High CPU Usage from Maschine

Hi all,

I am running maschine in standalone, and i am getting pops,clicks, tempo slowdown and glitches on projects which arn't all that full which is making it extremely diffucult to playback and edit and/or finish my mix.

On this particular project, i'm hitting 110%-130% CPU usage on my Mac based on the the activity monitor, and Maschine is showing 60-90% usage and the project is really not that intensive. nor is it close to being finished. I have maybe 3-4 VST's, and some drum and audio samples.

I've done my best to try reduce CPU workload i.e. send effects to one soundslot with mutiple effect plugins, as well as replace resource heavy plugins with simpler ones (replacing Ozone 9 elements with stock Apple plugins). have also followed the NI instructions to try and optimize my mac.

While reducing plugins does reduce the pops and clicks during the session, they are still present and i feel my system could be running things a lot better but i'm not sure how to make it do that.

atm completing a project in maschine seems like a pipedream as it simply becomes unworkable after loading a handful of VSTs and plugins.

If anyone can offer me some guidance that would be really appreciated.

Thanks!

My Set up below for reference.

and of course my Maschine Mk3

 

Silly question maybe-- are you running maschine2 in 32bit or 64bit mode?

First time I ran maschine2, even though I installed 32 and 64bit versions, it was in 32bit mode and I had the exact same issues you have with pops, clicks, high CPU usage. When I switched it to the 64bit executable, that was all resolved.

Right now (windows10, cubase 10.5), Im able to load up maschine2 in standalone or plugin mode, and there are ZERO pops, dropouts, or CPU spikes inside maschine2.

 

I have the exact same laptop, pretty much a similar experience... People say here all the time that an "i5 is ok" lol, it's not because they aren't all the same, there's i5's from 2009 and from 2020 with different core count, speed, technology, etc...

This particular model (i5-5257U) is a dual-core, in today's age, a dual-core is simply not enough especially paired with a modern OS.
The usage numbers is because Maschine doesn't use hyperthreading, the CPU has 2 cores and 4 threads, lack of hyperthreading means it only uses the 2 real cores and not the virtual threads, which means performance is not as high as it could be, hyperthreading would not make a massive difference but it would make it a bit better, anywhere from 10% to 25% faster.

Activity Monitor numbers dont matter much, usage can go up to 200% because it accounts for threads, on my desktop it goes up to 600% while overall usage is maybe 25%, it's a 6-core.

Things like ozone aren't really designed for something like Maschine or low-end CPU's tho, your best bet is to increase the buffer size, but then you will get more latency...

32bit plugins in a modern macOS are pretty rare afaik, so that's not it, NA doesn't even offer to install those. In Mac's 32 and 64 versions arent separate files.

 

Hi, D-One! Hyperthreading technology is not supported on maschine, or it is the case with all NI products? I was thinking to make an upgrade to I7 cpu from I5, but since the only thing I will achieve is hyperthreading, it seems like a bad idea.

 

i am on same OS ver. but much older Mac Mini system with slightly more RAM and i7. Mach is the least CPU hungry of all the apps I run. how many groups you have running in Masch? whats your core audio setting at? are you using 3rd party non-NI vst effects in Mach ? which ones? how many?

 

Not sure, never tested, Maschine is pretty much the only relevant NI product i have on my laptop, most of them other than Traktor aren't really meant to be used as a standalone app that much. DAW's all have hyperthreading support afaik.

What!? How the heck did you reach that conclusion?
That is definitively not the only thing you will achieve, i7's have more cores, higher clock speeds, etc... if you go from an i5 dual-core to an i7 quad-core it's double the performance, since the speed is generally also higher than more than double, some i7's have 6 cores... thats 3x the performance, at least.

Big jump from i5 to i7... Older OS too? I have an 2009 MacBook that i gave to my mom and it's actually faster than the 2015 one because it has a much older OS, older Maschine, etc...
4 or 5 kits from expansions and my laptop is crapping it's pants at 128 buffer, at 256 the latency in unbearable... zero 3rd party stuff.

 

i should check my setup. maybe i don't have that low a latency setting. why you have 4 or 5 kits? what i do is line up all the kicks, snares, hh's and whatever else from different kits into 1 custom kit. 4 kicks first row, 4 snares 2nd row, e.t.c. ... i find i only need i group for drums. maybe my music is very simple compared to others.

