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Ios RAM Allocation and auria
Hi, I’ve been lurking here a bit having been part of the iPad musician fb group for years. I saw the other day it mentioned by a dev, though I can’t remember who, that an issue on iPad regarding crashes etc is some kind of inbuilt memory allocation limit - I think 300 mb or something was mentioned. I was wondering about the details of this, and whether the issue with apps crashing etc would be ameliorated by having more ram in an iPad or if there is this memory allocation limit built into iOS that would cause the same issues regardless? If any devs who know see this and have time to answer, or anyone I’d be very grateful. I’m considering wine might be best to upgrade - I have an iPad Pro 12.9 1st gen which has 4 gig ram I think but ‘upgrading’ to the same ram doesn’t really appeal to me. Paying over 1200 or 1500 for 4 gig ram... feels like 2008 in the non apple marketing world of real computing.
I have severe problems at the moment running Auria - I would like to post on the Auria forum but it won’t send a change password link so have to set up a new account there. Wondering if anyone has the same difficulties. I have upgraded to pro rather than buying pro, have all the plugins so am reticent to delete and reinstall but it is essentially broken, I have never been able to use it without all the sound cutting out, or it crashing entirely, on any project, using any iaa auv whatever even audio tracks. If I freeze a track it will always introduce multiple artefacts all over it. Whenever I open a project only some tracks play then others start halfway through. After I restart the song a few times it eventually plays normally but honestly its a pile of junk as it is, with no reliability which is upsetting as it’s my favourite daw by miles if it worked properly, I don’t know if its an issue with iPad not being powerful enough or ram allocation in iOS, or just a very buggy app. I don’t mind the odd thing but sometimes I have to restart the app whoever I do anything every few minutes and I can’t really stand not knowing if a track will have random artefacts and needing to check every time I freeze as ninety percent of the time it does. It also plays random parts repeated at times. It’s like the daw equivalent of a conversation in an old people’s home.
Comments
Hi, sorry to hear about your problems with Auria. I've completed many dozens of projects with Auria over the last five years, and I haven't had those kinds of problems since the early betas of Auria Pro back in 2015. For me right now it runs really stable, never crashes and never glitches.
So my guess is that there is obviously something very different between my workflow and yours. So the first question is are you running any additional external apps and plugins in your projects - either IAA or AUv3? If so it may be that one particular plugin is causing the problem.
Not shure how much work in settings and preferences you might loose, but my preferred start would be to trash all Auria stuff and download/install it again.
The app can potentially run into memory trouble depending on what you run inside it (there are so many different options), but according to your description it seems more a software mess than hardware limit.
There are many reports of magical cures by just re-installing an app here.
Depending on the iPad's individual history even a full wipe might apply (though not very likely, just mentioning it because there's no way to check integrity).
This option isn't available if you want to keep a certain IOS version on the device - afaik Apple will always force the latest OS release to be installed.
It's also important to be aware of any additional app (IAA, AU) that you run together with Auria.
Do you use many or only a small set, are there known issues with each of them - etc.
You suspect Auria because it's the host, but any 'unpleasant' client could be the hidden culprit.
Thanks very much for the reply, I’ve heard similar from someone else who had few Auria problems, although I’ve also commonly heard a consensus that Auria is unstable and frequently crashes, so am a bit confused.
I have been restarting my recording recently so I’ve run a few different setups in auria. Any crudebyte app causes issues, but also whatever plug in I use, iaa particularly but also auv causes it to have a fit. I can’t remember specifics as after it happened with four or five different ones I stopped noting which. It’s posisble crudebyte was the main culprit although beat hawk I think did the same. I just cannot freeze a track ever without artefacts on all the plug ins I used. It would be unusable for me even if it was just crudebyte as they have the only usable orchestral samples for some things on iOS imo.
It ran better with just a couple of audio tracks but I wouldn’t call that a functional daw - it’s onky about 20 percent of Auria functionality.
Incidentally the Auria forum doesn’t send emails properly to create accounts so I can’t ask there, hope im not asking in the wrong place.
I’m getting to the point where hoping a reinstall magically cures it is looking like a possibility. I was just hoping someone had similar experience or had done so. I’m nervous because I paid for every fab filter and all the other plugins and I want them restored. I won’t have any projects to lose that matter. I dislike the whole Auria upgrade to pro rather than just giving us pro, thing and think we should be able to get the normal AppStore pro version - there must be a very simple workaround as rim gives drumagog free stuff to people demonstrating they purchased it.
I was assuming that after upgrading you could simply download the pro version - a pity if you'd have to 'construct' it from several actions
I deleted and re-downloaded Auria Pro a couple of times, as Auria seems to keep a lot of (hidden) temporary data around, which is something I consider suspective by default.
OK first things first: AFAIK the Crudebyte AUs struggle in every single host app on the platform, because the samples need to be loaded into RAM and AUs don't have enough RAM allocated to them for large sample sets to function smoothly. This is definitely not an issue that is unique to Auria.
