XITE/SCOPE - tweaks?

[krizrox]

Are there any under the hood tweaks available within the Scope app that pertain to Xite?

any *.ini file secrets?

I'm just looking to wring every bit of performance out of this thing as possible.

[petal]

The only tweaks I know of that might be good to at least be aware of are knowing about DSP placement and the differences between the 18 dsp's.

All though it is one of the things I'd prefer not to have to think about, in some situations it may be necessary.

You can read more about it here:

http://www.hitfoundry.com/issue_07/xitemast.htm

http://www.hitfoundry.com/issue_22/dsp_mast.htm

I also found this info in a thread (which I can't find right now). I believe it was Fra77 sharing out info on a good day

The ASIO actually happens through DSPs 1 & 2 (all hardware and software I/O is connected to these), and DSPs 7-10 have the most communication (SAT) to those I/O DSPs.
So by placing whatever is connected to I/O on DSPs 7-10, you can avoid the SAT errors.
DSP 1 & 2 are the actual ASIO and Hardware I/O's.

[JoPo]

Does it mean in the example here :
http://www.hitfoundry.com/issue_22/dsp_mast.htm
that there is a benefit to use the dynamic mixer like in the 2° image ?

If yes, why the dynamic mixer doesn't need 6 communication channels at its input (simply like the STM) ?

Or there is something I miss..?.. I would have been sure that the second image is louder for dsps..(more device -> more dsp ressource)

[jksuperstar]

Because in that example, the dynamic mixer is on the same DSP as the minimax and effects. So all communication happens on the same chip, except for the two channels output from the dynamic mixer. That is John's point in the article...you can use small stem mixers in these situations to save on the communication channel use to the big mixer, and also avoid phasing issues caused by delays in communication from dsp to dsp.



I would also add that DSP 7-10 have more SAT routing connections to each other, and make them ideal for use with mixers. All of the STM...X mixers are optimized by being distributed on these DSPs.

[JoPo]

Thanks a lot for your awswer, Superstar ! Very interesting and important to learn !

I guess it's more for avoiding phase issue than dsp saving. Anyway, 3 parallel fx is not a very often use for me...

Can one explain what is SAT connection exactly ? Is it communication between dsp connection ?

Thanks !

[garyb]

yes, communication between dsps...

[krizrox]

Sorry for my ignorance but how do you manually place devices on DSP chips? How is that accomplished? Is this even something that I need to worry about? Like where would this become an issue?

[Mr Arkadin]

Just right click on the device you want to assign to a DSP and there's a list of the available DSP. However I would suggest not bothering too much initially unless you have mega-complex/heavy projects going on. In day to day use I have never bothered assigning them.

[dawman]

I find that assigning everything I bring into the project that eats DSP like STW PlateX, to DSP 18, and then immediately get in the habit of then unassigning it so other plugs may share what's left of the DSP chip.
Stock delays, extra plug ins can also go there.
This way when I load up a mixer I already have many plug ins like insert FX, etc., they can span with the Mixer as it seems to always load on DSP7 first, then spreads it glorious wings.

[Mr Arkadin]

This was some advice I copy+pasted from somewhere:

>DSPs 1 and 2 are for the IO communication: ASIO and Wave are placed here.
>Hardware IOs are always on DSP 1.
>DSPs 3, 4, 5, 6 are for the communication with the 4 Slots.
>Each Slot contains 3 new Sharc DSPs with the power of 6 old sharcs each.
>Also every new Sharc DSP has 32 MB RAM.
>DSPs 1,2,3,4,5,6 are old Sharcs.

The most important DSPs are 7,8,9,10. They have most communication channels to the IO DSPs.

The STM 1632 is placed on DSP 18 in the Default-Project.
It should be better placed on DSP 7, 8, 9 or 10.
Same for Micromixer and Dynamic Mixer. The bigger mixers have their own placement,
which cannot be changed.

At the moment the user cannot place devices to one slot, internally it is possible.

The 4 Slots:
Slot 1: DSP 7, 15, 11
Slot 2: DSP 8, 12, 16
Slot 3: DSP 9, 17, 13
Slot 4: DSP 10, 14, 18

The DSP display should have a special view to make this visable.

