Legend MIDI program change CPU hits

[Khorus]

Hello good people,

I love the sound of Legend, it sounds fantastic! Congrats to the developers/DSP guys! I A/B'd Legend versus a real Minimoog from 1974 and frankly, some patches sounded better on the real keyboard, but some on the plugin too! Kudos!

Now, having a real Minimoog on the road/on stage is a bit cumbersome. I'd love to use a laptop and Legend for live shows instead!

The problem I have experienced is that when I send midi program change to Legend, it works perfectly but it has some heavy CPU usage just for a few milliseconds (while "re-configuring" the synth for the next patch) causing major dropouts in Cubase. This behavior make the click track go off and it happened to us one night on stage! The drummer was giving me the "dirty look", but it wasn't my fault! (We didn't know what was the problem then).

Right now, I"m forced to use a competitor (Diva not to name it! ) and it sounds OK, but boy do I miss Legend, there is no way back. (And on top of that, I'm a little nervous as Diva use MORE CPU than Legend, but doesn't sound as good). The positive side of Diva is that there is no CPU hits when changing programs/patches. Go figure.

Let me know if that happened to you guys, I'd love to find a solution for this and get back to Legend.

Cheers!

Marc aka Khorus

[Christophe]

a workaround will be to load several Legend with their preset already loaded

[Khorus]

a workaround will be to load several Legend with their preset already loaded

Well, I have a big session with over 30 songs. I can't have 30 or so iterations of Legend.

I'm not an expert DSP coder but I do some computer programming (started on C64 with 6510 Assembly code). It seems to me like Legend is not "releasing" its loop (doing too much for one CPU cycle/VST buffer cycle) when changing patches. You think you could "divise" this program change update on more cycles? When the host sequencer is on STOP, that don't matter much. But when playing, that's a whole other thing.

Thanks for taking the time to answer me!

[Teksonik]

I just tested in Reaper and I'm not noticing any CPU spikes when changing patches with Program Change messages. I don't own Cubase so can't test there. I tried it with the sequencer running but admittedly with a very simple project. I'll test it on my studio computer later today and see if I can reproduce the issue there.

I'm sure someone from Synapse will be along shortly to address your concerns. You might want to post your system specs in the meantime....OS , CPU etc.

EDIT: Does this occur with the latest version of Legend that added NKS and MPE support and did it also occur on older versions ? That might be a clue if it was something added in the latest version. Does it also occur when the Legend GUI is opened or closed ?

[Khorus]

I did some tests with Reaper as well, it seems to have some other way of measuring CPU usage (on the Performance Panel). Then again, I'm quite sure that Reaper is more efficient than Cubase. I'll do some more tests as I successfully exported my big a$$ session to Reaper using an old OMF export add-on (discontinued 32bit plugin) that worked. But that's a whole other topic! Thanks for the suggestion!

The Legend version I was using is v1.1 I believe (from last summer). I'm at the office right now, can't check for sure but I'll get back to you with the info.

You are right about the computer specs, I should list them here:

- MSI Laptop computer GS70 Stealth (The high-end gaming series from a few years back).
- Intel Core i7 (4th Gen) 4700HQ / 2.4 GHz (Max Turbo = 3.4ghz)
- 16 Gigs of RAM
- Video: NVidia GTX 765M + Onboard Intel Display
- Audio interfaces: RME Babyface or Behringer X32 USB (both are very stable and been working fine for a few years).
- Running on the latest Windows 10 Pro

My Cubase session don't have lots of tracks as I made stereo stems in my studio. Like percs, backup synths, backup vocals and a few MIDI tracks for controlling the guitar amp and electronic drums/pad. Nothing out of this world...

Usually, the CPU meter stays around 25%, as I like my computer to have some real estate in a live show context. I do have experience in setting those kind of shows, I've setup lots of machines for Cirque du Soleil in the Las Vegas shows, this ain't my first BBQ!

Thanks for the support guys,

Marc aka Khorus

[Teksonik]

Hey I live in Las Vegas.

Anyway the latest version of Legend is 1.21 so I'd try that if you get a chance. Might not fix the issue but I imagine it's the first thing support will suggest.

I've seen issues reported here with Cubase and DUNE 2 and if I'm not mistaken the Cubase meter measures the amount of audio buffer used rather than just CPU ? Perhaps The Legend has a similar relationship with Cubase.

If there is an issue with Legend then I'd like to help get it fixed. I don't use Legend to play live and don't own Cubase so it's hard for me to reproduce the issue here. I'm just trying to think of things to do until Synapse support responds and was by no means questioning your experience or ability.

Anyway let's hope you'll get the issue fixed and can go back to using Legend on stage.

[Christophe]

do you have the problem with all the preset ?
because you could load each preset with the problem in their own track and all other on the same track

[Khorus]

do you have the problem with all the preset ?
because you could load each preset with the problem in their own track and all other on the same track

Almost all presets if I remember correctly. I would change to two similar patches (say, one with long and short decay) that wouldn't be much of a problem but this ain't the case. As soon as I get home tonight, I will reload my old "Legend" session and do some extensive tests. I will also update my plugin to 1.21 as suggested kindly by Teksonik.

Thanks for the quick answer!

[Teksonik]

do you have the problem with all the preset ?
because you could load each preset with the problem in their own track and all other on the same track

Instead of looking for workarounds why not contact Rich or Marcin and ask them to address this issue and hopefully find a fix if one is warranted ?

[bones]

This sounds very strange. If your CPU is only running at 25%, there should be no way that a patch change could cause a click track to drop out. It could be a serious compatibility issue.

[Christophe]

what cpu meter are we talking ? (daw or OS)

[Teksonik]

So no response from Synapse at all ?

[Richard]

We cannot reproduce the problem here in Cubase 8.5 / Legend 1.2 under Windows. Flipping through patches like mad while playing several tracks produces no CPU spikes whatsoever. That said we can check for optimization possibilities during patch changes of course, but at first glance there is nothing that would need considerable CPU.

[Khorus]

Hi guys,

I finally got the time to install Legend v1.21. I tried to reproduce the behavior and I just couldn't! I remember testing this for hours and hours (because I thought it was my sound card as first causing this!). Could it be a 32bit/64bit problem? I was using Cubase in 32bit last summer, because of some weird MIDI timing problems. Cubase 32bit never failed me, 64bit works perfect but has weird MIDI behavior sometime, but that's a whole other case.

I'll investigate on this more this weekend and get back to you. Thank you all for the support, it's greatly appreciated!

Marc aka Khorus

[Khorus]

OK, I was able to reproduce the bug. It seems to happen when I've got two instances of Legend changing programs at the same time. I've got a Bass and a Lead instance. So, when my Bass loads a patch and the Lead loads a monophonic lead, I sometimes get CPU peaks. Once again I'm at the office, I'll get back with more details. Maybe if I'll nudge one of the patch changes by just a bit, that could fix my problem.