 

From my I5-3570 (3,8 ghz, 4 cores, 4 threads) I can go only to I7-3770 (3,9 ghz, 4 cores, 8 threads) - that's the top cpu for my motherboard. So the only advantage of this upgrade is hyperthreading, which is not supported on maschine. My question is do other ni products (especially kontakt) support hyperthreading or not, since I can't find any information on that subject.

 

Just for clarification to others reading this, there's a really big difference between your desktop i5 and our (mine and the Op's) mobile i5.

Which board do you have? Just curious. Maybe a K overclockable variant could be worth it, depends, i got desktop overclocked to 5Ghz, it makes a pretty huge difference but thats probably not worth it on old CPUs, I am not even sure if they go that high without frying.
IDK, i never tested but i can test if you'd like. Generally, the DAW is in charge of splitting the load, I've seen people mention that Reaktor is single-core a lot, never tested it tho. Do you want to know about Kontakt standalone with a bunch of libraries loaded or as a plugin with a bunch of libraries loaded? I'll test it... A single instrument shouldn't ever be a problem. Or do you want to know how it handles with a bunch of kontakts in different tracks each with a single different library loaded?

I dont, I barely use pre-made kits... it's just a way to quickly quantify the amount of stuff needed for the laptop to crap its pants, otherwise, I have to give details about how many samples, which instruments, how many and which fx i use, etc... It's just easier to say "load 5 random kits", a bunch of samples + internal fx + 2 or 3 massive instances shouldn't be something CPU intensive, that's the main point.

 

I have a desktop pc with an asus p8p67 motherboard. The I5 is already overclocked to 4 ghz on all cores and to 4,2 on a single core. I'm interested in how well kontakt utilizes hyperthreading inside a daw in both scenarios (multiple libraries inside kontakt and multiple kontakts with single library loaded). I'm looking for ways to improve my cpu performance. The last discovery was that maschine standalone works really bad with NI komplete audio 2 drivers (maybe with other interfaces too, i can't verify this). There is a driver inside reaper called rearoute, which redirects audio from any daw or standalone instrument into reaper, and than reaper streams audio into your soundcard. So what I discovered: track with heavy load on cpu, going up to 100% utilization, in maschine standalone with buffer size 2048 gets various clicks and pops here and there. With rearoute engaged, buffer size 256 - no clicks and pops. CPU utilization is the same in both scenarios, but maschine performance is really bad without rearoute. Don't know how it behaves on mac, but that's how it is on windows 10 with komplete audio 2.

 

Thanks for the information!
I've tried increasing buffer size but it doesn't really seem to be helping me tbh. still getting pops and clicks.

I will admit my mac is quite full after downloading the maschine libraries and some expainsions. I have about 40GB free of 250GB total. would freeing up some space help at all?
Just trying to see how else I can optimize my mac for maschine.

If i should get a new mac laptop what should i be looking for? i assume an i7 minimum quad-core type unit?

Done a fair bit of research but i'm not the most tech savy person. I just want to create! haha

Ultimately I just want to know what set up is best to allow me to complete a full song on the maschine. and at least let me get to a point im able to use all the banks (or at least partially use) and load all the plugins i need. This of course is assuming im still being smart about resource management.

 

No. 40GB is enough for most people, computers generally get slow if they're close to full which is not your case, 10/15GB free is what most of the techy people recommend.

Yes.
You can try to change screen resolution scaling, disabling iCloud, disabling all power saving options, etc... it can make a bit of difference but it's not very significant. Having an external Audio Interface also helps a bit, not sure if you have one or not.
Apple recently finally stopped making 13" dual cores, so anything recent should be much better, go here:https://browser.geekbench.com/mac-benchmarks and switch to the multi-core tab, it will give you an idea of the performance differences, our laptop scores 1555, a 2019 13" i7 MBP scores 4186... It will cost you an arm and leg tho, but that's how Apple rolls.

 

On a 64 buffer size with a Komplete Audio 2 - 1 Single Kontakt with 16 instruments loaded (max) + a high polyphony of notes playing = hard to say, it uses so little CPU on my desktop that I can't really tell, the CPU utilization bars are tiny... the real usage of this is 13% of my CPU while the project is playing and lower at iddle even tho Live reports 23%

Spoiler: screenshot hard to say

Cores to the left are real cores, to the right it's the virtual threads.

Duplicating that track 6 times makes hyperthreading very noticeable, so at least in the scenario of several Kontakt instances hyperthreading definitively works for Kontakt.

