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Audio quality improvement

A discussion forum for anything even marginally Hauptwerk-related.
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Sample_02

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Audio quality improvement

PostWed Jul 07, 2021 12:39 pm

Apart from the eight active speakers + subwoofer in my Hauptwerk organ (PC I7-7700 Quad-Core processor + 64 GB Ram) + soundcard FocusRite Saffire Pro26, supporting Sample rates up to 96 kHz), I am mainly listening with my DT931 BeyerDynamic headphone.
Is it worth the effort to migrate/upgrade from Hauptwerk 4.2 to Hauptwerk 6 as far as the sound reproduction of the samplesets is concerned?
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larason2

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Re: Audio quality improvement

PostWed Jul 07, 2021 1:41 pm

I would say it is. I noticed an improvement from IV to V, and many noticed an even greater improvement from V to VI.
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RaymondList

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Re: Audio quality improvement

PostWed Jul 07, 2021 1:46 pm

larason2 wrote:I would say it is. I noticed an improvement from IV to V, and many noticed an even greater improvement from V to VI.

I agree wholeheartedly with this statement!
Ray
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mdyde

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Re: Audio quality improvement

PostWed Jul 07, 2021 1:48 pm

Hello Sample_02,

Thanks very much for the interest in upgrading.

I would expect that you would hear a significant and noticeable improvement in audio quality (greater clarity, due to lower distortion) from enabling each of the two options in v6 ('high-definition pitch-shifting' and 96 kHz). Each of those two options roughly doubles CPU requirements (i.e. halves the polyphony that any given CPU would be able to achieve). Here's a detailed thread on it:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=19209&hilit=shifting
Best regards, Martin.
Hauptwerk software designer/developer, Milan Digital Audio.
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tf11972

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Re: Audio quality improvement

PostThu Jul 08, 2021 3:13 am

My experience:
In HW IV I often had crackles, mostly at low cpu demands (buffer at 1024). With HW V they nearly disappeared, in HW VI they remained back, although I haven't activated any of the options Martin mentioned.
Best regards
Thomas

Forestpipes - Virtual Pipe Organs
https://forestpipes.de
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mdyde

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Re: Audio quality improvement

PostThu Jul 08, 2021 3:34 am

Hello Thomas,

Any crackles in audio when only a few pipes are sounding will be due to hardware/driver/system performance problems (e.g. most commonly PC DPC latency, or perhaps some audio hardware/driver/USB synchronisation problem, or over-filling the computer's RAM), rather than anything within the audio output that Hauptwerk itself produces. You could verify that by using Hauptwerk's built-in audio recorder, and then playing back the audio files when Hauptwerk isn't running (e.g. on a different computer) -- you should find the crackles you heard at the time aren't present in the recorded audio files.

If you haven't already done so, and assuming you're using a PC (as opposed to a Mac), try working the PC audio performance troubleshooting steps in the 'Performance tuning: Other operating system and computer optimizations and diagnostics' section in the main Hauptwerk user guide (pages 274-276 in the current v6.0.2 version). For example, make sure you keep an ample amount of RAM free, and in particular try leaving LatencyMon ( https://resplendence.com/latencymon ) running whilst Hauptwerk is running and when the crackles occur -- if the PC has underlying performance problems (e.g. DPC latency) then it will probably report them and help to pinpoint which device/driver is causing them.
Best regards, Martin.
Hauptwerk software designer/developer, Milan Digital Audio.

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