff Grace said:


> How quickly we go from being youthful agents of change to the last of a dying breed...
> 
> *Sigh*
> 
> What were we talking about again?



Young man, you need a pep talk!

We're still youthful agents of change! Aren't you better at everything you do than you ever were?

My dad's still at the top of his game at age 90. That's my inspiration.

What were we talking about again?


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## NYC Composer (Jun 5, 2019)

‘Scuse me...gotta go smoke a queef...


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## smalltownpoet (Jun 5, 2019)

thank you for this, was just looking for a thread like this!

+1 for throwing Reaper into the mix (looking to switch DAWs)


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## Dewdman42 (Jun 7, 2019)

Added *Reaper5+VEP* test. (see first post) 

This may come as a shock to some Reaper fans out there, but it did not outperform everything else. It did better then Cubase+VEP of course, and slightly better then DP+VEP, but worse the Logic+VEP and StudioOne+VEP. Just a few percent difference, nothing to write home about. 

I did not change any default audio settings other then the buffer size related to performance, but most of the DSP should have been in VEP in this case anyway. If Reaper experts provide other suggestions I will be willing to run the test again.

Later I will do a Reaper5 test without VEP. To be honest it was quite laborious to setup this test with VEP compared to the other DAW's the midi channel and port assignments was a P-I-T-A. It will really take me a long time to setup a test without VEP, so one of these days I'll get to it, but not today.

In case anyone is wondering I used the VST3 version of VEP plugin in order to continue using a single VEP instance just like the other DAW tests.


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## Dewdman42 (Jun 7, 2019)

i also notice something else, even though the average CPU difference is only say 3-4%, if you look on the graph, the gap looks more like 10%. So the average figure may be reducing the severity of the difference. In other words, looking at the graph there are many places with wider gaps between them in performance then the "average" would indicate.


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## Chris Richter (Jun 8, 2019)

How does your workflow with setting up Reaper for this test looks like? Maybe we can give some tips to save you time. 
Like: 
Use the routing matrix to quickly route everything. Start with one instrument/section, whatever is needed. Route it accordingly, save it as a track preset with Kontakt on the "instrument track" (Reaper doesnt has something like that, I just reference it that way to make clear which track I am writing about) and just load it as many times as needed. Just load up the instruments in Kontakt and be done.


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## Dewdman42 (Jun 8, 2019)

You would have to give me exact and precise step by step instructions as I have no experience with reaper and I don’t find it to be an intuitive program at all. It took a lot of googling just to figure out how to get reaper to “map” vst3 ports and channels to use the routing button and so forth. VERY unintuitive and extremely pita. Give exact instructions and I will try


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## Dewdman42 (Jun 10, 2019)

Just ran a test using the new AU3 version of the VEP plugin. WOW! Performance beat every other scenario. See new graph on first post of this thread. LogicPro+VEP-AU3 is the new high performance scenario.. and by a lot.


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## Shad0wLandsUK (Jun 11, 2019)

josejherring said:


> In the past and I don't know if it is still true, Cubase does better on PC than on Mac.


I found the performance meter was double on macOS compared to Windows 10 for me :(
Have sinced moved 100% to Windows now

Though I do have Logic Pro X projects still, so Logic will be staying on my Mac Pro 2012


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## Shad0wLandsUK (Jun 11, 2019)

Dewdman42 said:


> Just ran a test using the new AU3 version of the VEP plugin


What new version? Did VSL release an update...

Or are you talking about VE Pro v7.0.834?


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## Dewdman42 (Jun 11, 2019)

Yes


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## Shad0wLandsUK (Jun 11, 2019)

Dewdman42 said:


> Yes


Yes to which one? They are both yes questions


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## Dewdman42 (Jun 11, 2019)

I meant new since vep6


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## Shad0wLandsUK (Jun 12, 2019)

Dewdman42 said:


> I meant new since vep6


Ahh ok
I have tried it a few times, but at first I had issues instantiating it, as it would have the red exclamation mark over the plugin all the time

Finally managed to get it working and tested with one instance on one port. Not tried an ensemble yet though, or proper test.

