Reason's poor cpu performance

[Heater]

Yeah, Reason kind of has that functionality with its "bounce to new tracks and mute old" function but it doesn't hide whats happening as well as the simple freeze button in other DAWs.

Yes but the frozen track still consumes CPU which kind of defeats the purpose. A proper freeze option has been on my wish list for years.

[avasopht]

Yes but the frozen track still consumes CPU which kind of defeats the purpose. A proper freeze option has been on my wish list for years.

Devices should not consume much CPU when notes or audio input is not being supplied.

But a proper freeze function is still welcomed.

[kimothebeatmaker]

Could always bounce to audio, but that would create more work if you had to change a part. The DSP issue I think can and will be fixed, just a matter of when.

[jappe]

Yes but the frozen track still consumes CPU which kind of defeats the purpose. A proper freeze option has been on my wish list for years.

Devices should not consume much CPU when notes or audio input is not being supplied.

But a proper freeze function is still welcomed.

on osx I see 50% filled load meter in Reason on some tracks, without even playing

[avasopht]

on osx I see 50% filled load meter in Reason on some tracks, without even playing

Well I only said should not. Some devices have to continue processing, such as Crapre and Audiomatic (on some settings). EQs, echo's, pitch shifters, compressors and reverbs can all take a nap. Ditto for synths.

[Pralijah]

Is this issue of performance just connected to how many VST plugins one use, or is Reason 9.5 in itself behind the other DAWs?
That is, if I would only use number audiotracks?

I assume we put the same buffer and put the Reason CPU limit to 100% (some say 95% is better because of GPU, but nontheless).

And is a RE in Reason, which also exist as a VST, more efficient simular to other DAWs using same plug as VST?

Just curious...

[normen]

Is this issue of performance just connected to how many VST plugins one use, or is Reason 9.5 in itself behind the other DAWs?
That is, if I would only use number audiotracks?

I assume we put the same buffer and put the Reason CPU limit to 100% (some say 95% is better because of GPU, but nontheless).

And is a RE in Reason, which also exist as a VST, more efficient simular to other DAWs using same plug as VST?

Just curious...

No, as I said in my first post in this thread the code of a VST is normal code, compiled by the plugin developer. There is no way that the DAW makes it more or less efficient. How the plugin is used and run depends on the DAW though, as described in that post.

For REs its actually a bit different and more complicated to explain but most REs run exactly the same as their VST counterparts - if you compare them under the same conditions which is hard, again see my first post in this thread. Some VST plugins that came out as RE (especially the U-He ones) used many special CPU functions which were initially not available for REs as they're basically platform independent and can't expect these special functions to be there in all cases. These performed worse as REs.

[AttenuationHz]

Your samplerate will play a big part on DSP! As will you're soundcard!

[XysteR]

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but even the most recent/powerful MacBook pro is a bit hopeless, that's me being kind. For the price of these things, you could have had a custom PC made, which would be far more powerful for music production. My mind boggles why people buy these things to do CPU heavy tasks. They're just poo!

[devilfish]

Poor CPU = Poor Performance... „lol“

[Fusion]

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but even the most recent/powerful MacBook pro is a bit hopeless, that's me being kind. For the price of these things, you could have had a custom PC made, which would be far more powerful for music production. My mind boggles why people buy these things to do CPU heavy tasks. They're just poo!

You cannot blame the MacBook Pro for reasons poor performance, they are more than up to the job. You don’t need to build a custom pc just to run a daw. If you look at other comments , others have tried other daws which have no problems. I have had problems ever since upgrading from reason 8 which ran my projects fine then something in reason 9 has ruined the performance. Maybe they just need to update old code to perform well with the new OS X but I will not be upgrading until they sort this issue out

[XysteR]

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but even the most recent/powerful MacBook pro is a bit hopeless, that's me being kind. For the price of these things, you could have had a custom PC made, which would be far more powerful for music production. My mind boggles why people buy these things to do CPU heavy tasks. They're just poo!

