# VEP6 - Logic and Cubase huge performance difference



## jonathanwright (Aug 10, 2016)

Since installing VEP6 I've been refreshing the Cubase and Logic templates I run on my W10 PC slave.

I've found there to be a _huge_ performance difference between the two DAWs. However I set them up in completely different ways, so I'm wondering if I've missed something obvious in the process.

*Cubase 8.5*
Connected to a VEP slave running 5 instances - one for each orchestral section - using Expression Maps to control articulations.

*Logic X 10.2.4*
Connected to VEP using one instance per instrument - using Skiswitcher to control articulations.

Both templates are set to run EW Hollywood Orchestra with exactly the same samples loaded and the same number of Play VI's.

Both templates, when unconnected, run at 0% CPU and take up around 19GB of RAM.

However when connected to *Cubase at a buffer of 256, the CPU shoots up to 96% and stays there*, I can only make any use of the template if I raise the buffer setting in Cubase to very high levels. Even then it can choke.

When I connect *Logic at a buffer of 128, the CPU rises to just 3%* and can handle the full orchestra playing without breaking a sweat. (The connection time is virtually instant now too, which is a huge bonus).

I've tried various different combinations of thread counts and buffer settings, as well as disabling a few instruments in VEP but it barely makes any difference in Cubase, it appears to be purely the act of connecting that causes the permanent CPU spike.

For there to be such a massive difference, I can only think I've done something wrong somewhere, any suggestions on what it could be?


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## Silence-is-Golden (Aug 10, 2016)

Maybe you have done it already, but I would also contact VSL support. They are very responsive to requests.


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## jonathanwright (Aug 10, 2016)

I've posted the same thread over there too, so hopefully I'll hear something soon.

It's not mission critical, but something's not right.


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## esounds (Aug 10, 2016)

jonathanwright said:


> I've posted the same thread over there too, so hopefully I'll hear something soon.
> 
> It's not mission critical, but something's not right.



Is it like this with VE PRO 5 also or just VE PRO 6?


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## Jetzer (Aug 10, 2016)

CPU% was super high for me as well when I had a VEP 5 template, on cubase (windows 7). Since 8.5 whent over to a disabled tracks template, bypassing VEP.


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## jonathanwright (Aug 10, 2016)

esounds said:


> Is it like this with VE PRO 5 also or just VE PRO 6?



I'm afraid I don't know. It didn't used to be as bad as far as I remember (I've used Logic for a while), but I also upgraded to W10 too, so that may be a factor.


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## novaburst (Aug 10, 2016)

JH said:


> CPU% was super high for me as well when I had a VEP 5 template, on cubase (windows 7). Since 8.5 whent over to a disabled tracks template, bypassing VEP.


Not sure if i understand this, I am on cubase 6 i currently have have a 58 track template, all armed nothing is disabled 

and getting a low 10 to 14 % cpu hit, when playback is engaged i am grtting a 14 to 24,28 % cpu hit this is on the server alone Win 7 V pro 5 

I have had no need to disable tracks, am i missing something


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## Jetzer (Aug 10, 2016)

I was running a full orchestral template. Without opening Cubase cpu usage would be like 3%, when opening my cubase templates (and so making all the connections with VEP), just sitting idle it would be like 80%. Messed around with all the buffer sizes etc.

I got it to run, but disabled tracks means I can run at much lower latency.

I'm not surprised btw, I mean with all the connections between the different software. Cubase, Play, Kontakt, VEP.

With 58 tracks I could probably have a cpu usage like you described above.


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## rpaillot (Aug 10, 2016)

are you using vst3 plug instead of vst2 ?


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## novaburst (Aug 10, 2016)

JH said:


> I was running a full orchestral template. Without opening Cubase cpu usage would be like 3%, when opening my cubase templates (and so making all the connections with VEP), just sitting idle it would be like 80%. Messed around with all the buffer sizes etc.
> 
> I got it to run, but disabled tracks means I can run at much lower latency.
> 
> ...


I see so what your saying is its becuase of your track count


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## jonathanwright (Aug 10, 2016)

rpaillot said:


> are you using vst3 plug instead of vst2 ?



I've tried both and unfortunately it makes no difference.


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## jonathanwright (Aug 11, 2016)

I'm now in touch with VSL.

It must be something in the way Cubase connects to VEP.

I also tried connecting Cubase to my Logic VEP template (one instance per instrument) and the same issue occurred, with CPU rising dramatically.