I do like how the port and channel are both in the Inspector like that 

The results so far are very promising though, so I might find myself back on macOS in the future long term. Sadly one of my reasons for moving to Windows was my CalDigit FASTA6U3Pro is not recognised properly on macOS HS+ when using my Waves DigiGrid D. So it would not let me use both NICs. Windows, of course does not suffer from this


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## Dewdman42 (Jun 15, 2019)

Did a new test, this time using LPX with one VEP instance per instrument track. 

_Drum Roll...._

It performs similar performance as other LPX tests, but of the three main LPX tests I did, its the worst, but only by 1% difference, so really this should only be a workflow decision. Here's some data and a new chart comparing three modes of usage with LPX..








LPX+VEP+instance-per-instrument: *25%* average cpu
LPX alone: *25%* average cpu
LPX+VEP-AU3 (single instance): *24%* average cpu

As a side note, it took me 2-3x as much time to setup this test, I found the single VEP instance per track to be entirely a PITA in the setup and very laborious to do so. At one point I had to manually reconnect 90 VEP plugins to their various instances on top of it all. Anyway, workflow is different for everyone, the point of this test is to compare performance I would say it does not really make much difference which approach in terms of performance. Use the approach that works best for your workflow.


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## maestro2be (Jun 15, 2019)

All VE Pro instances were local on your single MAC?


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## Dewdman42 (Jun 15, 2019)

yes


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## rhye (Jun 15, 2019)

How fascinating! Did you do this test with 10.4.5?


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## Dewdman42 (Jun 15, 2019)

no


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## Soundhound (Jun 15, 2019)

What instrument were you using? And were they VSL? Kontakt?



Dewdman42 said:


> Did a new test, this time using LPX with one VEP instance per instrument track.
> 
> _Drum Roll...._
> 
> ...


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## Dewdman42 (Jun 15, 2019)

Please read first post on the thread.


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## JohnG (Jun 15, 2019)

Dewdman42 said:


> Just ran a test using the new AU3 version of the VEP plugin. WOW! Performance beat every other scenario. See new graph on first post of this thread. LogicPro+VEP-AU3 is the new high performance scenario.. and by a lot.



Did you try Digital Performer with the VEP-AU3? I'm using DP and am curious. 

I'm also pretty surprised at your results for DP; for many years, DP smoked Logic in the CPU department because it distributed the load better. Maybe not anymore?


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## Dewdman42 (Jun 15, 2019)

I do not know if DP supports AU3, I do not think it does. Anyway I suspect it would be better to use the MAS plugin there.

DP has not ever smoked LPX's cpu performance. LPX has long been known as having excellent CPU performance. 

A few years back MOTU came out with their pregen stuff in order to try to catch up their performance with others and tests from other people showed that it basically just brought it in more close to LPX's performance. But VEP can't use PreGen mode, so its a moot point in this case, though I'm not sure right now if my DP test without VEP was using pregen or not.

At the time DP also had very high latency and it turns out MOTU had been using a double sized buffer, which they removed around the same time they added the pregen stuff...which also brought their latency down to normal levels competitive with LPX and other DAW's.


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## Dewdman42 (Jun 15, 2019)

I was, however a little surprised by DP's poor performance also.


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## Dewdman42 (Jun 15, 2019)

But I want to stress, except for Cubase, they are all very close. StudioOne, DP and Reaper are within a few percent. LPX is considerably better though, that is true.


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## Soundhound (Jun 15, 2019)

Ah, it's all VSL instruments. I wonder if that might be behind the striking similarity in cpu usage?

I'm all Kontakt all the time and from my experience the results would be markedly different with kontakt instruments. VEP saves a tremendous amount of cpu with Kontakt and many others.





Dewdman42 said:


> Please read first post on the thread.


