DUB MACHINES, Anyone?

[nemoy]

first of all, they sound great!
This is one Pack i'm going to use for Studio work.

BUT:
CPU monsters! For a live PErformance they're useless....

When I drop one of those onto a a channel in an empty new set
My CPU meter goes from 1% up to 18%, the moment I put that Dub Machine on a channel.
Not even playing anything.

The device simply beeing there eats 18 % of my CPU. (that's close to a 5th)
Has anyone else similar stuff happening with dubmachines?

[stkr]

Hi nemoy.

Great to hear you like them, sorry to hear of your CPU troubles.

Whilst I'll agree that the Magnetic device is CPU intensive (Diffuse is a lot lighter), 18% idle just doesn't sound right!

Could you tell me your OS, Live version, Max (for Live) version and maybe something about your computer (Processor, RAM, etc)? That would really help me track this down and offer some assistance.

Idle should be less than 10%. Although the device manages CPU load based on its state, so it is possible to use it at less (and more) CPU. "State" here mainly means what 'Mode' and 'Character' and 'Processing' settings are set.

The other thing to remember is that, because of a combination of the way Live reports CPU and MaxForLive affects this, loading two (or three) devices in your session does not double (or triple) etc your CPU usage. The initial hit is the largest.

CPU usage is right at the top of our development list, so any feedback is really useful. Ultimately, Magnetic can be intensive because of the ability to modify the heart of the engine in real time, which is what makes it cool and not just plain 'emulation'

Thanks,
stkr

[ansolas]

How does it sound on high feedback ? My favourite Dub delay is Line6 PodFarm Platinum or the waves h-delay.

[catalyst]

Idle should be less than 10%. Although the device manages CPU load based on its state, so it is possible to use it at less (and more) CPU. "State" here mainly means what 'Mode' and 'Character' and 'Processing' settings are set.

The other thing to remember is that, because of a combination of the way Live reports CPU and MaxForLive affects this, loading two (or three) devices in your session does not double (or triple) etc your CPU usage. The initial hit is the largest.

Yeah, exactly. I'm seeing a hit of 9%-10% on the first Magnetic instance and 5%-6% more load when adding another. This is still quite a hit on a 2.7Ghz i7 Retina MBP / 16GB RAM, but the effects are fantastic and worth it for the flexibility of the engine.. just as (imho) it is worth it to use Live itself for the same reason, even though strictly speaking there are more efficient hosts out there.. but there's more to life than being efficient

Great, great work, much appreciated - can't wait to see what you come up with next.. after a rest of course

[sounddevisor]

Magnetic sounds incredible! Best tape-echo emulation I have used by far, and I have barely scratched the surface of what's possible with this device.

I'm running it on a MacBook Pro 2011, Mac OS 10.9, Live 9.1.2 64-bit - no problems with excessive CPU load for me.

I did a live performance a couple of nights ago playing synths from an Ableton session loaded with 4 or 5 instances of Kontact, several instances of Alchemy, several drum racks, and one instance of Magnetic on a return track. I don't think the CPU usage meter ever got even close to 20%.

[clydesdale]

I love the effects, but it needs a switch of some kind to empty the delay buffer when you hit the session stop button. Changing the Regen to a sub 100% value would do this but I'd rather not mess with the parameters if they're giving me good results. I'll get tails that theoretically would last forever if I didn't go back and reset the Regen value or the feedback amount-- which is cool in it's own creative way but impractical in a start/stop editing way. Something like a short circuit for the feedback maybe? What do you guys do when you hit stop and your effects keep playing?

To the OP, M4L devices seem to make my Live CPU meter dance around in ways that are completely unrelated to the actual load the CPU's are experiencing (sometimes one M4L device will read 50% but so will 20 of the same device). You might base your judgement on the practicality of the Magnetic and Diffuse devices more empirically by trying them out in a high CPU load way and see if you get any adverse outcomes (i.e. ignore the Live CPU meter until you get crackling audio or freezing UI's).

[nemoy]

The Sound is really fantastic. I think I Can sell my old Space Echo now!

Of course, as soon as the first M4L device is dropped CPU jumps up!
I didn't think of that! sorry!

otherwise, i'm running 9.1.2 and Max 6.1.7
with an RME Fireface 400
on a 2010 Macbook Pro, with ssd drive & maxed Ram. Os X 10.8.3 32
Buffer Set to 196 samples

I'll check, if i can get something better than 18% out of it

[ansolas]

I also purchased it and I like it somehow for certain things , especially the Reverb sounds is great !

But the feedback sound is way to harsh for me ...

Line 6 Podfarm Platinum (Tape echo , Tube Echo, Lofi Echo) or Waves H-Delay sound much better when it comes to feedback , imo

[stkr]

Hey ansolas, thanks for your comments.

Yeah feedback and distortion is a strange thing, very personal, as we all have different tastes. For example, i never much was into the H-Delay sound for feedback (but it's a great plugin of course), but I love the Dub Machines sound

Out of interest, did you try out the different 'Character' settings and 'Processing' options in the 'Breakout' section of 'Magnetic'? We hope they give you a wide variety of different sorts of feedback and distortion. In 'Magnetic' we were going for a slightly off the wall and almost broken feeling to the unit, whereas in 'Diffuse' the gain stages are all identical so it is a much purer and controllable feedback sustain.

