SONAR X3: HOW TO enable VST3 suspending?

You don't need to do anything (if the plug-in supports it).

Please list the specific plugin and exactly how you are testing it. The plugin must support this and the host has to be streaming silence to the plugin for it to take effect.

Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk]
Please list the specific plugin and exactly how you are testing it. The plugin must support this and the host has to be streaming silence to the plugin for it to take effect.

Tested plugs (with intensive CPU usage, without sidechain input):
1.Waves Kramer Master Tape VST3 Stereo
2.Waves Masserati GRP VST3 Stereo
 
Reproducing:
1. Create new project from "Normal" template.
2. Insert Waves Kramer Master Tape VST3 Stereo into existed empty audio track ( Input=-none-, Output=Master)
3. Wait 1 minute
 
Result:
CPU~15%
 
 
In Cubase 7 when the silence flag arrives to the input , plug-in goes to sleep mode after 5 sec 
 
 
 

Forget the forum, get on the phone to tech support.

As far as I can see we are following the VST3 specification and passing on the silence flags to the plugins.
I will follow up with Waves engineering and see if I can get some feedback from them. Thanks.

CakeAlexS
Does it work with a non waves VST3 plugin?

Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk]
As far as I can see we are following the VST3 specification and passing on the silence flags to the plugins.
I will follow up with Waves engineering and see if I can get some feedback from them. Thanks.

 
VST3 suspending on Cubase 7 works fine with Waves VST3 instances
Can't see the problem from Waves side

CakeAlexS
That doesn't answer my question though...
Do you have the same issue with other non waves vst3 plugs with Sonar as well?
Cheers...

Hi
I have 15 vst3 plugs by PluginAlliance. 
VST3 suspending is not working .

Anderton
I got curious, so I tested out two scenarios.
 
One had several instances of iZotope Iris, which is a fairly CPU-heavy VST3 synth. The other had several instances of Kontakt, a VST2 synth. All were fed the same dense MIDI tracks.
 
With the Iris project, the CPU drain increased considerably when it was playing, and went down when it was not. With the Kontakt project, the CPU power stayed constant regardless of whether the instances of Kontakt were playing or not.
 
This would seem to indicate that Sonar can suspend power with at least one VST3 soft synth.
 

Hi.
My topic is about VST3 plugs, but not about VSTi3

I sense a communication breakdown. It's really the same thing.

ampfixer
I sense a communication breakdown. It's really the same thing.

It is not the same thing.
Please check VST3.6 SDK.
VST3 can suspend only when there is "silence" flag in the input.
Please find for me any  VSTi3 plug with audio inputs!

synho
Please find for me any  VSTi3 plug with audio inputs!

https://www.steinberg.net/en/company/technologies/vst3.html
 
In the first paragraph Steinberg includes virtual instruments under the heading "improved performance." I assume they did that for a reason, or do you think they're wrong and there is no improvement in performance with VSTi plug-ins and VST3?

So here is the reason why you see a difference in behavior. It has nothing to do with SONAR's VST3 implementation.
 
I asked Waves development about why there was a difference in behavior. The response I got was that they do not have any special implementation for the silence flags. This might be for technical reasons on their end but what this means is that the plugin does not take any special action on this state internally to bypass processing. Any change in behavior you are seeing in Cubase is definitely due to the host doing something internally. Presumably they are stopping plug-in processing in response to silence being sent for a long time. So as such this is not a VST3 feature at all but something specific to Cubase's implementation. 
 
I don't think we are likely to implement the Cubase like behavior since there are a ton of special case scenarios that would need to be handled to turn off processing and turn it on when audio resumes. As just one example delay compensation would be a can of worms there for us so it simply isn't worth the effort for us to do it host side. If a plugin wants CPU savings the vendor can bypass processing using the the silence flags as documented in the VST3 spec so if this is important to you please request the corresponding plugin vendor to implement it. As I mentioned earlier its not always feasible to implement such a feature depending on the internals of the DSP. For example even VST3 sample accurate automation is not implemented by most VST3 plugin vendors.
 
Please keep in mind that VST3 is a specification (like the MIDI specification) and not every feature needs to be implemented by a plugin vendor (or a host for that matter). A feature needs to be implemented by BOTH host and plugin for it to work. You can read more technical details about SONAR's VST3 implementation here.
 

Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk]
I asked Waves development about why there was a difference in behavior. The response I got was that they do not have any special implementation for the silence flags.

Thanks, Noel for your investigation.
 
Here is reply from Waves on my ticket:
 
VTS3 Suspending is not supported with Waves Plugins. We currently do not have ETA on this fix. 
If you need further assistance feel free to contact us or visit http://www.waves.com/support

Best Regards,
Tomer Cherkasky
Waves Technical Support Staff
 
Seems Waves made just a VST3 wrapper which is not real VST3 with controller-processor module architecture. 
 

Thanks Noel, your insights (and technical chops!) are always appreciated.