JPS Harmonic Synthesizer in the shop. $79 US

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challism
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14 May 2022

eusti wrote:
14 May 2022
Don't recall it being that hungry. Are the release times super long?

D.
Release times shouldn't matter for an idle device, and it's super hungry - even while idle.
Anyway, for that particular patch (A Feeling - JP), it's just the default settings. Release times aren't nuts.
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I might have something going on with my computer. I'll try to do some maintenance and see if I can get some better performance. I haven't seen much complaining about the CPU load, which is why I'm bringing it up to see if anybody else has had the same issues. Could be a local problem. I'll also try it out on my other (much faster, more powerful) desktop computer.
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eusti
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14 May 2022

That sounds strange indeed. Will see how it is on my system tomorrow.

D.

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JiggeryPokery
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15 May 2022

challism wrote:
14 May 2022
I might have something going on with my computer. I'll try to do some maintenance and see if I can get some better performance. I haven't seen much complaining about the CPU load, which is why I'm bringing it up to see if anybody else has had the same issues. Could be a local problem. I'll also try it out on my other (much faster, more powerful) desktop computer.

Hi challism, that it's showing up on your DSP meter indeed suggests a laptop and it's fair to say that's generally not a strong point for Reason anyway, which in my experience struggles on any non-gaming level Windows laptop in the RE era (long gone are my nights spent jamming with Reason 2.5 on an Athlon-era AMD Compaq :lol: ). And then the HS2 is likely a little tougher on the underwhelming amount of laptop DSP cycles than most RE synths, but one needs to be careful not to overstate it: in practice I'd argue one instance of HS2 in a moderately-sized rack probably isn't going to be any more of an issue than any other single DSP-heavy synth, where polyphony/voices assignments are being used appropriately for the device in question.

On a modern, post-2016 desktop (e..g. my old 1800X or currently got a 3800X), it wouldn't be running more than about 3-4% idle and that wouldn't be enough to flicker the first DSP bar. And if that number sounds high, remember it's a 32-osc synthesizer, with osc sync, and per-voice filters. Then you have to consider polyphony when it's active, so you can end up having a lot of voices being generated. You can't compare it to, say, even a simple non-osc-syncable 3-osc poly synth like Europa, which itself runs up to ~1.5% idle on its own. Honestly, for the number of oscillators and voices, the HS2 is really bloody efficient. ( :clap: scuzzyeye)

Devs don't know what device the end-user is using the instrument on, so there are cases where it's reasonable to just allow it to scale up as far as the user can go push it. That equally means that users do need scale their instruments back to what their hardware is actively capable of.

And honestly, there's nothing shameful about having to bounce tracks if one has to. That said, I did plenty of demos using only multiple HS2's and I've never bounced an HS track, and I remember I did have to bounce when putting together a track for The Legend competition. That was much harder on DSP. And the less said about ReSpire, the better. [I should note I do recall keeping the HS's Over-sampling amount down (and possibly even turned off in one or two cases), until needing to do the export render - that can be pretty crucial when DSP is tight to avoid bouncing. 2x oversampling is OKk for most preview/track development situations I ever had. But obviously, everyone's DSP mileage is going to vary somewhat. That's the nature of all these beasts.]

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ScuzzyEye
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17 May 2022

JiggeryPokery wrote:
15 May 2022
On a modern, post-2016 desktop (e..g. my old 1800X or currently got a 3800X), it wouldn't be running more than about 3-4% idle and that wouldn't be enough to flicker the first DSP bar. And if that number sounds high, remember it's a 32-osc synthesizer, with osc sync, and per-voice filters. Then you have to consider polyphony when it's active, so you can end up having a lot of voices being generated. You can't compare it to, say, even a simple non-osc-syncable 3-osc poly synth like Europa, which itself runs up to ~1.5% idle on its own. Honestly, for the number of oscillators and voices, the HS2 is really bloody efficient. ( :clap: scuzzyeye)
Thank you. :) And yes, it does have a slightly higher than nothing idle usage, because there are free-running oscillators in there. They keep ticking over even when not playing notes, just like the real thing. I do add that their oscillating isn't turned into audio, so it's more like a handful of free-running counters. 3-4% sounds reasonable to me. I don't know how it'd take much more than that, without the user also seeing high CPU in other devices too.

And also, yes. Every one of those Harmonic Generators is its own wave-shapped oscillator (when set to 0 output, their processing is skipped though). The wave-shaping can producing harmonics above the Nyquist limit, and is what the over-sampling is designed to clean up. But it means at least double the number of calculations per cycle too. So the numbers can add up pretty quickly.

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challism
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19 Nov 2022

I feel the need to make an update. Earlier in this thread I posted about JPS being really CPU hungry, as it was eating my old laptop alive. But that laptop was so old and basically on its last leg. I have since retired that old piece of garbage and bought a fairly powerful laptop to replace it. I dropped JPS into my rack a few days ago and haven't noticed it eating up any unusual amount of CPU. So on a modern system, this synth is great and runs pretty efficiently considering the extremely high sound quality. My old laptop couldn't really run one instance of JPS while it was able to run many other REs without trouble. So JPS can be hungry on an older system.

TL;DR if JPS is eating up your CPU, get a new computer - it's worth it. :)

This synth really does sound amazingly good. Nice work JP!
Players are to MIDI what synthesizers are to waveforms.

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arnigretar
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20 Nov 2022

challism wrote:
19 Nov 2022

This synth really does sound amazingly good. Nice work JP!
Indeed. Great synth!
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Reason 12, Ableton Live 10 Suite, Roland Cloud, Arturia V9, Korg Legacy 3, Soundtoys 5, Waves Mercury, Sonic Charge Bundle, N.I.: Massive, Reaktor 6, FM8. + a lot of Hardware. Windows 7/10.

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EnochLight
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20 Nov 2022

Mod note: I fixed the links in snowcattt's original post, as none of them worked since Prop's URL's all changed to Reason Studios. :thumbup:
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