briandc wrote: ↑Sat Dec 18, 2021 10:23 pm
Amsynth comes to mind, as well as Aspect.
Hexter is nice, as well as WhySynth, Xsynth and Wsynth. DX-10 and JX-10 and Xhip, too.
Sineshaper and Nekobi (mono).
Amsynth was my first synth even before I started exploring DAWs, for some reason it was crashing then and crashes now, most others are too old and dssi only or don't show UI in Reaper, this is why I'm trying to avoid abandoned software.
But Nekobi is really nice retro bass and still working (thanks to Distrho).
Thanks
Bitwig / Surge XT / Linux Studio Plugins / u-he stuff / TAL stuff
What machine/setup were you using to get those figures, and how did you measure them? They seem rather high for something relatively straightforward. What else was running at the same time?
Running on a 6 year old dual core Intel machine (31.Ghz), with my Moonlight Piano patch on Yoshimi only shows about 5% in qjackctl when running fast two handed arpeggios.
folderol wrote: ↑Sun Dec 19, 2021 11:52 am
What machine/setup were you using to get those figures, and how did you measure them? They seem rather high for something relatively straightforward. What else was running at the same time?
Thinkpad X230 with mobile core i5 (2012), Arch i3wm, I'm stopping almost everything - firefox, syncthing, etc, except wifi. There are no pauses, crackling or any audible glitches with 8 surge tracks and drum sampler, just high battery consumption. Tried to stop iwd daemon and unload iwlwifi but didn't see any difference.
Reaper and htop because I'm too lazy to use sysstat. BTW I see similar cpu usage on desktop with latest Ryzen 3800X.
Tried Yoshimi - 10%
Bitwig / Surge XT / Linux Studio Plugins / u-he stuff / TAL stuff
If you use top or htop the %CPU figure is for one core. 100% CPU usage in htop means 100% of one core, so if there are four cores in the machine, that's only 25% of the processing power available. QjackCtl or other audio apps may report a lower DSP load because these audio apps are taking into account the multiple cores.
porzione wrote: ↑Fri Dec 17, 2021 9:48 pm
I compared some synths and found that most cpu fridendly is Helm and that Surge is better than Vital and equal to simpler u-he Podolski. ...
Cool test! Let me add though that the CPU usage in many synths is very dependent on what features a specific preset uses so comparing synths is complicated.
A simple rule of thumb (which is what most of the answers suggest) is that the older the synth, the leaner it will run.
If performance was really critical I would personally suggest using mostly one single instance of zynaddsubfx with multiple midi channels/sounds enabled. I think that would provide a good balance between performance and sound quality.
spamatica wrote: ↑Mon Dec 20, 2021 11:15 pm
Cool test! Let me add though that the CPU usage in many synths is very dependent on what features a specific preset uses so comparing synths is complicated.
A simple rule of thumb (which is what most of the answers suggest) is that the older the synth, the leaner it will run.
If performance was really critical I would personally suggest using mostly one single instance of zynaddsubfx with multiple midi channels/sounds enabled. I think that would provide a good balance between performance and sound quality.
I tried just one saw oscillator and one LFO with LP filter where it is possible using CC without any effects and didn't see big difference. The problem is battery consumption, I almost gave up because even one voice of lightest mentioned synth discharges laptop in hour and half or faster when usually my Thinkpad works 4-5 hours with simple tasks. Maybe I shouldn't use real DAW and switch to Bespoke or Sunvox or even Sonic Pi. Or don't use jack because realtime is heavy thing.
Regarding oldies - I found that u-he synths are very steady with cpu load and there are no spikes during the play with Podoslki, maybe because it is from 2005 and it's getting only fixes and new patches since then.
Bitwig / Surge XT / Linux Studio Plugins / u-he stuff / TAL stuff
I recently switched to linux (AVL) for music production and am still on my way to find my 1st choice synths. Lightweight on Resources is an argument but also they have to complement my two hardware synths and fit the sound I'm into. And of cause it has to be stable, pleasing aesthetics, easy to program ect. The sound of the OB-Xd by discoDSP is pretty awesome but it's a dude that I sooner or later will need to render down. The best 'allrounder' for me seems to be the XHIP Synth. To import own WAV's is a great feature for all who are into 'hybrid' sounds, like me. Started working on a demo track for the developers' soundcloud today to get used to it.
I'm 'synthilliterate' but when I do experiment with such things I've stuck with my old sequencer of choice which is EnergyXT and one of the first really nice paid synths for Linux was Loomer's Aspect which was very powerful sound-wise and seems very frugal with resources on older systems. Just thought I'd mention it since it seems to be a forgotten gem in a lot of these threads.
