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Piapro Studio VSTi lagging in Studio One 5

Constructelf

New Fan
Nov 1, 2021
3
This is a copy and paste of a thread I posted on Reddit. It was suggested to me that I consult this forum for help.

I'm currently working on a song in Studio One 5 using Miku V4 English, but I'm having an issue. If I have Piapro Studio VSTi open and I press play in Studio One 5 to hear my work so far, when I go back to Piapro Studio everything is lagging on a 0.5-1 second delay. Adjusting parameter sliders, inputting new notes, inputting lyrics; everything lags. If I don't press play in Studio One 5, Piapro works fine, but if I do, I have to close restart Studio One 5 to get it working properly again. Right now I've been working around it by creating vocals in a blank project and exporting them as .WAV files to add to my main song project, rather than having everything in one song project, but that comes with the disadvantage of not being able to adjust things on the fly.

I don't think it's an issue with my computer, since the task manager doesn't show the CPU, RAM, or disk maxing out when using Piapro. So I'm wondering if it's an issue with Piapro itself, or if Studio One 5 is the problem. Has anybody else had this issue?
 

Stigbn

Aspiring Fan
Jul 21, 2018
74
Denmark
I use Studio One 5 Pro (version 5.4), and Piapro (vers 2.0.4.3), and I haven't had any problems with lagging. I just tested with Miku English, and it works perfectly. So maybe there's some problem on your setup? Did it work before?
 

Constructelf

New Fan
Nov 1, 2021
3
I use Studio One 5 Pro (version 5.4), and Piapro (vers 2.0.4.3), and I haven't had any problems with lagging. I just tested with Miku English, and it works perfectly. So maybe there's some problem on your setup? Did it work before?
Basically, what happens is this:
  1. I open Studio One 5.
  2. I add a Piapro Studio VSTi track.
  3. Piapro Studio opens. At this point, it is working properly.
  4. I select a voicebank and begin inputting notes and lyrics and adjusting parameters. No lag.
  5. I go back to Studio One, add instrument tracks and/or .WAV files. I play back what I've written in Studio One.
  6. When I go back to Piapro Studio, everything lags. This only happens if I press play in Studio One to listen to all of the instrument tracks at once. As long as I don't do this, Piapro doesn't lag.
 

Stigbn

Aspiring Fan
Jul 21, 2018
74
Denmark
When I work on a song I go back and forth many times, and plays back to test the song and the mix many times. And I may have several tracks in studio one, like 20 tracks with vst instruments and some wav-files. And sometimes two vocal tracks in piapro. And I still don't have any lagging.

As I see it, it doesn't seem to be a problem with Piapro running in Studio One. There must be something in your setup or your computer (how fast is the cpu or how much ram do you have?)
Also, in Studio one there's an indicator of 'performance' in the bottom left, below the tracks/mixer. When you play you can see how much of your resources you are using. If this indicator max'es out then you have reached the limit of what your computer can manage - and maybe need to render some tracks or get a faster computer, but I don't think that's the case with the lagging, it might be somthing else, that I don't know about.

one thing i just thought about: be sure to deselect the two yellow dots in piapro right above the tracks for 'meter' and 'tempo' - if you have imported a midi they tend to be selected (yellow). If they are selected you may get out of sync with your song.
 
Last edited:

Nokone Miku

Aspiring Lyricist/Producer
Jul 14, 2021
76
www.youtube.com
(Just trying to guess what could be wrong)

I'm thinking that maybe some other plugin is hogging resources; or maybe it is still analyzing things in realtime when it should be dormant.
Also, do you have and VST plugins assigned to the Piapro track itself? Or are you directing the Piapro track to a Bus and applying the plugins to the Bus?
Does it still happen when you have Piapro loaded and nothing else in the project/song?

I read someone having troubles that turned out to be caused by having more than one "audio interface" device active in Windows device manager and they were conflicting. Someone else I read about had their problem solved by messing with the Sound Control Panel and in the properties of their output device they (either did or didn't, I don't remember) have it set to allow applications to take exclusive control.

I've seen people say their issue was having a midi device plugged in.
Others said the solution was that their bitrate/sample rate was set too high for their audio chipset to handle.

(I don't know if any of this will help, just suggesting anything I can think of.)
 

Constructelf

New Fan
Nov 1, 2021
3
When I work on a song I go back and forth many times, and plays back to test the song and the mix many times. And I may have several tracks in studio one, like 20 tracks with vst instruments and some wav-files. And sometimes two vocal tracks in piapro. And I still don't have any lagging.