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## novaburst (Aug 11, 2016)

jonathanwright said:


> I'm now in touch with VSL.
> 
> It must be something in the way Cubase connects to VEP.
> 
> I also tried connecting Cubase to my Logic VEP template (one instance per instrument) and the same issue occurred, with CPU rising dramatically.


How many tracks on your template


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## URL (Aug 11, 2016)

Im running 20 instance/16inst on a pc slave in win7 and 3 instance Sable on the Mac connected to Mac Pro Q 4.1 and its a little slow and can't really say if new vep6 and Cubase not working as it should, I run at 256 buff and the cpu is 45% 15 channel working in midi a lot of reverb/delay/Eq is on in the template... other than that its fine...


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## azeteg (Aug 11, 2016)

It sounds like something caused by the following:

- Cubase will always incur process calls to plugins, regardless of transport state.
- Logic will only send process calls to plugins if it is playing regions with data destined for the channel(s).
- Logic will only use the set buffer (128) when processing plugins in live (record-enabled) mode. The remaining tracks/plugins will be processed by the "Process buffer range" setting, which is much larger (IIRC, 512 to 1536 samples)
- Cubase could use the same dynamic buffer handling when using Asio Guard (2), but unfortunately it is not very good at handling latency change reports, causing a pause in audio while it is reconfiguring its latency compensation.

Most probably, the instruments you are hosting have a high per-buffer overhead, making them more suitable for larger process buffers. Some badly programmed and/or scripted plugins are known to be troublesome with lower latencies.


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## jamwerks (Aug 11, 2016)

I wonder if the fact that its Play (and not Kontakt) has anything to do with it?


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## jonathanwright (Aug 11, 2016)

I'm currently up to around 100 tracks for this slave, with multiple articulations per track.

I've just done a quick test, connecting to a Kontakt instance on the slave and a Play instance, there didn't seem to be much difference between them in the CPU bump.


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## brett (Aug 11, 2016)

Hi J

Connecting to many loaded VEP instances will cause the CPU to jump markedly, even if the Cubase project itself is completely empty. Have you tried disconnecting one by one to see if one is the culprit? Sometimes there's a rogue patch lurking in Kontakt going CPU crazy. I've tracked such beasts down before in individual Kontakt instances (which are likely to be all loaded in VEP for you) and going to the Monitor tab, then Engine tab below that and looking at CPU load. Further, clicking on 'CPU profiling mode will bring up a CPU % number on each patch / bank. Of course, this may not be it for you but it has helped me in the past. You have to be methodical and scientific to track these things down, doing one thing at a time.

Good luck


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## novaburst (Aug 11, 2016)

jamwerks said:


> I wonder if the fact that its Play (and not Kontakt) has anything to do with it?


I wonder why user keep saying the play name when things get crappy in there set up.

I also wonder why I am jumping into defend play, 

I have a few instances of play in V Pro 5 I have never experienced crappy ness or high CPU spike, not sure where all this its plays fault comes from, 

Play is very limited in what it can do in terms of performance, but in no way does it hinder system performance, and I am starting to believe the idea that if many of us have similar set ups then why do some set ups run good and some crap, I believe that it must be some adverse app or software that is on your system that can course this that perhaps has nothing to do with music set up

Play is a music software, eastwest can not simply allow play to be a hindering app, they need to sell, they need people to purchase from them.

And people do purchase from them again and again and again and ..........again 
because it's a good vst. 

Rant. ........maybe


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## jonathanwright (Aug 11, 2016)

The only thing that works for me at the moment is raising the Cubase buffer to 768 or above, even then it's not happy.

The same VEP template - with the same VI's and samples loaded - doesn't cause a problem in Logic at a buffer set as low as 126. 

I can only think it's Cubase that's the issue, or some network setting that would affect Cubase but not Logic.


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## Ashermusic (Aug 11, 2016)

I never discount anybody who reports different experiences, but Play in VE Pro 6, previously VE Pro 5, on my slave PC runs without problems and has for years now.

One exception is the gradual load times slowing down from SSDs and that is fixed in a beta version now.


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## novaburst (Aug 11, 2016)

jonathanwright said:


> I'm currently up to around 100 tracks for this slave, with multiple articulations per track.
> 
> I've just done a quick test, connecting to a Kontakt instance on the slave and a Play instance, there didn't seem to be much difference between them in the CPU bump.


a 100 tracks is very normal, and you should not really see any big jump in cpu from that, do you mind if i ask do you have plugins that are armed reverbs, eq, also to check does VEPro have all of your cpu threads, its a good idea to give it all threads (cores),and does cubase have all threads, 

Just one more thing, do you use screen sharing software of any sort.

last but not least have you tried a clean install of cubase and VEPro and build you template from scratch, it could be worth a try and may get rid of some glitches 

ok just one more thing is this the first time you are using logick and cubase together, have you tried cubase with logick uninstalled,


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## novaburst (Aug 11, 2016)

i here you, i really do,


Ashermusic said:


> I never discount anybody who reports different experiences, but Play in VE Pro 6, previously VE Pro 5, on my slave PC runs without problems and has for years now.
> 
> One exception is the gradual load times slowing down from SSDs and that is fixed in a beta version now.


