Vst Plugin Stutter Edit 2 (vst3)
Berniece Leonhardt
I use Ozone "elements" on everything I create . I'm using a win 7 pc with an i5 , SSD , 16g ram and it works flawlessly . It's a good place to start and you can always upgrade Ozone at any time. Well worth it for the mastering stage process alone. mark
Well that is probably at least 6 year old hardware at this point. Expecting it to perform well with the latest software tools is a bit of a stretch. Also mastering tools like Ozone are intended to be used after the mixing stage, where they are the only plugin running, and everything else is already bounced to audio.
I don't know if it's that I'm good at winnowing or what, but my i7 3770 system is adequate to the task of being my main DAW, and was so up until a couple of months ago. When I audition plug-ins, I look carefully at their performance, how well they use resources. The ones that use too much processing power don't make the team.
It's like an arms race, as I'm sure that developers are using the latest hardware available to do things that were never before possible on older hardware, and are trying to be first to market. It may not seem fair, but their primary business objectives are likely not to be backwards compatible with older hardware when they are pushing the bleeding edge of new capability (read as CPU hogs).
I agree in some cases, in others, less so. In the case of iZotope's suites, they're known for applying the latest analysis methods to automate as much of the process as they can. So if you want what they have to offer, part of the price you'll have to pay is resource management. Either get a system that's powerful enough to run what you want to run without a second thought or get good at managing what resources you do have, by freezing tracks, waiting until mastering time to use mastering FX, etc.
Me, I don't really care much about iZotope Ozone. I didn't even install it on my new computer. It was great when I was newer at this, but it's been the case for a long time that I like how my mastering sounds better than what Ozone comes up with.
I guess my philosophy is that, regardless of the generation of the software, if it's doing something computation-intensive, well, that's just the way it is. If I want to run it, I have to have a system capable of running it. When I start to scrutinize is with established types of software. There's no reason that I can think of for a basic compressor or EQ to push the limits of my hardware. Maybe that's part of what you mean by "generation?" Not so much "version" as "what it will do?" I learned early on to steer clear of Acustica. I was trying to run things from them that were just compressors and EQ's, and it was bogging my system. Sorry, Acustica, but there are plenty of great-sounding compressors and EQ's out there that barely touch my system resources.
The reverbs that I consider to be the best-sounding I've heard (Exponential) have been around for a long time and are not too hard on resources. I only use one or two instances of reverb in my mixes anyway.
I'd even go as far as to say that if the software is still being updated, and those updates are mostly maintenance updates, it's not unheard of for the latest versions (as opposed to generations, I guess) to be less resource-hungry, due to code optimization. Looking at Cakewalk itself here. Nothing has been added to Cakewalk in some time that would justify it becoming more resource-hungry in basic use, and indeed, it runs more efficiently than it did 4 years ago on the same systems. If some high-powered data-crunchy analyze-y functions were added to the program, I would expect greater resource usage when using those functions, but not at other times.
It's good business for software companies to pay attention to system requirements. The more systems out there that are able to run a program, the more potential customers there are for it. Especially in a field like music that often attracts people with less disposable income.
It used to be that we'd have to just suck it up whenever a new version of Windows (or Office or whatever) came out because it would usually require a fair horsepower upgrade, but when was the last time that was the case? Windows 11 supposedly leaves behind a lot of computers based on hardware, but my understanding is that it's not due to performance requirements, it's due to nervous-nellie security requirements.
The computer industry has reached a point, both with software and hardware, where we can actually choose whether we want to upgrade. The audio software I have is already beyond my ability to fully learn before I finish my time here on this lovely planet. Unless there's some innovation that results in the audio sounding much better (something I never rule out), I'm okay for a while.
Even though my interest in games has picked up in the past 6 months, the kind of games I'm interested in run like a bat on my aging computers. Slower-moving adventure-y things that don't require a fast frame rate to play.
My intent with referring to "generation" as it relates to software was to imply a leap forward in computational intensity, such as with FX that are more AI oriented, or virtual instruments that run models that were not feasible before on slower hardware. Not just new and improved versions of the same old existing technology, I'm referring to "game changing" technical leaps.
Similar case with hardware, as the CPU clock GHz race, multiple cores, faster memory throughput, and SSD drives have all enabled many new capabilities that software engineers are eager to implement with. For example, when I went from a PC with a 3rd gen Intel Core at 3.4GHz to my latest PC with a 9th gen Intel Core running at 3.7-4.6GHz, virtual instruments that I once considered "CPU hogs" run without breaking a sweat! Game changer for me! I used to use u-he Diva and iZotope Iris 2 to stress test my old system, LOL! Definitely needed lots of "resource management".
iZotope Ozone or Neutron is probably okay for a non-engineer musician to get to a quick starting point for further tweaking. Obviously someone that can do all that by hand doesn't need an AI to lead the way, and less intensive stuff will do a fine job.
But for better or worse, I think the bottom line is that software companies are not catering to customers with older systems when they are trying to market the latest and greatest "new thing". That's why minimum hardware and OS requirements keep trending upwards...
My intent with referring to "generation" as it relates to software was to imply a leap forward in computational intensity such as with FX that are more AI oriented, or virtual instruments that run models that were not feasible before on slower hardware. Not just new and improved versions of the same old existing technology, I'm referring to "game changing" technical leaps.
Also agree about iZotope's suites. When I got my first precious license for Ozone Elements 7 (was that the first one with the Mastering Assistant?), it was humbling. Just running through the presets, they just slew my best efforts. Then I decided to go John Henry on it and worked on my chops and mastering chain until I liked my results better. Fortunately it worked out better for me than it did the legendary Mr. Henry.
It seems to me, though, that as audio (and video) production software matures, these leaps forward are coming farther between. I used to work in the software industry, then IT, and I kind of got bored with computers about 20 years ago. That was the point at which they stopped doing new things that interested me. We had full screen first-person video games, we had DAW's that would do audio and MIDI (I had a paid SONAR license back then!), and we could edit videos. Word processing, spreadsheets, online communities, laser printers, color printers, all that stuff that revolutionized what people could do.
The big innovation is that the price of admission has dropped so steeply. Those were the things that interested me, and now I can have them literally for free. My last 2 DAW computers were ones that people gave me. They both still run Cakewalk with aplomb. I don't know that I'd want to try much video editing on the Core 2 Quad system, but it's now in the hands of a friend who will be recording with Cakewalk and a load of plug-ins that I handpicked to run well on it. It ran Vegas Pro 10 reasonably well, and again, I never scratched the surface with that version.
One possibility on the support issue... I recall a conversation with a plugin vendor, I think it was Waves at the time, and the when I asked their support tech about the lack of endorsement for Cakewalk for a particular plugin, he made the comment that Cakewalk updates their software too frequently and users tend to have the latest update (because it's free?) so it's difficult for a vendor to constantly have to test their software to the latest version.
When a vendor advertises that its software is compatible with another vendor's software, they are publicly committing themselves to making sure that it is and will remain a true statement. Cakewalk - like every other DAW vendor - has in the past had to modify its own code post-release after it was shown to cause an incompatibility with some popular third-party plugin. Within the software industry, version compatibility is a big deal, as any programmer who's worked in a corporate team environment can attest. Woe to the poor coder who breaks compatibility between modules within their own product and incurs the wrath of and is ridiculed by the entire department. (At least, when the change hadn't first been demanded by Marketing).
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