Subject: Re: [linux-audio-dev] problems with plugins?
From: David Olofson (audiality_AT_swipnet.se)
Date: pe elo 27 1999 - 18:13:12 EDT
On Fri, 27 Aug 1999, you wrote:
> yo!
>
> i just thought about it all. is it even possible to make studio-sounding
> very-hi-fi stuff in realtime, with software?
Depends on what kind of processing you need... A normal mixer with EQs and all
is no problem.
> just take a look at Cooledit's
> reverberation. on my p200, it takes 5 seconds to reverb some 2-second wave.
> i know there are 1000 GHz pentium3s nowadays, but but but... :)
A P-II is about twice as efficient, so your P200 is like a P-II 100 or
something. (There can be more or less difference depending on how the code it
written.)
And AMD K7 beats a P-III hands down on the same rate, and is available at up to
800 MHz (cooled) right now. That 800 MHz box is nearly twice as fast as a P-III
550, which means... some 10 to 15 time what you've got in your box. And that's
just ONE K7. They support SMP up to 8 or 16 CPUs... (Don't remember the
figure.)
And, then there's 3DNow! (SIMD - Single Instruction, Multiple Data, which
means you can process 2 or 4 FP numbers in parallel), which boosts signal
processing performance a lot. MMX enabled speed-ups between 50% and 400% by
converting code from normal integer stuff, and 3DNow! should do at least half
of that improvement for FP. Oh, and AMD added a few special 3DNow! instructions
suitable for signal processing. AFAIK, one is the multiply-and-accumulate
instruction that used to be the reason why DSPs are a lot more efficient than
normal CPUs for signal processing.
Still worried about power? Well, there's always Alpha AXP, but K7 is cathing up
on them...
> and if a realtime reverb plugin doesn't sound like a Lexicon, should we
> bother using it? (well, i don't have money for Lexicon, that's why i'm
> using pc with soundcards :))
Well, if you can't afford a Lexicon, you'll have to chose between a lower
priced stand-alone unit and a software plug-in. The hardware FX box just does
what it's built for, and does it pretty good. While the software plug-in + a
decent computer can do a lot more. And you always have the choice of bumping
the plug-in's density control to max and have a cup of coffie while it's mixing
down you track to disk. You can't do that with a stand-alone box...
> i believe in non-realtime music-making.
Not my thing, really, even though I'm not at all a "live" guy. I usually record
everything played from the MIDI keyboard, and then edit or quantisize some if
necessary. And I always sing in real time, of course... ;-)
> currently i'm in the final state
> of planning my tracker that uses Csound to make the actual sound, and
> it would be semi-realtime.
That sound pretty interesting. Used to like trackers oncy upon a time, for being
integrated and having exact timing... :-)
> i mean, if you pressed "play pattern", it'd
> calculate your pattern to a wav and play it :) (actually "csound -odevaudio"
> should/will work well, but what if the cpu power is just not enough...)
> anyway, "effects" are simply non-realtime plugins? :)
A plug-in could be any kind of extension to an application, actually... So yes,
if the "effects" are dynamically linked and work in non real time, they're non
real time plug-ins. :-)
//David
·A·U·D·I·A·L·I·T·Y· P r o f e s s i o n a l L i n u x A u d i o
- - ------------------------------------------------------------- - -
·Rock Solid David Olofson:
·Low Latency www.angelfire.com/or/audiality ·Audio Hacker
·Plug-Ins audiality_AT_swipnet.se ·Linux Advocate
·Open Source ·Singer/Composer
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b28 : pe maalis 10 2000 - 07:25:53 EST