Sorry to distract from troubleshooting discussion, but just wanted to mention that I’ve changed my current preamp emulation in my main pedalboard to Mutant, and I really like the resulting sound for my melody chapman stick strings. I am no way proficient in designing sound chains, so not sure if my opinion really counts, but I would like to thank authors for providing such a plugin, feels like it made my music life a bit better.
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I am new to the Dwarf and this AMP really is one of my reasons to keep the Dwarf despite the insolvency.
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This amp still is the best one out there for my heavy metal/trash band sound.
It is the amp that has the best favorable tone / amount of tweaking ratio for me.
Though, it has me bummed out over the CPU usage on my Dwarf
As soon as I try to combine with a few other plugins, I get cuts of the sound due to the CPU maxing out.
No, the other effects aren’t CPU heavy reverbs or a ton of routing options and when I turn the plugin off, I go back to the lower levels of pc usage I’m used to (100%-> 40 à 50%)
I’ve made setups with other amp modellers using both inputs for guitar and vocal, each with their reverbs, deays etc and have it all running smoothly.
So yes, I did enough tests to isolate the Mutant as the cause of the issue.
(The only other plugin to do it this hard that I encountered is the RMPro ‘mastering’ plugin), which is also unusable for me because I can’t add it to my setups.
I as confronted with this issue again yesterday, trying the MOD assistant . One of the things he proposed was a simple 3 plugin setup with the Mutant and a reverb. The reverb was pointed out as probable cause by a users but I disagree.I have less issues with load with that particular reverbthan with the Mutant.
What strikes me is that I seem to be th only one, which would mean either nobody uses it actively or only the large Duo users use it, without cpu issues?
(or I have a specific fault in my cpu?)
Is there something I can do?
if anybody wants to run spcific tests, let me know?
Could the Mutant be optimized?
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If you have a pedalboard to share I’d be glad to test. I guess I tend more toward less crunchy, edge of breakup sounds - could it be related to the choice of parameters or presets?
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hmm that seems rather high indeed, does this happen with just the Mutant connected? If I try that here its running at 25%
Enabling the Drive does increase the CPU load, this happens because it enables an extra “tube” saturation stage inside the amp. If I enable that it sits at 30% here
I did notice one optimization that takes off 5% of CPU , without compromising on the sound quality. I’ll try and get that to the store soon. Other then that, without compromising on quality by disabling oversampling for example, I don’t think there is too much to be gained still
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Hi guys,
Thank you already for looking into this.
5% off th cpu load could make a big difference so I’m hoping to test that soon (tormorrow Wednesday during my lunch break for example)
Yes, I play at very high gain levels and I bash fast chords (because basically, that is what I do in the band), So yeah I suppose that is a complex signal coming in and combined with some of the highest gain settings, I’m really pushing the envelope there.
On idle, it is ok and it seems to be acting like the other plugins. A tiny bit higher cpu but nothing alarming. As you guys suspected; it’s when the chord bashing begins, the load goes through the roof. 
I kinda feel like the 2023 equivalent of Dick Dale blowing up amps, doing tests for Leo Fenders to the max here
hmm that should not be the case, not for the VeJa amps at least, and I’m also not experiencing that behavior here. As long as the input is not absolute 0 the load should be more or less the same (except when toggling the drive switch that is). Could you check this with just the Mutant amp in your chain?
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Will do
I will conduct a test with only a mutant: (after update)
- no input attached
- input attached no playing
- input attached low gain with and without chord bashing
- input attached high gain with and without chord bashing
- input attached high gain with and without chord bashing and several other basic plugins
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Yes that should be the one!
(continue in the Prof. Fornsworth voice which is already in your head now)
Everybody should UPDATE THEIR MUTANT NOW!
I did the update on my my Dwarf (from v…0-2 to v…0-3) and it made a difference!
I recreated the setup I posted here
This setup was provided to me by the Mod assistant but it gave me cpu issues.
This time, after the update, I could bach fast chords on highest gain settings, reverb on, cab sim on and my Dwarf DID NOT cut out. (before they update, it would)
the “5% update” @Jan has done actually made the difference here.
I see the CPU kissing the 100% mark but without the cut out.
Nothing but high gain chugging and searing goodness.
You made my day @Jan!
I also tried the convolution reverbs instead of the dragonfly and I manage to keep it going smoothly as well. (mind: mono, using them in stereo pushed it right over the top)
So; when using the Mutant with a more simple reverb and the Centaur in front for some minor extra beef, I had enough margin. Can’t wait to let it ROAR out of my 2x12 in the rehearsal room.
for me personally, tihs is a breakthrough and it shows that optimization matters!
So gentlemen (and gentleladies); update your engines!
rough results
Mutant + dragonfly + cab sim: 95% - 100% but to cutouts
minus the reverb (deleted, not turned off): idle: 52,3% | chugging: 56-57%
minus reverb and minus cab sim: idle: 27-29% | chugging: 31%
only mutant with drive switched off: idle: 23.3-24.1% | chugging: no difference
Mutant + other, simpler verb + cab sim: idle: 61.7% | chugging: 65.5%
Note: I noticed that in some plugins, turning off a plugin does significantly less to save processor power than actually removing it from your board.
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Actually, it seems that most plugins have the same CPU usage whether they’re on or off :
https://wiki.mod.audio/wiki/Plugins_CPU_Usage
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interesting;
We must assume turning off only has a functional impact and nobody should do it thnking it will actually free up CPU by default
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Sure, it’s useless unless it’s one of the few plugins that implement a custom bypass.
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As a side node, the web interface itself takes same CPU percentage. So “kissing 100%” may work just fine without the browser opened.
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@Jan Has anyone from MOD looked at the bug report again? I am suffering from this click/pop noise issue.
I have reproduced this issue reliably on 2 dwarf units and recorded a video showcasing it. The audio was recorded by using USB Audio Gadget mode and that is why there are 2 additional outputs to be connected.
Things to notice:
- no input to the AMP
- there is noise when you manually change the gain setting (with Drive section turned on), audible at 0:22 in the video
- there is pop noise when switching off the Drive section, audible starting 0:37
- there is loud pop when switching between different gain settings via settings (Drive section turned on), audible starting 0:37
I want to switch between a clean sound and a distorted sound using this AMP and snapshots. Switching pedal boards is not fast enough.
To not be effected by the loud pop/click noise, I need to make sure that the Gain setting does not change between a snapshots. So disabling the Drive section for clean sound and enabling it for a distorted sound would only result in a “less loud” pop.
No afaik there is still no progress on this, and I’m not sure if its even on the roadmap. Perhaps @falkTX knows?
Hi,
I just found a workaround that reduces the issue (no more click, just a little progressive treble sound). You need a Control To CV connected to a Slew Rate Limiter (rise and fall time at the max). Assign the drive gain to the Slew Rate Limiter output (+ unipolar). Use the Control to CV to control the drive gain. This even works when switching snapshots.
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It is still the same thing that we last discussed.
For snapshots the host is changing 1 parameter value at a time, likely not fast enough that the plugin gets a few changes in 1 audio cycle, then the rest in another cycle.
To be honest I kinda forgot about this detail… added in the TODO so for sure a fix will happen…
“soon”
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I finally got around to trying that. I have not yet used CV until now.
By mistake, I assigned the Mutant’s Drive Gain to the Control to CV output and this reduced the noise as well. Not in the same way as the Slew Rate Limiter. But with 256 frames, it works good enough for me.
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