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Comments
I don't have looptical, but the first app that grabs the record session in iOS dictates the buffer size for any subsequent app. So if you open NLog it'll set the buffer to 512 (on iPad 2), and any audio app opened while NLog is still open will use the same buffer. Audiobus does the same exact thing. I dunno if things work any differently in iOS 7 tho
Yes, it works the same. Looptical sets buffer to 512.
I tested it with NLog and got the same thing. I emailed Dev with results. Hopefully he will add a buffer size option.
Great. I hope they also can look into the graphics/rendering, something is really hogging the CPU/GPU when cotracks is the active "window". I've tried disabling all effects in iOS 7 (like transparency, parallax and all that), but the rendering (and everything else with it) still slows to a crawl while in the app. Anyway, I haven't really dug into this one yet, and any issues aside, it looks like it's gonna be fun, and it does sound really nice too.
Also, I totally want this on the phone. The co-op thing would go out the window, but I think that this would work really great on the 4" devices in portrait mode. The only other groove boxes I know of that works on iPhone (and are not 303/909/808/bla) are Figure and Wejaam
Got this response from the Cotracks Dev. Btw he's very responsive.
Hi Morris,
yes i can confirm this is happening. When i open another audio app first Cotracks' CPU load looks normal, but when Cotracks is running all alone the CPU hits red and i can observe audio drop outs.
This happens only when i'm playing the demo song called "Closing in". The "Fate amenable to change" demo song plays well on my tests. Could you check if this is the case on your iPad 2 too please?
I think your diagnosis is pretty clever. It could be the buffer size or some other Core Audio setting that's not good in iOS 7. I can not think of any other reason for the fact that Cotracks works better with another audio app than without.
I'm relieved for the fact that Cotracks still isn't rendered completely useless by this bug. The "Fate amenable to change" plays without problems with 3 Mono Synths, 1 Poly Synth and 3 Sample Players.
I'm pretty sure this will be quickly fixed.
Sounds good. In its current state it is kinda hard to recommend if you're on iPad 2 and iOS 7, it's just all way to recourse demanding. Doing any kind of chord is basically impossible without audio dropouts. But it looks like some tinkering with buffer/latency and optimizing it for iOS 7 and the gfx will help a lot here
Hi, i'm Matti from Futucraft. I've been testing Cotracks on iPad 2 and i can see Cotracks performing worse on iOS 7 than on iOS 5, when - presumably - the buffer size is 256. Cotracks does indeed request buffer size 256.
The change in performance seems more less constant as we would expect from such a change in the buffer size used. Changing Cotracks to request 512 instead of 256 is easy implementation wise, if this turns out to be the best solution.
I can not observe any problems with any of the graphics as reported by ChrisG here.
It would be really helpful of you, if you could verify your results against mine.
First make sure no other apps are running on the background please.
Play "Fate amenable to change" demo song. Do you get audio drop outs?
Play "Closing in" demo song. Do you get audio drop outs?
Do you observe sluggishness in the animations while playing either of the demo songs and while you switch between user modes, effectively making the whole GUI move around animated?
Thanks for all your help so far!
Hi Matti, do you plan to add AudioBus support to Cotracks? Great app BTW, thanks.
@Trueyorky: Sure do.
@mfa I wasn't having graphics issues. I think that was ChrisG.
@ChrisG: I definitely don't observe as bad performance on my iPad 2 with iOS 7 as what you describe?! I see a slight increase in the CPU load, enough to cause a rather predictable drop out at the end of the loop on the more CPU intensive demo song. I can definitely play tri-chords on three poly synths simultaneously without going even near red with the CPU meter!
:-)
@mgmg4871: Ok sorry about that. I correct that in my earlier post. Better address by your nicks from now on.
When in Cotracks the easiest way to notice to sluggish graphics (that is system wide) is to bring up the control center and move it up and down, or bring down the notification center, while in cotracks. This sluggishness is there irregardless of demo song. The more demanding one does predictably stutter at certain points, but if you enable background mode and exit cotracks, it plays back smoothly, even when doing a lot of other stuff like opening browser and browsing the web etc. I don't know what's causing that behavior, I've tried all settings in iOS 7 that has to do with graphics (parallax, transparent stuff, bold text etc). I can do a 2-3 chord on one unit with a preset that's not too demanding. But certainly not doing chords on three synths at the same time. I dunno...it's hard to search for issues with iOS 7 on iPad I guess, since it's pretty obvious iOS 7 isn't quite ready for prime time yet on iPad.
@mfa I think all will be well when the buffer issue is updated. I say that because even with the other apps I tested open in the background, I had no problems. Also when AB is implemented, the buffer size can be set to 512 from within AB. Thanks for your responsiveness. Welcome to the forum.
