View Single Post
Old 11-09-2019, 01:20 PM   #14
JamesPeters
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: Near a big lake
Posts: 3,943
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Abnaxos View Post
What is PDC? Or better: How do I read this information? "a%/b% CPU x/y spls" → what are a, b, x and y?
PDC = plugin delay compensation, based on the number of samples of latency the plugin requires.

A= % of CPU use of the selected plugin.
B= % of CPU for all effects on the track combined.

X= # of samples latency for the selected plugin.
y= # of samples latency total for all effects on the track combined.*

% CPU use is based on your current clock speed of the CPU, which can throttle based on your CPU frequency governor setting.

For demanding projects it's best to set your CPU frequency governor to "performance", which is the full clock speed. I do this using a small app in the taskbar called indicator-cpufreq. (MS Windows users should do this too, but through the "power settings" app in control panel.)

*PDC happens in "chunks" based on the buffer block size of your audio device. Since I set my audio device buffer block size to 64 (using a few blocks at that size), the smallest amount of PDC I can have is 64 samples for instance (even if a plugin seems to just need 3 samples). So if you have one plugin on the track and it shows "3/64 spls", that's what it means. If I set my audio device's buffer to a higher block size such as 128, then the minimum PDC I can get is 128 samples (and that same effect would show "3/128 spls" if it were the only plugin on the track). Processing this PDC realtime contributes to loading the CPU, so if you can choose a plugin that doesn't have latency (PDC) then that would help when running "live" (monitoring the track, such as playing keyboard through the plugin).

Have you tried other synth plugins? TAL Noisemaker is a good one and it takes significantly less CPU (normal and realtime). That's a simple .so file download from the Distrho site. There are a number of other synth plugins for Linux which are quite good, so maybe you can substitute some of the Tyrell No6 instances with other synths (saving Tyrell No6 for when you really want its sound specifically).

Plus also what Glen, s wave and Jack said, of course.
JamesPeters is offline   Reply With Quote