As I see it, it doesn't seem to be a problem with Piapro running in Studio One. There must be something in your setup or your computer (how fast is the cpu or how much ram do you have?)
Also, in Studio one there's an indicator of 'performance' in the bottom left, below the tracks/mixer. When you play you can see how much of your resources you are using. If this indicator max'es out then you have reached the limit of what your computer can manage - and maybe need to render some tracks or get a faster computer, but I don't think that's the case with the lagging, it might be somthing else, that I don't know about.

one thing i just thought about: be sure to deselect the two yellow dots in piapro right above the tracks for 'meter' and 'tempo' - if you have imported a midi they tend to be selected (yellow). If they are selected you may get out of sync with your song.
My computer's CPU is an Intel Core i5-7200U @ 2.50GHz. I have 16 GB of RAM. The performance monitor in Studio One never goes above 10%, and when working directly in Studio One there are no issues; it's only in the Piapro Studio window that I have lag issues. In the task manager, my CPU usage when using Studio One ranges between 30-60%, and the RAM doesn't max out; my latest session had the ram at a consistent 8.6 GB of usage.

I also don't have the yellow dots for meter and tempo selected (I didn't even know those were there until you pointed them out).

(Just trying to guess what could be wrong)

I'm thinking that maybe some other plugin is hogging resources; or maybe it is still analyzing things in realtime when it should be dormant.
Also, do you have and VST plugins assigned to the Piapro track itself? Or are you directing the Piapro track to a Bus and applying the plugins to the Bus?
Does it still happen when you have Piapro loaded and nothing else in the project/song?

I read someone having troubles that turned out to be caused by having more than one "audio interface" device active in Windows device manager and they were conflicting. Someone else I read about had their problem solved by messing with the Sound Control Panel and in the properties of their output device they (either did or didn't, I don't remember) have it set to allow applications to take exclusive control.

I've seen people say their issue was having a midi device plugged in.
Others said the solution was that their bitrate/sample rate was set too high for their audio chipset to handle.

(I don't know if any of this will help, just suggesting anything I can think of.)
I don't have the Piapro track being directed to a Bus. I haven't gotten to the point of applying effects to the Piapro track yet; the lag happens even when it's just the track with no effects.

I tested it out in an empty song with only a Piapro track, and the lag still happens if I play the song back in Studio One. It's slightly less than if I have other instrumental MIDI tracks in the song, but it's still noticeable.

My audio output device is the default Realtek Audio, and I have it allowing applications to take exclusive control. I don't have any other active audio output devices in my device manager.

The lag happens both when I have my MIDI keyboard plugged in and when I don't.

I'm currently using 44.1 kHz sample rate and 24 Bit resolution; I haven't played around with adjusting the resolution, but the current sample rate is the only one I've been able to make work for me.

One other thing that I've noticed is that when playing back a song with a Piapro track in Studio One, the white vertical playback bar stutters, mostly at the beginning of playback. The stuttering goes down after the first measure of playback, but the movement of the playback bar still isn't as smooth as it is in a song without a Piapro track. However, this doesn't affect the sound playback, or any other functions in Studio One.
 
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Stigbn

Aspiring Fan
Jul 21, 2018
74
Denmark
So you don't use a soundcard except the standard one in the computer (I assume the Realtek is the standard in/output card in you computer)?
I don't know if this has any importance, but I use a dedicated Soundcard (Focusrite). It has an input and output latency on my system of 12 ms. It is important to have a good soundcard if you record from a keyboard or microphone or guitar, but I don't know if it has any influence on your problem. Otherwise, your computer specs seems ok.
 

Nokone Miku

Aspiring Lyricist/Producer
Jul 14, 2021
76
www.youtube.com
(As an aside) I never tried using my laptop's (weak-sauce) Realtek onboard sound for making music. It's a long story, but I use this thing:

0000_93532678-78b2-4e6a-b883-fda339f2cc40_1024x1024.jpgx2uxlr.jpg

It's a Shure X2U XLR-to-USB microphone adapter. I bought it to use my SM58 mic on my computer. The thing is, it's not just an adapter. It's a DAC, with a microphone pre-amp, and real-time monitor. The thing feels like it weighs a pound. So when I'm not on-the-go I use it as my computer's audio interface. Probably the clearest audio I've ever heard out of a computer.

(On-topic) Maybe using a DAC (digital audio converter) would solve your issue? I got a decent/okay one with my higher-end gaming headset. So you might also have one if you have a headset? Otherwise there are tons of different USB DACs for sale at all price ranges.
 

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