Hey all,
Does anyone have any tricks or tips to utilizing more cpu power for caustic? I'm currently on my samsung galaxy s2 and with all synths loaded with about 4/6 composition parts I am getting lag in playback when in the pattern setting. I have turned off all of my fx including master fx and still cannot play through my song without lag.
Does anyone have any Tricks or Tips to get less lag out of caustic with my limited power?
I get my computer back in a week, I'm stoked to get on Ableton again!!! woot woot!
But will always be using caustic of couse!
Cheers, and thanks.
This issue is more/less device specific and operating software written to accomodate.
Short answer. Turn off social media, turn off all apps, turn off device radios.... This will give optimal performance for Caustic
Root your phone (if you haven't done it yet), flash custom recovery, download and flash custom kernel, and then you can overclock your cpu and do some other magic tricks:) S2 is a good machine for squashing more power from it :)
https://soundcloud.com/rafa-lewczuk
I wrote a 14 machine monster of a track (fog at night) on an unrooted galaxy s2 with no problems, think maybe you need to check what you've got installed and if they have background tasks running.
My latest track on show and tell
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Background tasks, bluetooth, wifi etc.
Also, try and increase the drawrate of the phone using the numpad code
5623XX - Set GPU stall value to XX milliseconds. Don't mess with this if you don't need to. Default is 17ms (562317)
My Soundcloud profile is _dredge_
I have Huawei G610 (4 cores at 1.2 Hz and 1 GB of RAM/PowerVr544) Caustic works well even under heavy loads.
The lag is possibly your D/A(digital to analog) converter becoming too resistive feeding your amplifier during playback granted it just may be too much code rendering at once because you have so many data streams loaded.
I'm hoping Single Cell either produces a DAW or even better, creates an update adding a multitrack module even if it's just 4 or 6 or 8 tracks with a single stereo track of real time recording.
I could be wrong with how this would improve performance but because you would be replacing multiple data streams with a single audio data stream it would be less labor intensive and you would wipe out latency.
In fact if you export it as an audio file, create a new mix with the other additions you want to make and then again, export another audio track you can just keep layering massively complex tracks into an Android DAW recording and playback editor.
In other words I'm sure there's a way it can be done without dumping it to your PC but you will have to incorporate a multitrack which there are plenty of for Android.
Shuffle between the two apps and you will figure out what I mean even if you only export 4 or 5 of your modules and sequences to relieve some burden on your CPU and D/A convertors.
I've gotta reiterate Jason's advice, and also remind you that you should check what processes are running, in addition to ditching some apps. Everyone knows about the bloatware in carrier ROMs, and if you can't uninstall it, force stop then disable. Lucky Patcher lets you alter app permissions and stop ad activity in apps you may not be aware are running. Probably wouldn't hurt to visit the recovery menu and clean the cache partition if you plan on a night of Caustic. Jonny also had good advice, in switching between apps, though I see that posing a workflow snag for some, myself included. In addition to all these, I also set my CPU governed to performance, and run my S3 at 1.8GHz on CFQ I/O scheduler. Ditch transition animations. Consider switching to Airplane mode... In the end, it does all depend on device specs... Good luck.
VIOLENT NEUROSIS (YouTube) ...https://www.youtube.com/user/ViolentNeurosis
Gotta shut it all down..... I don't root, but I do go in and dig around and find apps and processes that just don't need to run, and close and disable them..... Be aware what you close down first before you do it (just like Windows Services etc...)
I have a rooted phon! I'm running cyanogen mod 11. I only run into issues when I have 4 or 5 minutes of a jam, with automation and nearly all fx bays and main mix automation, ect. Thanks for all the advice! It's not a common issue, Caustic is my favorite mobile daw right now. Cheers!
love is energy, mannnn
Jason, I have to agree again but also share a rule of thumb... There are many similarities between Android and Windows in terms of processes, but it's also not a Windows OS... You didn't say this exactly, but just in case anyone is curious, task killers on Android aren't exactly helpful. Maybe in Gingerbread, but from what I gather in anything from ICS on they do more harm than good. I would also like to point out that enabling developer options allows for even more performance tweaks. I don't think you need to be rooted in order to use these, but honestly, I don't see much reason not to root if you happen to have a phone that's easy to root. I would make sure "Unknown Sources" is always unchecked unless you need to sideload an app, but switch it back once you're done.
Perhaps a ROM switch is in order also. If you've got a decent-end device, I recommend SlimKat or GummyROM. Neither is perfect, but they both let you tweak the relevant bits from the main settings menu. Using Xposed modules is something else to consider. You may also want to check out some custom kernels also, since there are many newer processor governors and I/O schedulers that could prove indispensable for optimizing performance.
VIOLENT NEUROSIS (YouTube) ...https://www.youtube.com/user/ViolentNeurosis
Welcome to the world of endless possibilities!
https://soundcloud.com/rafa-lewczuk