You cannot blame the MacBook Pro for reasons poor performance, they are more than up to the job. You don’t need to build a custom pc just to run a daw. If you look at other comments , others have tried other daws which have no problems. I have had problems ever since upgrading from reason 8 which ran my projects fine then something in reason 9 has ruined the performance. Maybe they just need to update old code to perform well with the new OS X but I will not be upgrading until they sort this issue out

Oh yes I can blame the MacBook Pros extremely poor performance. Poor, inadequate cooling and general poor design. I had the misfortune of repairing them - They are indeed overpriced crap! Most well designed PC laptops with, like for like CPUs run better. Not in my experience with Reason 9 and today 10. Most of my projects hardly push 2 bars on the meter. There is nothing wrong with Reason. It's mainly peoples demands that are out of whack. I'm sorry but I've said it before, I'll say it again. You get nothing for nothing when it comes to cutting edge software. I understand your frustration though. Someone has to be to blame, but in this instance it's not props fault. I've heard it all before "Reason is badly optimized" and a whole host of other dribble that comes from the mouths of people who generally don't have a clue. The facts are clear. It's just common knowledge that macs are just plain shite.

In the meantime all I can say is learn to efficiently manage your projects using 'bounce in place' etc, because with a MacBook pro you're always going to be limited.

[chaosroyale]

normen: I think your posts are confusing to non-experts.

It is true that the code of a VST runs the same regardless of Reason. However, each DAW will have many other processes associated with hosting VSTs and those processes may be more or less efficient.

The end user doesn't care about details of the code, they care about: "can I run 8 copies of Kontakt in this DAW or just 3?"

In Live, Logic or FL, you can run more VSTs than in Reason. (In Live a LOT more). That's what we mean when we say it could be more efficient.

[avasopht]

normen: I think your posts are confusing to non-experts.

It is true that the code of a VST runs the same regardless of Reason. However, each DAW will have many other processes associated with hosting VSTs and those processes may be more or less efficient.

The end user doesn't care about details of the code, they care about: "can I run 8 copies of Kontakt in this DAW or just 3?"

In Live, Logic or FL, you can run more VSTs than in Reason. (In Live a LOT more). That's what we mean when we say it could be more efficient.

Yes but they were not just reasoning about whether they can run them, but whether reason was poorly or inefficiently coded.

Basically for VSTs to perform better you may have to sacrifice low latency CV response.

There are other resolutions PH can make, which normen explained.

That being said, it pays to understand some technical details as it can save the simple man from spending thousands of pounds in plugins that are a little incompatible with the inherent properties of a low latency rack environment.

[XysteR]

normen: I think your posts are confusing to non-experts.

It is true that the code of a VST runs the same regardless of Reason. However, each DAW will have many other processes associated with hosting VSTs and those processes may be more or less efficient.

The end user doesn't care about details of the code, they care about: "can I run 8 copies of Kontakt in this DAW or just 3?"

In Live, Logic or FL, you can run more VSTs than in Reason. (In Live a LOT more). That's what we mean when we say it could be more efficient.

It doesn't even work like that either - it's just not that simple to say "can I run 8 copies of Kontakt in this DAW or just 3?". Too many variable to even discuss, especially since I've already explained this to the nth degree in the past.

To put it simply: If your demands are great and you can afford it, buy more CPU power. If you can't afford it, stop whinging about it - because quite frankly, it's becoming a bit boring!

End of.

[chaosroyale]

avasopht: I totally get your point, but I'm not sure people were meaning to say Reason is badly coded, just that it is less efficient to use with VSTs.

I think that's why many of of brought up "Freeze" options and so on as possible way to preserve the low latency aspect while improving VST useability.

XysteR: I think you've got the wrong end of the stick. Say a user has a machine with whatever cpu and whatever memory. In fact lets say they have the maximum possible spec, to make it simple. They want to get a DAW to run as many instances of Kontakt or Serum or whatever as possible. In that respect, which can run more - Reason, or Live?

I don't think there's anything boring about adding a Freeze function to Reason.