DSP Placement:
It´s always good to place a device on one new DSP.
If you need e.g. more voices for Minimax, it´s better to place it on
its own Slot and than increase the number of voices.

In //ScopeXITE/Projects/Examples is the Project synths.pro,
where every synth has its own new DSP. In most cases the distribution you have chosen
will be loaded next time within the Project, but not always.

Better use only the new DSPs for placement 7 to 18 and if possible 7, 8, 9, 10.
For VDAT you need to use DSP 2 only.

If you help XITE to spread DSP power equally and mostly separated
to single DSPs if possible, you will get the best results.

Also attached a GIF with a description of the DSP allocation.

[petal]

Does anyone have a "similar" graphic overview that explains where it is best to place: reverbs, mixers, synths, delays etc.?

[dante]

Check out tests 1 - 4 - if you're going to use manual assignment you need to test phase alignment :

http://www.hitfoundry.com/issue_07/xitemast.htm

Inter-DSP path latency varies even though they may look the same number of hops from slot to slot.

[Bud Weiser]

This was some advice I copy+pasted from somewhere:

All this is very usefull w/ stock devices, but doesn´t work w/ the big ZARG devices.
There´s also different behaviour when using a XITE-1D or a XITE-1,- it seems ...

Less chips in each slot make auto-assignment easier.

With XITE-1, experimenting w/ projects and related devices before saving the project makes sense.

I learned a lot from Jimmy´s posts alone (- and for a long time I had no clue what he meant when he said "now clear assignment")!

I was able to load more on a XITE-1 by experimenting w/ manual DSP assignments because when recalling such project, SCOPE shuffles around devices again and sometimes projects working w/ auto- and manual assignment when up, didn´t work after recall the next day.

Will say:
Test the running project you actually created by saving and loading again,- and start w/ the less demanding stuff.

When I was the XITE-greenhorn per sé, I made some notes of the steps creating a project, just for the case it won´t load again and then I was able to repeat steps and found out where load is too high and such.
It´s a bit cumbersome and somewhat unexpected to do when coming from native DAW, but it seems to be essential when using realtime DSP gear and to get the most out of it.
(Don´t know how it is w/ UAD stuff, but for me as a keyboardist, it´s uninteresting because is FX only.)

Observation of DSP window after switching to "%" is interesting,- you´ll learn to watch where the DSP-limit of a chip or the SAT connections is ... especially when maxing out voices!

It´s also very interesting to see SAT connections run out of ressources much earlier than DSP chips,- but that also depends on devices you load,- and in which sequential order.

Sometimes the trick is, load and connect only some devices of the project you planned, save and reload to give SCOPE time to re-shuffle,- then recall the project and load the next portion and so on ...

To me, it seems,- and in opposite to any "trial ´n error" scenarios w/ native DAW projects,- planning a project and knowing what you want before you start creating the project is somewhat beneficial for creating large projects on a XITE-1.

As always,- "please correct me if I´m wrong",- because I´m learning always ...

Bud

[krizrox]

Ok - so I've been poking through the links and trying to get a sense of how this manual assignment process works. I understand how to assign devices to specific DSP's but I'm not clear on what difference it makes (if at all).

Shown is a very typical Scope project that I use for recording bands. You can see the 4896 mixer is the heart of the project. ASIO channels route signals into, and out of, my recording app (Samplitude Pro X). Channels 1-24 of the mixer are used to create a headphone/monitor mix for the musicians. The audio is fed through a single L-R mix pair back through the A16 to my headphone distribution system, and also to my studio monitors so I can listen to playback as the musicians are performing. Channels 25-48 of the mixer are used for the final mix. If I need more than 24 channels of mixing I typically do some sub-mixing within Samplitude and feed those subs out as stereo signals to Scope. 24 channels of Scope mixing is usually plenty for the majority of projects I do here.

Typically, there are smaller devices loaded into the effects bins of each channel and maybe a couple of things in one of the mix busses. The final icing on the cake is through PsyQ and Optimaster which are always on the final outputs of the mixer. Based on this, what would you recommend as far as assignments? Does manually assigning these devices buy me anything? I'm showing the DSP meter for this project. I think even with a full compliment of channel effects I'm only using a small portion of the DSP resources (way less than half). I never mess with synths or sequencers so this is a very typical project for me.