Side note:
7x16 is 112 instruments, at this point ram is more of an issue than CPU for me, the project is using 29GB of ram, my computer only has 16GB and I would never in my life make a project with 100+ Instruments, people are always arguing that 32GB makes a difference, I wonder if the common hobbyist or even pro makes songs with 150 heavy multisample instruments tracks to make that ram claim lol

Spoiler: screenshot hyperthreading definitively working

i7 8700k @ 5Ghz, any of this including 1 Kontakt with 16 instruments would fry my laptop, not even gonna bother trying.

What the heck, 2048, and u get issues? That doesn't sound right... Maybe you have some sort of driver conflict there or something. If you want I can test your project on my windows system, it has zero optimization, i use it like 3 times a year.
Do you have a dedicated GPU? Weirdly, it makes a significant difference from my experience, it might be because i have a 4k screen so the GPU handles all the GUI rendering but I am not sure.

 

D-One, sorry my mistake. I meant not a track, but a project with lots of kontakt players, using orchestral libraries. At the end it's always going to hit cpu at 100% in the main part of a cue, and when I'm not using rearoute I always get clicks and pops. Even at 2048 buffer size. And yes, I have a dedicated gpu - asus gtx-670.
P.S.: Thanks on that hyperthreading experiment with kontakt!

 

I also see more-than-occasional slowdowns on projects that I feel shouldn't be slowing down my pc. My projects are mostly audio loops with few or no VST instruments. Using stock compressor, reverbs etc... The slowdowns also occur at times which are unexpected - not necessarily when there are the most sounds/tracks active, but usually consistently enough in the same places that make me rule out external processes slowing down my pc.. I've been making music with DAWs since the 90s... and these tracks i'm making these days are not close to being as a complex as others i've made on far inferior hardware in the past...
I'm running win 10, version 2.10.1 64 bit. 24 gb of ram, quad core i7 with SSDs. The cpu is a few years old now, but as i say, the aren't complex projects.... so its a bit of mystery.

 

so i thought i'd be helpful and post an actual example:
This is silly track i was making with my daughter - it's really not complex. If you look at the patterns used in the different sections, its clear the "fine" section *should* be worst cpu-wise... but its not, it plays just fine. But then i get fairly consistent breaking up in the red sections, even though they are using the exact same patterns. Scene 15 makes no sense at all. Its the same pattern used earlier with a single sampler and zero effects! Only ever one note played at a time.... But it consistently breaks up towards the end.
Master track has a reverb, filter, and maximizer.

 

I even had an i7 MBP and found that I could not get too far into producing a track on it before Maschine crapped out.

I had to get a new Mac Pro before I felt like I could make a decently complex track without shitting the bed.

We're a long way from the CPU not being the bottleneck for music production.

 

Not entirely true.

The CPU is only a bottleneck if your i7 was an old i7. For example, I have an i7 965 Xtreme from 2007. I also have an i7 7800x from late 2018. The first i7 can handle maschine2 and cubase 10.5 just fine, but I must be careful to not overload its capacity. The second i7, from late 2018, can handle almost anything I throw at it, and I have not been ABLE to overload it with a track. *yet*, lol. Obviously there is a finite amount of CPU horsepower no matter your platform, and if you exceed it you exceed it. The CPU has to bottleneck eventually, but we just work to make sure it does not do so too soon or because of unoptimized code.

 

in my example, this has nothing to do with my cpu being powerful enough. It clearly is because it plays the section with 8 active tracks just fine. The audio then breaks up with one track active, of a single sample playing (single note at a time, no polyphony). It's literally the simplest thing Maschine could be doing other than playing silence. I removed all effects and it *still* breaks up.
Something else is going on, and its really weird because other projects work just fine.

 

Yeah, sounds like something else is doing on. Ive got a fairly standard, stock config, with an x299 chipset, i7 7800x 6/12 core @ 4.1ghz, 32GB RAM, focusrite 8i6 gen3 interface(256/48000), MK3 + Komplete full, akai advance49 (with VIP as a VST host, also, on top of maschine), and microKORG XL with everything connected via a good, externally powered USB hub. I havent seen a slowdown or glitch once, since making sure I was running the 64bit vs 32bit maschine2.

I have also spent many hours playing with maschine2 with all my CPU virtual cores (HT) enabled, and I have also DISABLED all virtual cores to fix a Cubase ASIO internal processing issue, and I see perfect maschine performance in both scenarios. Sometimes HT can be an issue, in some weird cases.

Good luck finding the source of that!