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## Dewdman42 (Jun 15, 2019)

Well its all relative. It would be great to have another test project using Kontakt or something everyone could try, but I don't have time to do that, I'm just about burned out on all this performance testing.

The test I did played exactly the same section of music through the same instruments and FX in each situation. That's why the graphs you see all follow the same curve, but somehow, certain DAW's or configurations need a little more CPU overhead to do what they do. The point was to compare DAW's not plugins. If we used kontakt instead of VSL instruments, I would expect to see some kind of CPU graph over the course of the same music...and each DAW scenario would follow a similar curve, with probably similar differences between each scenario. Its hard to say whether Kontakt would overall use more Cpu then ViPro, but that isn't the point of the test.

Some more interesting tests would be to just make something that cranks out an endless stream of 8th notes or something and then see how many tracks you can get before dropouts with each DAW combination. you could do that for both VSL and for Kontakt...and I would expect that DAW shootout results to be about the same, but you might find out that kontakt is more or less efficient then ViPro..but its a moot point. If you're using kontakt libraries you don't have a choice and same with VSL. What we do have a choice about is which DAW to use and whether to use VEP or not. Which is more the point of my testing. I did not even really push my rig at all even close to the limit, it could easily handle a lot more tracks then I tested I'm sure. well, not under cubase. But under the others it could. And other people's rigs could handle even more. That's a different test too. This test was really about comparing the DAW's to each other with a real world orchestral mock up...and comparing them with and without VEP involved.


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## JohnG (Jun 15, 2019)

Dewdman42 said:


> DP has not ever smoked LPX's cpu performance. LPX has long been known as having excellent CPU performance.



Maybe I was not specific -- the only area in which it outperformed logic was distributing processing among multiple cores. I wasn't saying that "per CPU" it was better.

But that was true for years. VEP kind of made it a moot point.


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## Dewdman42 (Jun 15, 2019)

That has not been my experience. In any case, these results are what they are now.


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## luke_7 (Jun 16, 2019)

charlieclouser said:


> Also I think Logic is able to do some sort of pre-processing, almost like an invisible-to-the-user freeze function, so that tracks / instruments that are not record-enabled are being calculated when the transport is stopped, so that when playback begins the cpu is just spooling a pre-rendered file instead of calculating the instrument + plugins in real time.
> 
> Not sure if that is still a part of Logic's audio architecture, but for sure the "dual buffer" thing is, where Logic calculates all non-record-enabled tracks at some obscenely huge buffer while all record-enabled tracks are calculated at the actual buffer size you've set in Preferences - and stuffed onto that last cpu core as well. So, some pros and some cons with that approach.
> 
> But I am always amazed at how efficient Logic is. My biggest sessions that use only EXS and audio can have hundreds of instruments hammering away at 16th notes and they play equally well on my 12-core cylinder and on my 2012 quad-core laptop, rarely going above 50% cpu.



Efficiency is the main reason I switched from Cubase to Logic. And now Logic 10.4.5 is absolutely fantastic.


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## Dewdman42 (Jun 26, 2019)

I just installed Cubase 10.0.30. Performance is drastically improved on my mac! I will be running tests tonight and updating the first post with Cubase 10.0.30 results.


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## Dewdman42 (Jun 26, 2019)

Alright people, the plot thickens. See new chart in the first post. Cubase 10.0.30 is performing significantly better on the mac than the previous version. The previous version without VEP could not even play this project without crapping out audio 20 seconds into it, and even with VEP7 involved, it was just barely playing the project with average cpu usage at 49%, much higher then all other DAW's tested. The 10.0.30 update has dropped average cpu usage to 33%, which is better than several other DAW's, but still not better than LogicPro. Without VEP its only 1% worse at 34%, with ASIOGuard turned off, and 35% with ASIO Guard turned on (normal). All well within the range of usability.

See OriginalPost for more details











Bravo Steinberg!


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## NYC Composer (Jun 26, 2019)

Thanks for all of this work, it’s illuminating.