[normen]

The end user doesn't care about details of the code, they care about: "can I run 8 copies of Kontakt in this DAW or just 3?"

In Live, Logic or FL, you can run more VSTs than in Reason. (In Live a LOT more). That's what we mean when we say it could be more efficient.

Sure but theres also those who ask "can I interconnect and modulate everything to my hearts content?" And then the answer is also clear. THAT is the heart of what I say - choose your tools wisely. Using Reason when you want to mix 16 Kontakt instruments is a dumb idea, it won't help demanding that the tool should be different.

Thats also why I'm always trying to explain things like these, what I see is people demanding that a perfectly fine scythe hammer is converted to a sledge hammer.

[chaosroyale]

normen: True, I get where you are coming from.

Also, FWIW I can run plenty of VST plugins CV'd in combinators just fine on Reason - I simply hit the limit faster than other DAWs, and a Freeze option (essentially a state-save~render~purge) would really help me on the more complex tracks while keeping the excellent creativity of Reason.

[yamguitar]

I am fortunate enough at the moment to have a computer with very up-to-date specs: iMac Retina 5K, 4 GHz Intel Core i7, 500 GB SSD , 32 GB RAM. I've always found Reason to be very resource-light... until now. I have been having some audio dropout problems recently, even on very simple projects consisting of 3 or 4 instruments with no effects. I've never experienced this with Reason before, and I've been an avid user since V5. What's going on? It definitely never happened this way before 9.5.

[jappe]

I am fortunate enough at the moment to have a computer with very up-to-date specs: iMac Retina 5K, 4 GHz Intel Core i7, 500 GB SSD , 32 GB RAM. I've always found Reason to be very resource-light... until now. I have been having some audio dropout problems recently, even on very simple projects consisting of 3 or 4 instruments with no effects. I've never experienced this with Reason before, and I've been an avid user since V5. What's going on? It definitely never happened this way before 9.5.

Hello,

try turning off the automatic graphics switching

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202043

[yamguitar]

try turning off the automatic graphics switching

I appreciate the suggestion, jappe, but that only relates to laptops. Thanks, though!

[tumar]

Could always bounce to audio, but that would create more work if you had to change a part. The DSP issue I think can and will be fixed, just a matter of when.

Bounce to audio just renders audio file. Freeze is better, because you can still play frozen synth with keyboard or midi notes.

I have Reason 9.5, Ableton Live and newest Studio One Pro. Reason is worst on CPU.
I'm afraid Propellerhead team reached coding skills limit for Mac so it will be never ever fixed.

[drloop]

I made some tests yesterday.
I played fourteen Thor in Reason 4 (10 years since R4 was released) and compared to running fourteen Thor in Reason 10.
Result is that it takes about 30% more CPU power to run fourteen Thor in R10 compared to R4.

Compared running Dexed VST (FM VST) in Tracktion 6 and in R10.
I can run ~80% more Dexed instances in Tracktion 6 compared to R10.

But for Dexed it is not a problem, I need to run several 100s instances of Dexed before my compter says NO.
Same thing with Thor, I can run 100s of Thors before my computer says no.

I selldom run my Windows 10 I5 3570K over 50% CPU usage in any arrangement I´m working on.
I don´t think my arrangements are too simple, here´s one of my songs. A lot things going on.

[jwd606]

I only have an old copy of Reason so I've been demoing out the latest releases.

If I play the Speaker Phone demo song on Reason 10, then play it on Reason 9, I get noticeably more cpu usage on 10, so something has seemingly changed "under the hood".

[demt]

the game has changed it does take £50 quid to optimize your computer with a booster program as well as taking the cpu choke out and using max ram allways.The n.o of tweaks and optimizations available would take the average jo months to implement instead of hit that button. Try keeping all your drivers up to date itll take you months not hours without a special program,ive got 109 background processes and 97 windows system processes running without trying, in the old days when it payed to do everything by hand i had about 20 or 30 background tasks running and could easily adjust them for purpose,i still do but i use a special program. windows 10 is a beast regs the n.o. of processes running