There must be something wrong with your iOS 7 configuration. Have you already tried the usual reboots and all that stuff? You may be right about iOS 7 not being all it can be yet, but i don't see anything like that here. I'm sure you can get your iPad to perform a lot better.
Yepp tried it all. But the update was a "dirty" OTA update on top of my existing iOS 6. I'm gonna try to do a reset all settings tomorrow and see if it helps. Thing is though, we are all on a closed system. Closed OS and closed hardware. So there shouldn't be too many variables here. Anyway, I'll try the reset tomorrow (getting late here in Sweden!:).
@ChrisG That's what I did right before installing IOS 7 upgrade. I think you have to update to the latest IOS 6 version before the IOS 7 update.
Not sure I'll get much use out of this but it will be fun to try it with friends. Either way, I'm buying it to support fresh thinking. Congrats @mfa
Thanks for the support syrupcore!
It's a great concept but actually Cotracks is much more than a quirky music app to share with friends, in fact it's too good to share! Making music with this app is a pure pleasure, it has some great features, offers loads of control and sounds really good. I like it.
I tried a new project from scratch, and I can get away with three 3-chords on 3 instances of the poly synth, and a drum track. Which seems pretty good considering it's old hardware, and will get better once the buffer can be scaled up a bit on older hardware like iPad 2. Last night I was messing around with it all on top of the loaded demo project(s).
About the graphics, they are not sluggish in the app itself, switching user modes and all happens fast. But bringing up or down the control center or notification center on top of Cotracks you'll notice that those move very sluggishly, which is maybe to be expected if all recourses goes to the app. But what I was referring to as odd (to me) is that if you enable background mode in Cotracks and exit the app, the more demanding of the demo songs will playback super smooth and just fine, even while doing lots of other things on the iPad with Cotracks playing in the background. Switching back to the app and it starts to crackle/pop again, and iOS 7 renders sluggishly again (only happens with Cotracks so far). So closing the app, with the audio still running, releases a huge chunk of the CPU it seems. I'm not a developer just a regular user, but shouldn't it be the other way around?
Anyway, I'm sure it'll get better with time. And the app really is awesome(ly fun). I'm gonna check out the videos today and dig into it all.
I've no idea if an app can set its own graphics priority level, but this behaviour would be what I'd expect if the app was setting the priority level too high for its graphics. While the app is visible, its own graphics will be fast and snappy, but any non app graphics will be sluggish and the graphics processing may be interfering with the audio. When the app is in the background, there are no high priority graphics to process, so it frees up CPU cycles and everything works much better.
Yea, there certainly is something that's going on with iOS 7 and Cotracks/graphics rendering. Might def be what you said about CPU priority. I remember the Nanostudio developer talking about that stuff long ago and...that's all I remember unfortunately.
Interesting and very fresh concept, but i prefer to wait for AB support before purchasing.
@ChrisG I can't reproduce the problems you describe. I have an iPad 2 with iOS 7 here right in front of me, Cotracks is playing, the notification center and control center slide into and out of view just fine while Cotracks is flashing its lights in back. I don't believe that it is any fault in Cotracks that is causing the problems you describe. You can drive your CPU to its limit with Cotracks, sure, by adding too many instruments. At that point we can expect audio drop outs and the UI in general to become sluggish, but before that i see no problems in my own tests. Did you reset iOS 7?
@PaulB I don't think apps can have anything to say about the graphics thread's priority. Cotracks certainly doesn't mess with stuff like that. Are you observing performance problems with Cotracks?
@Trueyorky Thanks for the praise! I'm glad you like it!
@mfa Yes, I did a reset twice. The first time I immediately opened Cotracks and I could play the "Closing in" demo with the CPU hovering between 50-80% perhaps. So I brought up the control center and it crapped out again. Did a reset, setup my iPad first this time. But no luck, can't play the closing in demo without the CPU hovering in the red and giving audio dropouts. If I activate background mode and exit Cotracks, it'll play back just fine. Can you play back "closing in" on your iPad 2 while inside Cotracks without any hiccups? Either way, I'll continue to try and track down what might be causing it, and if I find something I'll let you know.
I know Auria got a bug in iOS 7 that will slow down the rendering, mostly affects iPad 4 though, and it is fixed in the upcoming version (1.3). Also various other apps are seeing bad effects from iOS 7 in regards to graphics/rendering. So various graphical problems and iOS 7 isn't uncommon, but tracking it all down can obviously be hard.
ChrisG do you have NLog?
@mgmg4871 Yep, already tried the Nlog "trick" (and init:ed Nlog and the effects to remove any CPU usage). Didn't work. It's weird that it worked just fine after the first reset, until I swiped up the control center. After that (and another reset) it's still the same as before. Can you play through the Closing In demo on your iPad 2 without any hiccups? And bring in the control center or notification center on top of Cotracks, as smoothly as it is in all other apps (irregardless of the CPU usage)?