I here you and respect to that, but we are all running the same type of setup we all use the some DAWs have the same OP weather Mac or PC, cubase or logick pro, its just not making sense,

Just one thing, i was getting hi cpu hits when i started using monitor share software and big ram counts, when i removed all from my machines things settled down again. that is the only thing that course me issues


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## jamwerks (Aug 11, 2016)

Maybe ASIO guard switched the other way, and the multi-core option?...


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## nas (Aug 11, 2016)

novaburst said:


> i here you, i really do,
> 
> I here you and respect to that, but we are all running the same type of setup we all use the some DAWs have the same OP weather Mac or PC, cubase or logick pro, its just not making sense,
> 
> Just one thing, i was getting hi cpu hits when i started using monitor share software and big ram counts, when i removed all from my machines things settled down again. that is the only thing that course me issues



And that I think is what what speaks to the various anomalies that each of us can experience. As similar as our systems can be, there can also be several contributing individual factors... even the seemingly most insignificant ones that can affect the performance of each individual's system. There really are so many variables that can come into play.


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## Ashermusic (Aug 11, 2016)

novaburst said:


> i here you, i really do,
> 
> I here you and respect to that, but we are all running the same type of setup we all use the some DAWs have the same OP weather Mac or PC, cubase or logick pro, its just not making sense,
> 
> Just one thing, i was getting hi cpu hits when i started using monitor share software and big ram counts, when i removed all from my machines things settled down again. that is the only thing that course me issues



But there are _so many _variables from system to system that most definitely are NOT accounted for in your statement "we all use the some DAWs, have the same OP whether Mac or PC, Cubase or Logic Pro."

I will tell you a story that illustrates the point. Several years ago, i got a call from Chris Wall, member of and producer of Death Cab For Cutie. He was in Los ANgeles at Soubnd City recording. He had a top of the line brand spanking new MacPro with Logic Pro 9 at the time. On my system it was totally stable.

He told me that he was trying to record 8 audio tracks simultaneously and could not do so without problems. With no plug-ins!

I advised him of all the usual remedies: trash the prefs, rrepair Disk Permissions. reinstall Logic Pro, etc. Nothing helped. He asked me to come there and help. i did and I arrived before him. For some reason, I cannot tell you why, it occurred to me to create a new user and log in under that user and sure enough, that was the end of the problem.

My point is it never surprises me when one user has problems that others do not. There are so many ways for it to go wrong. But in my view, at this point in time while Kontakt has many advantages over Play, it is no longer inherently more stable.


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## azeteg (Aug 11, 2016)

Ashermusic said:


> But in my view, at this point in time while Kontakt has many advantages over Play, it is no longer inherently more stable.



I get memory corruptions using Play. These corruptions mostly occur during patch loading or unloading. Has this been addressed in versions beyond 4.3.4?


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## Ashermusic (Aug 11, 2016)

Not sure, this is the first that I have heard of it.


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## rpaillot (Aug 11, 2016)

Ashermusic said:


> But in my view, at this point in time while Kontakt has many advantages over Play, *it is no longer inherently more stable.*




Yes it is.... on Mac


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## Ashermusic (Aug 11, 2016)

rpaillot said:


> Yes it is.... on Mac



Not on my Mac. Not on any of my Logic clients using Macs as far as any have told me.


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## brett (Aug 11, 2016)

Keep it simple Jonathan. Forget your templates. Create a blank project in Cubase and a blank project in Logic, and connect up each of your VEP instances. Tell us what happens.


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## azeteg (Aug 11, 2016)

Ashermusic said:


> Not sure, this is the first that I have heard of it.



Try running it with GuardMalloc, Application Verifier or Valgrind. This should identify the corruptions.

As a user, you usually don't notice memory corruptions, until the application crashes in some inexplicable way, due to the plugin overwriting some important parts of the software.


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## jonathanwright (Aug 12, 2016)

Thanks so much for all the suggestions guys.

As Brett suggested, I took it all back to basics, opening blank versions of everything.

I created five blank VEP instances and connected them to my Cubase template, the slave CPU barely registers a difference, so the act of connecting Cubase doesn't appear to be an issue.