My only problem is with the 1024 buffer. I play everything in live so that’s just not an option for me.


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## Dewdman42 (Jun 27, 2019)

Well don’t use that big of a buffer of course! It’s all relative. The point of this test was to compare daws, not to see what my system is capable of. I would expect to see worse cpu performance as you lower the buffer setting. I reckon the daws would compare about the same to each other regardless of the buffer setting but it would be an interesting test to rerun all the tests on all the daws with lower buffer size to see, unfortunately I’m burned out on running the tests so I leave that to someone else to try


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## NYC Composer (Jun 27, 2019)

I don’t blame you- but I’d bet though close, it’s not actually apples to apples.


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## Dewdman42 (Jun 27, 2019)

Show us test results!


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## Zoot_Rollo (Jun 28, 2019)

This is a great read.

Coincidentally, the 3 Windows based DAWs I have settled in with are,

Studio One Pro, Cubase Pro, and Reaper.

I feel your pain about Reaper.

I've had it for years and never bonded with it.

Until recently I fired it up with a Logic theme.

Now Reaper is the first DAW i reach for - as i mentioned in another thread, I've always suffered from Logic-Envy.

Thanks for all the work.


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## Zoot_Rollo (Jun 28, 2019)

So, is the Reaper Performance Meter not telling the full story?

What are the Reaper Heads saying about these results?

Their huge push for Reaper being the end-all DAW was always performance over other DAWs.

This flies in the face of that.


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## Dewdman42 (Jun 28, 2019)

The cpu results are being obtained at the system level, not within the daws themselves. They show the average overall cpu performance happening while playing back the exact same vsl-based project for 3 minutes and getting the average cpu across all cores every 3 seconds.


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## Dewdman42 (Jun 28, 2019)

And yes, at least on Mac reaper did not compare well but it’s also possible that there are performance settings in reaper that I need to learn about.


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## Zoot_Rollo (Jun 28, 2019)

FWIW, i noticed a significant "apparent" CPU improvement with Studio One 4.5 over the previous 4.1.1 (i think).


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## Dewdman42 (Jun 28, 2019)

Could be, I heard that. I didn't buy S1 until 4.5.1, so I can't compare.


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## Dewdman42 (Jun 29, 2019)

New test added for Reaper5 without VEP. slighter better performance without VEP this time. I presume this is because of Reaper's render-ahead. DP is the other daw that also performs slightly better without VEP, which also has their "pregen" render-ahead technology. See original post for details


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## Dave Connor (Jun 29, 2019)

Why am I not surprised that DP is not only one of the worst performers, but that the latest version is even worse than an earlier one. (DP user here.)


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## JohnG (Jun 29, 2019)

Dave Connor said:


> Why am I not surprised that DP is not only one of the worst performers, but that the latest version is even worse than an earlier one. (DP user here.)



But it has a good personality...


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## Stevie (Oct 22, 2019)

rgames said:


> Interesting. But 1024 is a pretty large buffer - what VI Pro buffer did you have? Assuming it's 1 buffer then your total latency is 2048, which is really large for modern hardware. I'm also assuming you're running at 44.1 or 48 kHz (maybe you said...).
> 
> I bet if you tested down to buffers where you start getting dropouts that you'd see different results. What you showed is that except for Cubase w/o VE Pro, all the DAWs can run the project just fine at 1024 buffer.
> 
> ...



I agree here. 1024 is really not a good value to test performance. This value doesn’t tell you anything, because the system is not put under strain. Under heavy CPU load it shows which DAW can really take the load and how it behaves. 256 would be a more realistic buffer, especially for composing.

Just my 2 cents...


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## EvilDragon (Oct 22, 2019)

128 or 64 samples are buffer sizes that are supposed to be used to put strain onto the system.


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## Stevie (Oct 22, 2019)

it is, but I wouldn't use 128 or 64 for composing. 256 is a more practical value to work with. Of course you could additionally provide 128 and 64 just to see how it compares.