As for BeatHawk, again the AU has issues in all hosts - I often use it in GarageBand and it never saves state correctly so I have to re-open the BeatHawk AU and reset it to the state it should be set to.
In my opinion AUv3 has slowly been getting better as a format in the last 12 months, but there are still many issues in most of the hosts and also many of the plugins. From what I can see there are gaps in the implementation in pretty much every host, partly because the format is poorly documented so the devs are having to work in the dark, finding stuff out piecemeal.
In your shoes my recommendation would be to record the Crudebyte apps as IAA and then bounce the track to audio once it's recorded. That way you will have a stable workflow. You can definitely run multiple AU instruments in Auria, but there are known problems with CrudeByte and BeatHawk and until those are resolved you're only going to suffer frustration getting them to work reliably as live AUs.
As for restoring to Pro from standard Auria, that should be fine. I have the standard Auria upgraded to Pro (and every single plugin) and I've never had any problems restoring the purchases.
That’s interesting, thanks. I know all crudebute apps have major issues runnings as an Auv. The memory allocation you mention is what intrigues me and what I alluded to. So, would it make no difference at all running an iPad with 2 or 4 or 6 gig ram, in as much as the allocation limit is built into iOS, specific to auv (is it just auv)? Like if a few hundred mb ram is limit for an au. I ask because it would be pointless buying anything beyond base iPad except for screen size if this is the case when it comes to that. I had always thought more ram would be better but perhaps that’s not the problem. Or perhaps either way, I’d run into other Auria issues with less ram.
I had been harboring thoughts of the workflow you mentioned. Freezing causing me so many problems though - how do you bounce to audio? Id read of large scale problems bouncing in place and that people instead play the track and record onto another to make it audio - like manually bouncing. I’d generally use pro q2 and pro r on every track as I’m now fanatical about them so I think it’s a necessity.
Also thanks for the reassurance re reinstalling and restoring plug ins. To add some positivity to my posting, The fabfilter stuff is an absolute game changer for me. I can transform mediocre orchestral samples for example, into very very nice sounding ones by pro q2ing to bring out accents in timbre, stripping the crap reverb and dabbing delicate pro r varnish on. I’ve always been very daunted by rack affects wires cables etc as a musician songwriter for whom production was a kind of necessary evil and am now learning to use it like a musician would his instrument due to these plug ins which is immensely satisfying,
I’ll perhaps try some projects with no crudebyte at all see what happens.
Yes I had the same state saving beathawk issue. Unfortunately, rim I think (may hav been someone else don’t want to misattribute) has also said that IAA is the major problem with most plugins and freezing state saving I think so it’s not a great situation.
Hopefully, iOS is gathering momentum, auv improving, Mpe and more devs and desktop things coming - as much as the little things get to me and are numerous the bigger picture seems to be increasing support and an expanding ecosystem.
Yeah, telefunky, you have to upgrade within Auria and not get pro due to some AppStore limitation but I don’t really buy there isn’t a workaround, and just hope there’s no difference in the code.
To bounce a track to audio just select the track in the editor view (the one with the waveforms, not the faders) and go to Edit --> Bounce Track in Place:
Suggestion: record your raw musical output into a track from your instrument app (Crudbyte or Beathawk etc), bounce to audio and then after that you can use the FF plugins on that audio without any issues and without needing to freeze or bounce after that.
If you’re just using one or two instances of an AU plugin, the iOS memory limits should not be an issue. And for ‘lightweight’ AUs you can run literally dozens before you hit the limit (I’ve tried with Ripplemaker and didn’t run into trouble until 30-something instances).
Thanks very much, everyone, I really appreciate the help.
Sounds like my life in general.
Any thoughts/experience on running Auria and plug ins etc on a 2 gig ram base iPad vs a 4 or 6 gig pro?
Actually, if I understand it correctly, the more ram an iPad has, should in theory mean the more instances of an AU plugin it can run at the same time. Sorry for the newb question, but just to check, when you bounce a track using an audio unit to audio does that mean that your ram is freed up again, that that particular track is not using up any ram for the audio unit or effects on it. I’m sure this is the case I just wanted to double check as I’m still learning.
Yes that's right.
No, there's a 300mb RAM limit for each plugin (into which all instances of that particular plugin should fit). It doesn't matter if you have 2Gb RAM or 200Gb RAM in your iPad; it will always be 300Mb per plugin, until Apple lift the limit... which is in fact something us AU devs are discussing with their audio team.
Thanks very much to you both. Really helped me understand things
And bram, love the buchla style stuff. One of the few synths on desktop that inspires jealousy in me, just for the aesthetics is the Arturia buchla. That color scheme.
@wingwizard : in case you weren't aware, you can get support for Auria Pro directly with a form on their site. You don't need to go through the forum. In fact, contacting them directly might get a dev's attention sooner than the forum.
