Optimizing Mac OSX for Guitar Rig

I just discovered an important setting on my iBook about 10 minutes ago, and thought I would post it here for other new Mac users like myself who also may have overlooked it.

I've been trying for a while to optimize my iBook for use with Guitar Rig for stand-alone, live performance application. Shutting off AirPort, Dock animations, etc. helped a bit, but not nearly enough.

Then I found the important Processor Performance setting. Look under System Preferences -> Energy Saver -> Options. Toward the bottom of the screen is a setting called Processor Performance, with a selection box to its right. Mine had been set to Automatic. I changed it to Highest.

I then did a quick check on two of my presets in Guitar Rig 2. Both had previously been running at about 50% CPU power, but were now down to about 25%. Latency had been set at around 15ms, and I can get it down to 7ms now easily.

Setting Processor Performance to Highest will drain your battery faster, which isn't a problem for me because I always use the power adapter.

If anyone else has suggestions for optimizing Mac OSX for Guitar Rig 2, please post them here.

Thanks!

--
ramuji
www.ramuji.com

 

You properly optimized it... the energy saver is probably the biggest thing.... how bout RK2 though... are you able to use it on your Ibook? I mean with no issues whatsoever... I know you can get it to make sound... but does it sound good.... no extra noises? and how about tone?

for me with RK2 the tone (through an amp) is absolute crap! and the extra noise makes it unusable! maybe it sounds good through an interface and studio moniters but through an amp.. out from RK2.... sounds horrible !!! the Same patch Using RK1 sounds great though.

what is your experience with your mac and GR2-RK2? thanks,

Dan

 

Hi, Dan.

I don't use RK2. I upgraded from GR1, and went with only the software upgrade. Turns out that sticking with the FCB1010 has been the best decision I made.

Good luck!

--
ramuji
www.ramuji.com

 

Re: Optimizing Mac OSX for Guitar Rig!

ya, do yourself a favor and avoid getting the RK2... at least for now... im sure eventually they will get it right, but i can tell you that right now RK2 on a mac is useless !

 

>www.ramuji.com

Nice music on your page btw.

 

Oh, thanks for listening, and for the compliment.
I really do need to work on getting some new music recorded ...

--
ramuji
www.ramuji.com

 

I've also found that RK2 sounds horrible through an amp. i think the solution is to put RK2 directly into speakers, anything without an amp. Guitar rig is already "amped" right? I think that's the reason why it sounds good on studio monitors. anyway, i'm having issues with it in standalone after upgrading to Tiger. no audio-real drag!

 

Thank you for posting the helpful hints for optimizing CPU power. It helped me quiet a lot and GR2 even works now in the HiRes mode.
Concerning a good live sound with GR2 and RK2 I want to make a few remarks.
The input of RK2 has very high impedance (possibly 1 MOhm) which is mainly intended for use with a guitar. However pluggin in a tube preamp, like the HK tubefactor, between guitar and RK2 improves the sound a lot.The output of RK2 has lower impedance (in the kOhm range), which is intended for connection to the input of a poweramp (and not the preamp of a guitar amplifier). The sound should be made by the GR2 software, while the poweramp should have a very linear response. Even connection of RK2 to the input of a mixer might be dissappointing since mixers have various EQ controls. Connecting RK2 to a good tube poweramp as for e.g from ENGL + a pair of speakers might give excellent results. I am using active near field monitors from Event (guitar-RK2input-GR2software-RK2output-Event monitors) and could get nice results (just for playing at home). On stage you definitely need a stronger power amp.

Best wishes
Matt

 

Ibanez1, are you saying to set try setup as follows?:
Guitar>tube pre>RK2>line in of mixer>power amp > speakers
or to use the tube pre after RK2 then into mixer.
Thanks

 

Hi stevo57,

I prefer the following live setup:

Guitar>tubepre>RK2>tubepower amp>speakers.

However, if you need to plug into the mixer the line in might be the right choice. I haven't tested it yet. If you have some experience with RK2 and mixers please let me know.

Best regards,

ibanez1

 

I've noticed that even after optimizing my iBook, I still start to get pops and clicks in my sound when the CPU meter in GR2 gets up to around the high 40s to 50%. I run GR2 in stand alone mode, and am running no other applications along with it. I'm running at about 11ms latency right now and could probably get a bit more performance out of the machine by increasing that a few more ms, but that doesn't really seem like the best solution to me at this time.

Is it normal to experience audio glitches in GR2 when the meter indicates I'm still only using less than 50% of my CPU?

Thanks.

 

Hi ramuji,

I still have after all optimizing steps slight problems with pops and clicks. I will check whether this is a software problem or due to the RigKontrol2 and its corresponding driver. I will test GuitarRig2 with my Motu 896 firewire interface and let you know about the results.

With best wishes,

Ibanez1

 

*** bump ***

 

Hi ramuji,

yesterday I performed several tests on GuitarRig2 with the RigKontrol2 and the Motu896 firewire interface, respectively.
The two setups were as follows:
1. Guitar (PRS custom)>RK2>Powerbook G4 1,5 MHz>headphone output RK2> AKG K240DF
2. Guitar (PRS custom)>HiZ input Motu 896>Powerbook G4 1,5 MHz>headphone output Motu 896> AKG K240DF
In setup 2 the latest Motu driver, already supporting Intel DualCore processors, was installed (download was of course for free).
The result was quiet clear. Only with the RK2 pops and crackles appeared, which was never heared with the Motu896 setup.
This confirms that either the driver for the RK2, the hardware of the RK2 or both components produce the crackles and pops. I suppose the driver to be the origin of trouble. With this test a problem with the GuitarRig2 software can be ruled out.
Moreover the sound quality of the Motu896 setup was sligtly better (more punch). However, this seems to be an effect of the electronic design of the headphone.
In a last test a HK tubefactor preamp was plugged between guitar and interface input. The drive level was set to very low values of only "2". In both setups the punch and sound quality was highly improved.
Here is my recommendation to Native instruments. Please prove a new driver solving this problem as soon as possible. This driver should be for free and not included in new updates, which the user have to pay for.