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## stigc56 (Oct 31, 2019)

Dewdman42 said:


> Did a new test, this time using LPX with one VEP instance per instrument track.
> 
> _Drum Roll...._
> 
> ...


Hi
I know this is an old thread, but still important. What you say here is that your piece of music - was 90 tracks - all routed to VEPro on the same machine with one instance pr. track is only about 1% "heavier" in CPU load than if the patches in VEPro was concentrated on few instances?
Wouldn't you say that the benefits from "one track - one instrument" would justify this 1 %?


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## Dewdman42 (Oct 31, 2019)

No I do not think cpu performance should be a contributing factor as to whether you use one track per instrument or not. Ita a workflow decision. By the way, one track per instrument was worse performance then using one single instance! You had that backwards. But only by 1%, which is not a big enough difference to justify a change for that reason alone.


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## stigc56 (Oct 31, 2019)

I know it performed worse, but I consider the other benefits of having one track one instrument. As of now I have a big orchestral perc. instance on slave 2 with around 40 instruments, many of them I rarely use. If I have them all as track/instr. in Logic AND couple VEPro, they will only be activated on the slave the moment I need them and turn them on in Logic, the rest of the time they will be turned of and hidden, and it’S hardly noticeable on the filesize in Logic Seems so much simpler that way, right?


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## Dewdman42 (Oct 31, 2019)

That’s a workflow decision and perfectly valid. But performance is not a justifiable reason to use one track per instance.

There are workflow pros and cons either way


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## EgM (Nov 1, 2019)

stigc56 said:


> I know it performed worse, but I consider the other benefits of having one track one instrument. As of now I have a big orchestral perc. instance on slave 2 with around 40 instruments, many of them I rarely use. If I have them all as track/instr. in Logic AND couple VEPro, they will only be activated on the slave the moment I need them and turn them on in Logic, the rest of the time they will be turned of and hidden, and it’S hardly noticeable on the filesize in Logic Seems so much simpler that way, right?



Yeah, I've always used one instance per instrument and never noticed a difference in performance compared to combined instances.


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## jadedsean (May 23, 2020)

I’m a Reaper user and I was just about to pull the trigger on VEPro 7 for my orchestral templates, however after reading this thread I think I’ll hold off until there is more evidence that Reaper and VEPro play nice together.


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## rlw (May 23, 2020)

Has there been any improvement in AU32 in LPX 10.5 that anyone is aware of.


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## NYC Composer (May 23, 2020)

@Dewdman42 

I’d love to know how Cubase 10.5.2 compares, if you have updated. I have a funny feeling that Steinberg might have taken a step backwards.


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## Dewdman42 (May 23, 2020)

rlw said:


> Has there been any improvement in AU32 in LPX 10.5 that anyone is aware of.



Not that I'm aware of. Haven't noticed any change.


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## Dewdman42 (May 23, 2020)

NYC Composer said:


> @Dewdman42
> 
> I’d love to know how Cubase 10.5.2 compares, if you have updated. I have a funny feeling that Steinberg might have taken a step backwards.



I haven't done any perf testing in a while, its kind of time consuming. I will let you know if I notice anything one way or the other.


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## NYC Composer (May 23, 2020)

‘ppreciate your efforts, man.


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## ALittleNightMusic (Jan 15, 2021)

Has anybody done a test with Cubase 11 vs Logic? C11 seems to get my fans going on my machine while Logic seems more efficient during day to day use, but I’ve not done a quantified test.


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## IFM (Feb 3, 2021)

ALittleNightMusic said:


> Has anybody done a test with Cubase 11 vs Logic? C11 seems to get my fans going on my machine while Logic seems more efficient during day to day use, but I’ve not done a quantified test.


I have done a simplistic one. ASIO Guard set to high is the same as the Medium setting in Logic. Why Cubase gets the fans going quicker is that Cubase keeps audio processes running when idle whereas Logic essentially comes to a halt (unarmed tracks).


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