The very cool Josh Spoon just did a fantastic run through of the devices which demonstrate the different sonic capabilities very well, you can see them here:

http://www.joshspoon.com/dub-machines-a ... e-roundup/

For all you Dub Machines users: we will have an update coming out soon which addresses a few bugs and feature requests. We will let you know when they are ready.

[ansolas]

Hello,
thank you for you 'feedback... back... back... back... back.. !

Yeah I tried the different types in the Breakout section, but I still need to get used to the feedback behaviour.

I did a quick unscientific comparison.

Here the Dub Machines Magnetic with initial intensity of 100%.[EDIT Full 'right' , not 100%] Not tweaked.:
What I find less pleasing here is that the feedback does its own thing even without tweaking anything?
Note, I am still getting used to magnetic so I cant really get the best possible results yet as with the other delays since I know them better than magnetic.


http://www.mixcloud.com/ansolas/dub-mac ... intensity/


---
Next Echos you are listening to are the Line 6 Tape, Tube and LowRez Echos.
I couldn't resist from playing with teh Feedback knob on the Tube Echo



http://www.mixcloud.com/ansolas/line-6-tape-echo/




http://www.mixcloud.com/ansolas/line-6-tube-echo/




http://www.mixcloud.com/ansolas/line-6-low-rez-echo/

An finally the Waves H-Delay (I tweaked the Filter knobs and Modulation at the end of teh sample to outline the parts I really enjoy ) The Feedback sounds so smooth, organic and fluid <3



http://www.mixcloud.com/ansolas/waves-h-delay/

Probably it would be nice to add such kind of Filters to Magnetic as well ?

---
The following is recorded using U-He Satin, since I havent used it before it needs to be seen as a rough overview.
I needed to tweak the Feedback since it wasnt that stable and would vanish or rise in feedback very fast




http://www.mixcloud.com/ansolas/u-he-satin/



Have fun

[bwax]

I absolutely love the sounds I got from these machines. I also think the interface looks superb. I also get a kick out of the fact they used TM404's machines to model, as I'm a big TM404 admirer.

However, sadly enough, I cannot seem to get them to behave in a stable manner on my machine. Live very frequently freezes when I add or delete these devices and it became too frustrating to use them any longer.

I've been in contact with support, who are very friendly and responsive by the way, and hopefully an update in the works will sort things out. I really hope so. I don't know of any other plugins that come close to that dreamy sound, especially for $40!

[stkr]

@ ansolas.

it may be unscientific, but it really is fantastic and very interesting. it reminds me of some of the research we were doing when developing dub machines. so thank you for putting it together.

the line6 lorez is a different sort of effect to my ears, although if you use 'lofi' on 'Magnetic' you can get similar sounds.

i agree with you about the line6 tape and tube delays. they sound great. a real focus on sustaining the tone through the feedback. but i am not sure they handle non-guitar material very well. maybe i always had bad quality guitar pedals back in the day as well?!

however, i still disagree about h-delay. it is beautifully anti-aliased, but it always goes toward that high chirp sound when driven into full feedback, as if they are filtering to maintain the pureness of tone. i never had any hardware which did this. it is too 'perfect' to my ears. the feedback sound i mean.

of course they are all different, and could be excellent in all sorts of different situations. the more the better as far as i can tell.

i would say about magnetic - i think it covers these different styles all within one device. it is very malleable. all in all, if you engage noise and wow features on magnetic and carefully adjust tone controls and delay length, i feel like it is most similar to satin. a few of our users have said they are using 'Magnetic' for tone quality more than as a delay, which is great, too. satin of course is yet another work of genius from mr heckman.

one more thing - what you call "100%" on 'Magnetic' 'Intensity' dial is actually '130%' - it sustains before this point. this is another stage you can overdrive but within the context of the feedback loop. it is a nod to the unpredictability of the original roland hardware.

thanks for the discussion, and let us know if you come up with any dub machines goodness.

@ bwax, i think i finally found the source of your bug the other day. it is quite a strange one! will send you a new beta soon.

all the best.

[ansolas]

it may be unscientific, but it really is fantastic and very interesting. it reminds me of some of the research we were doing when developing dub machines. so thank you for putting it together.

It was a pleasure for me since I love delays

i agree with you about the line6 tape and tube delays. they sound great. a real focus on sustaining the tone through the feedback. but i am not sure they handle non-guitar material very well. maybe i always had bad quality guitar pedals back in the day as well?!

try the line 6 echo pro hardware They sound even better as the plugin, especially the feedback.

however, i still disagree about h-delay. it is beautifully anti-aliased, but it always goes toward that high chirp sound when driven into full feedback, as if they are filtering to maintain the pureness of tone. i never had any hardware which did this. it is too 'perfect' to my ears. the feedback sound i mean.

I think its a matter of taste , What I really like oin the H-Delay is the built in filters which can be controller with one know.

i would say about magnetic - i think it covers these different styles all within one device.

Totally agree, and I love to use to color teh sound , very nice!.

It definately has a place in my setup and I will keep using it more

[ansolas]

Hello,
someone else pointed me to try out the PSP Echo http://www.pspaudioware.com/plugins/delays/psp_echo/.
Yesterday I installed the demo and had a quick shot with it.

I am going to add an example later to complete the series above.

One very useful feature, it has is a built in ducker !
Very Very nice !

[ansolas]

Here some Magnetic love on drums :
https://soundcloud.com/ansolas/another- ... the-mosaic