Once I started loading in Play instruments while connected to Cubase, the CPU started creeping up.

Normally I'd suspect Play to be the culprit, but the fact this _doesn't_ happen with Logic leads me back to Cubase, or at least a Cubase/VEP/Play problem.

So a summary of my unscientific tests.

VEP - fully loaded and unconnected - 0-1% CPU
VEP - fully loaded and connected to Logic - 3% at a 256 buffer
VEP - fully loaded and connected to Cubase - 95% at a 256 buffer
VEP - 5 empty instances (as per my Cubase template) - 3% connected to Cubase
Altering VEP thread counts makes no discernible difference in CPU usage
Asio Guard is disabled for VEP in Cubase
I feel like I've made a small amount of progress but I"m still at a loss.


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## brett (Aug 12, 2016)

I think you might have misunderstood me

My suggestion was to incrementally connect fully loaded VEP instances to a blank Cubase project (not empty VEP instances to your 'loaded' cubase template) . Let us know how you go.


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## azeteg (Aug 12, 2016)

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Logic's audio engine does not process any plugins if the transport is not playing. In order to do a fair comparison, create a region with some midi events (not triggering anything, just some fake notes at C0 or something) and keep Logic looping over that region. Then compare the load.


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## jonathanwright (Aug 12, 2016)

Tried that too Brett, same end result. Everytime I connected to an instance, the CPU jumps up by around 10-20% a time.


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## brett (Aug 12, 2016)

Then, in an empty cubase project connect to a single fully loaded VEP instance - your CPU should jump up to 10 - 20% - and start removing virtual instruments. 

What causes the CPU to fall the most? Kontakt? Play? A given instance of Kontakt?


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## brett (Aug 12, 2016)

azeteg said:


> As I mentioned in an earlier post, Logic's audio engine does not process any plugins if the transport is not playing. In order to do a fair comparison, create a region with some midi events (not triggering anything, just some fake notes at C0 or something) and keep Logic looping over that region. Then compare the load.



Oh, and I completely agree with this. Resting load can't be compared between the two


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## URL (Aug 12, 2016)

No computer is similar there is always something in hw/software that makes musical lose ones hair, sorry to say.
Reinstall and save a image of your disk and install program one at the time, I did that after a similar problem some years ago-now I always have a disk image with music software "totally" working and back up the latest image on a other image disk. If you have any kind of virus protection, you have to reinstall os, this program is crazy for DAW.


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## jonathanwright (Aug 12, 2016)

Thanks Brett and azteg.

Brett, the CPU change is pretty even between Play and Kontakt when unloaded. Nothing stands out.

azteg, I ran the loop as you suggested (I placed a MIDI region on every track) and while the CPU certainly jumps up on playback, it still only only reaches 45% compared to 95% with Cubase when idle.

I think I'm just going to have to stick with Logic for now, the high buffer needed to work in Cubase introduces far too much latency for me. I may have to revisit it at a later time.


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## azeteg (Aug 12, 2016)

Also remember that during playback of non-record-enabled tracks in Logic, the "Process Buffer Range" setting determines the buffer size the plugins will see. (Small = 512, Medium = 1024 , Large = 2048).

If you are using the default (Medium) process buffer range, you are then processing the VEPro instances with a buffer size of 1024.

This is pretty much the same as what is happening with Asio Guard (2).


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## jonathanwright (Aug 12, 2016)

Interesting. So should I enabled Asio Guard for VEP then? Every I've read it should be disabled.


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## novaburst (Aug 12, 2016)

Ashermusic said:


> My point is it never surprises me when one user has problems that others do not.


See your point, I guess I just haven't had such issues, but really feel it for them that do, 

I think I would be in a land of limbo if I keep coming up with these spike CPU issue and ather sence less issue that many have .


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## azeteg (Aug 12, 2016)

The problem with Asio Guard (2) in Cubase, is that it isn't very good at handling plugins which have a latency that is depending on the buffer size. It will incur a 1-2s pause of audio every time you switch between live/playback tracks in Cubase, while Logic is smart enough to wait with such a PDC reconfiguration until the next stop/start cycle.

If you can live with longer audio pauses when switching tracks, you can safely enable Asio Guard 2 for VEP.


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## novaburst (Aug 12, 2016)

jonathanwright said:


> I think I'm just going to have to stick with Logic for now, the high buffer needed to work in Cubase introduces far too much latency for me. I may have to revisit it at a later time.


Good move , I would do the same, time to make music.

