So I understand it better. I build my boards for guitar in stereo using the 4 cable formula.
When I split my mono pedal into my stereo pedals I can use this pedal as it turns it into true stereo?
Hi,
Very cool idea, and webUI !
Wouldn’t be easier if the 2 plugins were only one with 2 ins 2 outs ?
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I see why it has to be a plugin, now I think it has to be carefully documented in the plugins descriptions.
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Description is a bit extensive already, dont want to add more before summarizing the existing text.
there is a direct button to this forum discussion on the plugin info dialog by the way, maybe that is enough…?
that last button leads here 
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@falkTX You may want to include the detailed description that you gave in answer to me. The savings is difficult to visualize unless you understand what is being saved.
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Okay, I’ve put the portal in my main board, which was using around 80~85% of CPU, with portal put before the delay it goes now around 65% !!!
amazing job falkTX ! 
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Same!
Threw it in as a split from my mono effects to my stereo effects and it really helped!
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I’m probably misusing it
I just did one silly test tat MAKES NO SENSE IN MY HEAD
yet
-25% processor load! just by putting a portal IN and OUT in front of those 2 parallel amps.
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that is easy to see, introducing a bit of latency you now have these 3 chains in multi-threading:
- chow centaur
- roamer + gain
- mutant + gain + eq
the only point where audio meets in a waiting-for-processing manner is the 2nd gain (the one just before the caps plate reverb)
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if it helps, think of the portals as loopback interfaces.
place the yellow sink on the right-most-side of the pedalboard, and the blue source on the left-most-side. this shows you how the processing is done, in a visual way.
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I understand it better but not completely.
Not enough to know where the best spots are on my board but DANG DO I LOVE WHAT IT DOES.
3 weeks ago, I was struggling to get the Mutant running together with something else on my board.
Now I was able to expand my Mutant board with a momentary Dragonfly Reverb!
Yes, got a new board lined up for band practice on Monday 
PRO: massive CPU wins
CON: try to explain this to simple guitarists like me!
This could use a board building guide but the sentence: “running the 2nd part of a chain in another CPU core” is the most crucial one to understand
I know the “portal” gimmick is sweet but if this is about splitting it over 2 cores, everything, including design and branding, should point at that, as it makes more sense.
(Sorry, I’m not as smart as some of you guys but I’m on a mission to help to get this MOD Universe as foolproof as possible. )
Seriously; this is a HUGE breakthrough!
… but it lacks intuitive usability
I would vote to mature it into something dummies like me understand. If the idea of “run on another cpu from here” really IS the main deal; build the story around that!
Also; perhaps the next gen portal plugins could be made a bit smaller? my older laptop upstairs makes it hard managing and rendering all these large plugins
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The problem with trying to understand this is that you would need to understand parallel signal path first…
These plugins do not do any magic whatsover, it is really just:
- an intermediary audio buffer shared between 2 plugins
- sink/yellow side receives audio and puts it in the intemediary buffer
- source/blue side fetches the audio from that buffer and puts it on its output
- some little extra things to ensure they always run in the same order
It is the host and its multi-threaded path processing that allows this to happen in the first place.
The portal just simulates you taking audio from a place and routing it back into the unit.
You can try this yourself to see it in action:
- on the web gui pedalboard, connect something to input 1 on the MOD unit, have an FX on it and connect that to output 1
- physically connect the output 1 jack into input 2 on the MOD unit
- back to the web gui pedalboard, add another FX connected to input 2 and then finally to output 2 of the MOD unit
- physically connect the output 2 of the MOD unit to your speakers or amplifier
Using this approach you get exactly the same effect.
Assuming the 2 processing series do not share connections on the pedalboard, they will run in parallel on the CPU.
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type or paste code here
A bit of a clarification would be great here.
Lets say I have some chain with a non-reverbed sound, that I would like to hear without an added latency.
Also there is a chain that will take “clean” sound and apply heavy reverb-delay-etc stuff that I would like to offload to the parallel processing and latency does not matter that much.
In the end I would like to have a bit of the non-reverb sound mixed with reverbed.
Do I get it correctly that the only place where I can mix them is the final “physical” output connector of the MOD device in the pedalboard, otherwise magic will not happen? For example I cannot have some shared final volume or mastering plugin for the both non-reverbed and reverbed streams?
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While the benefit of Portal is clearly worth having it, I’m also pretty much clueless how to explain it to an average guitarist with low to no digital audio processing background. Beside the overall stability, I consider a very good documentation mandatory before we can leave Beta.
Would be glad if the community could help here!
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Hem… sorry for my poor english but let’s try:
You just played in front of 300 people, everyone wants to go for a beer and there is only one way out, the stress increases (+CPU load %). Someone (falkTX…) opens a back door (Portal…), 100 people pass through this door, they have to go around the building, the path is a bit longer but the stress decreases (-CPU load %) , and finally everyone get a beer…
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It took a little longer but @falkTX could throw in a smile and a “good day” for every customer
The loopback analogy with the back door reminded me of Factorio.
Anybody ever played that?
In Factorio you automate the production process from an ore to ever more complicated half-products by creating processing plats and conveyor belts. By creating a belt that loops back items, you give other items a better chance to pass through points where they aren’t picked up by a processing point.
Looks like Factorio and sound processing have some stuff in common in this fashion.
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Thank you for the “Portal” plugin. 
With it you can build a quite complex guitar/bass FX chain and another one with the “Portal” plugin with e.g. “AudioToCV Pitch”/“Audio to CV”/“Cardinal mini” (CV to MIDI)/e.g. “dexed” Audio2MIDI synthesizer FX chain. All this with relaxed, constant ~55% CPU usage. 
(With a Mod Duo X. The performance of the device is impressive!!!).
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The main thing is that it utilize the CPU in a better way. Or that it optimizes you pedalboard for better performance.
I wouldn’t even bother to explain anything specific.
The details are too technical and its not really needed to know how it works to use it.
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I agree @spunktsch
How it works, whether is magic or not, should be irrelevant. Furthermore, JACK already does a lot of parallel processing on its own, in the cases where the pedalboard already has parallel chains. So I fear that if we go technical, people might even get more confused.
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Probably there could be a bit different explanation for the each level of the user technical expertise.
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