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Audio Glitches under Hauptwerk VII under Mac

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pat17

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Audio Glitches under Hauptwerk VII under Mac

PostTue May 31, 2022 1:56 pm

When I upgraded Hauptwerk to version VII end of January, I've realised some audio glitches popped up at random when playing.

The upgrade has been done while nothing else has been done - still my old Mac Mini Server late 2012 with its i7 quad-core 2.6 GHz with 16 GB RAM, OS X 10.15 Catalina which cannot be further upgraded any longer.

When on Hauptwerk VI I had never experienced such an issue.

After few months where I couldn't play any more (too much work mainly), I'm back to practice... and to the audio glitches indeed. :mrgreen:

The question is to understand how to get rid of them.

I suspect the choice of the 'Higher' option when setting up 'Audio Engine and Model Processing Quality' might be the culprit, yet before starting to re-generate the cache files for each and single instrument I would like to get a confirmation of the same, if any of you has been going through this process.

... unless the issue is actually somewhere else? Should I try a fresh installation from scrap - which I have not done while migrating from VI to VII?

Thanks a million for any help or hint on how to get rid of those audio glitches. It would help me a lot to come back to a more regular practice! 8)
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mdyde

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Re: Audio Glitches under Hauptwerk VII under Mac

PostTue May 31, 2022 2:34 pm

Hello Pat,

Just as a test, for the relevant organ, on the "Organ settings | Organ preferences | Audio engine" screen tab, try setting:

- "Audio engine processing quality" = 'Medium', and:
- "Tremulant/wind supply/swell box/relay model quality" = 'Medium'.

Those two values are equivalent to v6 's highest quality, so performance should be the same as v6 if you set them that way. (The new-for-v7 'Higher' settings are more CPU intensive.) Changing those settings doesn't require any caches to be regenerated.

Does that eliminate the audio glitches? If so, you could then try setting:

- "Audio engine processing quality" = 'Higher', and:
- (Keep "Tremulant/wind supply/swell box/relay model quality" = 'Medium'), and:

- Select 48 kHz on the "General settings | Audio device ..." screen.

... and if you then still have audio glitches again then try reducing the polyphony limit setting, so as to avoid overloading the CPU.
Best regards, Martin.
Hauptwerk software designer/developer, Milan Digital Audio.
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Re: Audio Glitches under Hauptwerk VII under Mac

PostWed Jun 01, 2022 2:49 am

Thanks Martin! 8)

I've started to reduce 'Tremulant/wind supply...' to 'Medium' only. There were less glitches yet still a few. I've then tried to reduce 'Audio engine processing quality' to 'Medium' as well and it was much better.

After a few trials, I've set the organ to -
'Audio engine processing quality' = 'Medium'
'Tremulant/wind supply/swell box/relay model quality'
'Polyphony' = 1024
'Sample rate (for audio engine and audio output' = 96 kHz (lower distortion, about 50% less polyphony)'

So far it works fine. I shall try on the other organs, after I've set the same values, to make sure this is fine with all of them (my trial was with Sonus Paradisi's Saint-Michel-en-Thiérache).

Thanks again for your valuable help! 8)
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Re: Audio Glitches under Hauptwerk VII under Mac

PostWed Jun 01, 2022 3:49 am

Thanks, Pat.

Rather than using 96 kHz and "Audio engine processing quality"='Medium', I'd recommend:

- "Audio engine processing quality" = 'Higher', and:
- "Tremulant/wind supply/swell box/relay model quality" = 'Medium' and:
- Select 48 kHz on the "General settings | Audio device ..." screen.

In terms of audio quality, it's more beneficial to have 'Higher' selected for "Audio engine processing quality" than 96 kHz:

mdyde wrote:provided that the audio engine quality is set to 'Higher' there's actually no real need to use 96 kHz anyway, since distortion at 'Higher'/48 kHz should already be below the level at which human beings would be able to hear it:

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=20414#p153140

mdyde wrote:With the 'Higher' audio engine quality option the signal-to-noise ratio is already so high at 48 kHz as to be below the level at which humans are likely to be able to hear any distortion from the audio engine, so although 96 kHz would reduce it a little further there would be no real point in using it -- one almost certainly wouldn't be able to hear the difference. Hence it makes sense to stick with 48 kHz and avoid the huge extra CPU overhead (approximately double) of using 96 kHz, thus freeing up CPU resources for other more important things (e.g. more polyphony, and/or so that the background models and other things can perform better).


(Of course for people with lots of CPU horsepower to spare there's nothing to lose by using 96 kHz too, but in other cases -- i.e. where a choice needs to be made -- "Audio engine processing quality"='Higher' is the more important.)

Also, it's important to make sure that you aren't almost filling the computer's RAM. MacOS is especially sensitive to that, and may need a surprising amount of 'free' RAM for itself (especially so in later macOS versions, including 10.15 that you're using).
Best regards, Martin.
Hauptwerk software designer/developer, Milan Digital Audio.
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pat17

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Re: Audio Glitches under Hauptwerk VII under Mac

PostWed Jun 01, 2022 7:36 am

Thanks Martin 8)

I shall try the '48 kHz' with 'Higher Audio Engine Processing Quality' settings over the week-end since I shall be too busy till the end of the week to try it. I shall let you know about its result.

I must say I would much prefer this solution to work, since the audio quality is paramount to me - this is why I'm using a DAC and not a traditional sound board with the Mac.
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Re: Audio Glitches under Hauptwerk VII under Mac

PostWed Jun 01, 2022 7:55 am

Thanks, Pat.
Best regards, Martin.
Hauptwerk software designer/developer, Milan Digital Audio.
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Re: Audio Glitches under Hauptwerk VII under Mac

PostSat Jun 04, 2022 1:13 pm

Dear Martin,

Your suggestion works like a charm - no more audio glitch! 8)

Thanks a million for your valuable support!
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Re: Audio Glitches under Hauptwerk VII under Mac

PostSat Jun 04, 2022 1:26 pm

Thanks, Pat. Excellent. You're very welcome.
Best regards, Martin.
Hauptwerk software designer/developer, Milan Digital Audio.

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