Fwiw, I use AP on a sixth gen non-pro iPad with very few glitches though I don't have the crudebytes stuff.
IAA gets a lot more flack than it deserves. Some IAA apps are rock solid when used with Auria or AUM or AB3
You may run into CPU issues with so many ProR instances. I would suggest using the AUX send with one instance of ProR instead of one on each track. It’s prett CPU heavy.
Just my rough workflow, (that I got from reading on this forum!) I usually rough mix without FX and then bounce or import all the audio to Auria. Then set the buffer size to 4096, and add plugins and mix. Much better on my Air 2’s CPU! If you have midi tracks apple force a buffer max of 512. So bouncing to audio once you have the performances right is better for Auria mixing because the buffer can be maxed out to 4096.
To be clear, if one uses 5 instances of Noir or Kosmonaut, all 5 of those must use the same 300M?
If so, that certainly explains challenges forum members have reported using memory heavy synths like those from Moog.
Second on this workflow. Any high quality reverb takes a huge amount of math, be it ProR or an AU. At least for tracking using a couple of the six Aux buses loaded with reverb should diminish the load significantly over how ever many instances you are running now.
Thanks, interesting, I’ve made a note of the workflow you suggested in case I run into more trouble now I’m a bit more aware of crudebute issues. Getting a grip on the balance between bouncing to audio regularly and being able to produce the track as a whole and tracks in relation to each other seems to be the nub of it.
I am really bad with stuff like aux, and channels sends etc, just learning these basics of studio equipment and don’t know the simplest things, despite years of quite substantial studio time recording producing etc. I don’t think I could do as you suggest though as wouldn’t that be using one reverb setting on pro r for multiple tracks? It’s possible I could do this but unlikely as I use very different settings for each track to get the right sound for different instruments. The subtlety is really important to me and I don’t like to hear reverb, as strange as that may sound, just use it to stand an instrument up.
Correct, one instance of ProR on an Audio track. Set the input of the ProR audio track to Aux1. Then on tracks that need reverb, increase the Aux 1 dial to send a signal to the ProR track. Every track is using same reverb so same settings.
What kind of reverb settings are you varying? Maybe we should make a Mixing in Auria thread...
It is real worth spending a few hours learning and getting used to how sends and aux channels work (even true when working on desktops). This isn't just true because of CPU-use but every instrument having its own reverb often results into muddy or aurally-confusing mixes. Sometimes, lots of reverbs can be interesting, but more often than not, mixes are more coherent when the instruments seem like they are in the same space.
Also, freezing is your friend. Unfreezing is easy enough.
Haha it would take me forever, and depends entirely on the instrument. I’m trying to get a dry sound using reverb, which I know sounds weird, by tinkering as much as I can between q and r to get what I want the instrument to sound like with the reverb peeled back as much as poss, but it’s really about treating a sample or instrumental sound rather than applying reverb - and essential for me with orchestral section samples (which take much more in general as the distinction of the instruments is already lost to the group), in combination with artful use of volume sliding.
Yes, that's correct. They all share the same limited memory pool. Typically sample-based plugins are more prone to running into this limitation than regular synths and effects. So for the large majority of (well-designed) plugins this limit shouldn't be all that limiting, unless you need a dozen or more instances of the same plugin.
CPU usage doesn't factor into this limit. I'm not sure the Moog synths are more memory-heavy than other synths.
On a current song I’m trying to make, I’m using stems of kick drum, shaker, triangle,bass guitar, electric piano, piano, and a simple synth pad for chords. I’m using an instance of ProR with the Huge Synth Wash preset and sending the pad there. Makes a nice spacey, “wah” chord sound in the background. Then I have another ProR Concer Hall LA preset for general hall reverb. EP, Piano, shaker and triangle are sent there. Timeless also inserted, with EP and triangle sent there. Then just adjust aux send levels and aux channel faders to mix.
Tried something as an experiment...sent some of the Hall reverb channel into the Synth Wash reverb channel. Makes the triangle reverb pretty interesting.
Good and interesting discussion. Just wanted to add I too initially bought the standard version and then upgraded to Pro. I don't have ALL the plug-ins, but I do have all the FabFilter ones and a bunch of others, and nothing has ever glitched for me when wiping my iPad and starting a-fresh, which I've done twice. It all just redownloads/restores just fine.
So was this info not true?
Maybe they did and haven't officially notified developers. Last I know is that options were being discussed but I never heard they actually made a change. If so, that's good news for owners of iPad Pros, and the limit will still be there for the large majority of iPad users (i.e. you can't design for it when you're making a plugin).
Apple aren't very good at deploying their developer information. I had to reverse-engineer the entire AU MIDI protocol from a single presentation slide they showed at WWDC
Lol I wouldn’t be surprised. Sounds like Apple
Maybe your going for adding the room/early reflection sound to the instruments? A shorter 0.8 second reverb? Or tying to place each instrument front/back?
Very interesting (helpful) discussion.