Re: Walk-through tutorial for Bidule as VST host in Windows (was: Re: bidule)

[Per Boysen <perboysen@gmail.com>]

On 23 jun 2007, at 18.59, Mech wrote:

> One question, though: how are you finding the typical CPU usage on  
> your setup?  In particular, I know you've not worked a great deal  
> with Live 6 (which is what I've been standardized upon, but 99% of  
> its function is dedicated solely to plug-in hosting and signal  
> routing).  From what you remember back when you *did* use Ableton,  
> would you say that your current setup is more or less CPU intensive  
> than that?

I'm using Ableton Live 6 on a regular basis, although not any more  
for live looping. I teach it to students privately and at the music  
university and have also reviewed it for a computer music magazine  
which gave me a golden opportunity to put time into testing in depth.  
On my multi processor computer Live 6 is very low on CPU usage, but  
since I do the looping on a single processor PC that advantage is not  
for me to be counted in. Speaking single processor laptops (I use  
Live 6 on both G4 Mac and Centrino PC lappies) I'd say my Bidule  
setup is a lot more CPU friendly. The Bidule set-up goes up to 46-50  
percent of the 2GHz CPI according to Bidule's CPU meter. But I have  
indeed spent a couple of days lately to set up a looping rig on my G4  
Powerbook with Live 6 and Augustus Loop, just to keep handy as a back- 
up system if the Mobius PC should go belly up at a concert. I managed  
to duplicate many of the Mobius/EDP functions I like (by using MIDI  
clips to send the commands into AL) but it sounds rather different  
than Mobius.

The two reasons I prefer Bidule before Live as a Mobius host are (1)  
the less CPU demanding Audio Switcher Trick (see other post) and (2)  
the superior sync system when running Mobius VST as the sync master  
to slaved tempo dependent VST effects.

Greetings from Sweden

Per Boysen
www.boysen.se (Swedish)
www.looproom.com (international)