 

As far as I have observed the cpu-meter behaviour, the meter represents Guitar Rig's CPU usage. Your computer does need some of the CPU's performance, too for the CoreAudio Daemon, NI USB, Graphics, harddisc access and so on. Some of the kernel functions such as harddisc access don't even show in 'top' (a command line utility to monitor running processes). Open a terminal and type top (enter). You can see some processes, the average system load (1.0 means all CPU resources used), and CPU-usage in percent. Quit it with CTRL-C.

I've tried to 'renice' (reprioritize) the Guitar Rig process, NIUSBAudioDaemon and/or Core Audio Daemon (coreaudiod) so the system's process scheduler should favor those processes over the rest to no avail. If you want to try and do the same open a terminal (maximize), locate the interesting processes by typing the following.

Code:

ps ax | grep [N]IUSB
ps ax | grep [c]coreaudiod
ps ax | grep [G]uitarRig

After each line you'll see the process number (first column) displayed. To renice a process, type the following

Code:

renice <level> -p <pid>

where <level> is a number ranging from -20 to 20, -20 being the most preferred process and 20 kind of a background process (0 is the default process niceness). <pid> is the process id of one of the above commands' output. So if your GuitarRig process has number 13023 and you want it to run at -10, you'd type:

Code:

renice -10 -p 13023

If that produces an error you might need sudo to gain administrator privileges, use it as follows.

Code:

sudo renice -10 -p 13023

As I said I did not have any luck with this but if you are kind of desperate to fix the clicks/pops (like me) you may want to give it a try.

Oh, and yes, I have tried every other performance enhancement, and have followed every advise from the NI mac optimizing pages, general GR optimizing, various forum posts and so on. I doesn't matter what I set the latency to. The amount of pops an cracks is the same from 100ms down to 5ms with a 512b buffer. 4ms seriously makes things worse for me. I'm using a 12" 1.33GHz ibook with 1.5GB ram connected to its power supply using the latest updates for both GuitarRig2 and MacOSX and have tried various USB 2.0 cables.

I will buy an Alesis IO2 soon and test GR2 with this audio interface. I should have read the forums before ordering GR2 with RK2. It is really bad to be forced to pay EUR 150,- more to get something that RK2 was supposed to be able to do.

Cheers,
Tim

 

Hello, Tim and ibanez1.
Thanks for your replies.

Just to be clear, my concerns with GR2 and my iBook have nothing to do with the RK2, since I don't use/have one. Also, I had assumed my problem was more of a hardware than a software issue, e.g. maybe there is only so much I can expect from my iBook, or maybe I need to increase the memory.

GR2 works wonderfully for me at around 10ms latency when the GR2 CPU meter is anywhere up through mid-40%. The sound starts to break up when I start adding enough components to push me beyond the upper-40% CPU level. Certainly there are other resources operating in the background that use some CPU power (and are not represented in GR2's CPU meter), but I would still expect that (since GR2 in standalone mode is the only application I run) the CPU meter in GR2 is a relatively accurate estimate of total CPU load.

Basically, it seems like a very inefficient use of available CPU power if the GR2 starts to break up a bit when it would appear that I still have around 50% available. That's why I've been hoping there are other optimization techniques that I can use.

Tim, thanks for the explanation of "renice-ing" my system processes. This is exactly the kind of information I'm looking for to optimize my iBook for Guitar Rig. I'll give that a try and check for improvement, although it is disappointing to hear you didn't have any luck with it.

 

If you don't like using the terminal and command line utilities, you can download Process Wizard where you can adjust the process priority with nice sliders. It's freeware.

Cheers,
Tim

 

I'm about to upgrade from GR 1 to GR 2. I already have Tiger installed. I've been hunting through the forum and the NI site looking to see if I should expect problems. Near as I can tell, the only thing I Should do is to Uninstall the components from GR1...

As far as optimizing, the place to start is:
https://www.nativeinstruments.de/index.php?id=niosxtut_us&nitr=1&l_src=support_us&tsr_id=36252

I've seen both opinions as far as niceness goes in OSX processes. Some places I've read that OSX does a better job managing things than I ever could, and other places (equally authoritative) say that screwing with these settings yourself CAN make a slight improvement, and even a slight improvement is better than nothing... Still not sure who to trust.

Any other tips or opinions welcome.

Thanks,
chuck

 

Hi,
I still would like to inform you about RK2 perfomance in combination with iTunes. I used the Rig Kontrol 2 in combination with iTunes to listen to my favorite songs. Surprisingly, I could not hear any crackles and pops. However, only the headphone output and line outputs of the RK2 were used. From this I conclude that crackles and pops are due to the data transfer from the input of RK2 to the Guitar Rig2 software.
Hope NI provides are free update for the driver very soon.

Best wishes,

Matt