CPU usage on pedalboard and general advice

Pedalboards
#1

Hey! I’ve been playing around with this pedalboard using it with my bass clarinet:

But I very quickly hit 100% CPU usage

I tried removing some plugins which helped for a bit but it seems like the Freeze is super power-hungry.
I was wondering if this is something which could be solved with Portals which I found in this forum. Still I would kind of like to keep my reverbs in the “main” branch so they can affect all the next effects/looping.

But I would also like general advice if I’m doing something conceptually wrong. For example with the 3 gains at the end to control the individual volume of each component, maybe there is a better way to do that?

Also, what’s the recommended way of finding out which plugin eats up all the CPU other than removing/adding each component? It would be super nice to have something like VCV Rack which shows the CPU usage of each plugin

#2

Hey @StefanD,
I guess you are loading quite heavy plugins all on the same board.
I have a first quick tip for you: replace all the tinyGain plugins with Gain and Gain 2x2, they are less CPU hungry.

The Portal plugins can indeed help you a little bit. Especially for the TimeWrap, LP3 and MrFreeze.
Eventually, something like the ToggleSwitch and a system using CV plugins that turns the right effect (mostly from the same 3 end of the chain plugins) and routes the audio correctly will eventually help you. Alternatively, for the routing purposes, you can try the new osc-Audio Router from @steve

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#3

I made some changes now replacing the gains and using the portal and indeed I went down to 50% usage! That’s fantastic.

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