But hope you get it sorted soon


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## jonathanwright (Aug 12, 2016)

azeteg said:


> The problem with Asio Guard (2) in Cubase, is that it isn't very good at handling plugins which have a latency that is depending on the buffer size. It will incur a 1-2s pause of audio every time you switch between live/playback tracks in Cubase, while Logic is smart enough to wait with such a PDC reconfiguration until the next stop/start cycle.
> 
> If you can live with longer audio pauses when switching tracks, you can safely enable Asio Guard 2 for VEP.



Thanks very much for your help, it's very clear how the DAW settings influence VEP now.

I'll have a fiddle with AG2 to see if it's a liveable solution, otherwise I'm happy with Logic.


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## URL (Aug 12, 2016)

no offense but...waiting to get the software to function satisfactorily is a musician's "daily" nightmare, do not upgrade what already works if you can help ... I can't -wait... we are the unofficial beta tester


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## URL (Aug 12, 2016)

How is your setting for delay comp when you compose, mine is in orange then when I mix I set "normal" use.


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## jonathanwright (Aug 13, 2016)

Tried that URL, no difference unfortunately.

It'll be very interesting to see how Logic X handles VEP when AU3 is implemented, if it's performance is as good as it is in its current form it should be amazing.

PS: For anyone that's interested in my ramblings, I decided to test Studio One 3 last night (using both VST and AU VEP plugins) and it produced the same CPU results as Cubase on the slave PC. So it appears to be that Logic currently handles VEP in a more efficient manner on my system.


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## URL (Aug 13, 2016)

jonathanwright said:


> Tried that URL, no difference unfortunately.
> 
> It'll be very interesting to see how Logic X handles VEP when AU3 is implemented, if it's performance is as good as it is in its current form it should be amazing.
> 
> PS: For anyone that's interested in my ramblings, I decided to test Studio One 3 last night (using both VST and AU VEP plugins) and it produced the same CPU results as Cubase on the slave PC. So it appears to be that Logic currently handles VEP in a more efficient manner on my system.



That is really strange because this disconnect plugs that could be the ones who makes latency, when I make that PDC orange some plugs are not disabled and most of them is, but no plugs loaded in daw and still latency that is hard to find without a new clean step by step install and that takes time... Cubase works for me yours not and what is the difference, virus protection was a really bad thing for me effected my dsp card and I went to Apple store and downloaded Yosemite and reinstalled my os over the existing one and all problem were gone, I didn't have to reinstall anything else on the disk, you can call it a repair of OS X, and now my computer works great and never have virus protect again.

...as a Logic friend I have been waiting so long for Logic to update that it is soon gonna be painful ....


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## samphony (Aug 14, 2016)

Jonathan! 

What you experience here in general is what was mentioned above. Logic only processes audio on instrument and audio tracks if the playhead passes regions with content in it. Let's call it "dynamic plugin processing" 
Therefore it reduces CPU cycles to a minimum no matter how many fx plugin slots are filled per channelstrip. 

Steinbergs vst/vst2 never had such a feature. vst3 on the other hand allows this but has to be enabled or implemented. Studio One has no "dynamic plugin processing" for 3rd party plugins implemented yet. 

Regarding the dual buffer audio engine Logic was the first DAW back in the days that had this feature implemented. For some people it caused headaches because they wanted immediate responsiveness when changing the cycle or edit audio. Cubase/ nuendo introduced that feature with asio guard and later with asio guard 2. So users have a choice per plugin to enable/disable that. Studio One again has no such dual buffer audio engine. 

As we all experience the outcome for everyone here is different and there is no one stop solution. I personally got used to how logic handles CPU and dual buffer and what not. And am still very fast with it (#charliecloserninjastylefast)

We will see very soon if Version 3 audio units are of great benefit or if the way people built templates with Logic Pro X and VEP and Version 2 Audio Units is more efficient. 

I personally think in 2016 the kind of how logic handles this is still valid. And thanks to the existing solutions and computing power we are able to compensate issues with more computers or higher clockspeed. 

I mean the DAW A is more efficient than DAW B debates will probably continue until the end of mankind. #everyoneisdreamingofasinglecomputersetup 



jonathanwright said:


> Tried that URL, no difference unfortunately.
> 
> It'll be very interesting to see how Logic X handles VEP when AU3 is implemented, if it's performance is as good as it is in its current form it should be amazing.
> 
> PS: For anyone that's interested in my ramblings, I decided to test Studio One 3 last night (using both VST and AU VEP plugins) and it produced the same CPU results as Cubase on the slave PC. So it appears to be that Logic currently handles VEP in a more efficient manner on my system.


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