Hi Vanhaze2000,

Thanks for getting in touch about this, keen to dig in a bit deeper.

Couple of quick questions:
- do you know what the buffer setting was? Try increasing it in the settings screen and let me know if that has any impact
- did you have any other apps running at the time?

Lastly, within the next week we plan to release the 1.4.2 BETA, which contains some CPU optimisations related to FX usage. This could show significant improvements - especially for complex projects like those demo ones. Would love to hear if that improves the situation.

Hi and many thx for helping me !

- Buffersize was set to 512
Changing it to 1024: No solution.
- I only have SS open.

Looking forward to version 1.4.2 BETA,
cause anxious to have the ability to keep using SS without my issue.

Kind Regards.

Thanks Vanhaze2000, I'll let you know when the beta is available - it'd be great to get you to test it out!

Many thanks Phil C !

Good news Vanhaze2000, Serato Studio 1.4.2 just went live today - not the beta but the full version!

Get it from here: serato.com really keen to hear if the optimisations improve your CPU performance.

Thank you !

I installed version 1.4.2 right away:

Macbook retina 2015 fans still kicking in early and loud when SS is just openend , even with nothing loaded.
But then i loaded several SS Demo Projects and they all seem to play without any audio tearing/glitches now.(altthough macbook fans keep spinning high constantly..).

I have to investigate deeper but this seems really ok at first glance, great work !

Kind Regards from Holland.

Great news Vanhaze2000!

Do keep us posted if you run into anything further.

Phil

Hi Vanhaze2000,

Is your MacBook 2015 a Retina Pro model (13 or 15 inch) or Retina 12-inch?

It's possible that what you see is the initial plugin scanning process kicked off with first Serato Studio start. Depending on number of installed plugins it may take few minutes to finish. During that time the CPU might turn hot as the app is doing some stress-testing of each installed plugin.

I've got same issue on my Macbook pro mid 2012. My sample rate 44100 buffer size 2048. Even when I play just drum loop CPU loads up to 60%, when I play Drums + music loop + Bass it's loads to 125%, same if I play demo track.

@ Pavol: Thanks for helping me.

- I have a Macbook 2015 Retina Pro, 15 inch.
- I have many plugins installed but currently, if i open SS, no scanning takes place
anymore cause they were,indeed, already scanned at very first start of SS.

I just installed the latest beta (from 9 feb.)
I opened SS, empty project.
Right away, i can hear macbook fans kicking in, speeding up slowly.
After 10 seconds 1 created 1 Sample Deck with a 1 bar audioloop loaded in it.
I then hit Play and let the 1 bar audioloop play, looped.

In OSX Activity Monitor app, i can see CPU is fastly reaching 50% and fans are really becoming loud spinning
Within 1 minute after that, CPU reaches even 125%, fans go through the roof.
However, no audio glitching/tearing takes place.

I am wondering whether this very high CPU consumption, with only 1 Sample Deck in a Project, also has to do with SS' graphical interface can draw much CPU power, for example, to show it's animated graphical objects, like Sample Deck, at a decent frame rate on screen.
Or does it seem SS just needs to be way better CPU optimized for OSX ?

Hoping to see other SS OSX users chiming in on this rather important issue.

Looks like we need button which will disable animation in SS. Otherwise we just kill our processors.

If the GUI of SS is heavy on CPU/GPU then , in my situation, it's not the only DAW that
"suffers" from this.
I also own FL Studio and Bitwig on my macbook and these 2 DAW's also make my macbook fans spin loud, although loaded with almost empy Projects.

There is something about their Graphical User Interfaces that my macbook really struggles with.
In FL Studio's case: problaby the fact that it's GUI is based on vectorgraphics.
Maybe SS's interface is also based on vectorgraphics ?

Meanwhile, thinking of installing SS on the PC laptop (Zenbook, Windows 10) of my son, just for checking performance on that laptop.

My macbook fans spin loud, just when I load project with another daws, not just sample as SS.

Thanks for detailed response, Vanhaze2000.

I'd like to follow-up with more questions which may help explain what is actually happening.

1. Do you have MacBook Pro 2015 variant with discrete GPU (AMD Radeon R9)? You can find this information in About This Mac window that you can open from Apple menu.

2. Since you are familiar with Activity Monitor, if you select All Processes from View menu, and in the main window sort all processes by CPU usage (% CPU), which ones are on the top on average and what is their CPU %?

3. Is this problem happening also when you disconnect your external audio interface (UAD Apollo Thunderbolt) and use Built-in Audio (Internal Speakers)?

Hi Pavol, here you go:

1) Yes, i have the discrete AMD Radeon R9.

2/3) I tested under various setups, SS loaded with only 1 Sample Deck, Looped Play,
only SS opened, no other programs openend, buffersize 1024.
In all setups, i experienced high spinning of macbook fans but no audio glitching.

UAD Apollo plus external Dell monitor (no scaling), attached to macbook:
SS: 121% CPU, 19% GPU
Window Server: 82% CPU, 4% GPU

UAD Apollo, macbook screen (Dell Monitor detached):
SS: 114% CPU, 19% GPU
Window Server: 49% CPU, 4% GPU

Build-in Sound plus external Dell monitor (no scaling), attached to macbook:
SS: 101% CPU, 33% GPU
Window Server: 45% CPU, 3% GPU

Build-in Sound, macbook screen (Dell Monitor detached):
SS: 106% CPU, 23% GPU
Window Server: 44% CPU, 3% GPU

Conclusion:
Dell Monitor plus Apollo, both attached to macbook, running SS, is the most CPU/GPU intensive setup for me, while macbook screen plus built-in sound is the least CPU/GPU intensive setup.

It's not really a surprise, macbook driving both Apollo AND Dell screen (both via thunderbolt) seems just really hard for my macbook 2015, in case of running SS.

I also use Reaper (still as my main DAW) and i don't experience any high spinning fans and/or these numbers in Activity,
I am guessing, among other things, Reaper's GUI draws way less CPU/GPU then SS needs.

Even Ableton Live lite with demo project load less my old macbook then just one sample in SS.

Hi and thanks for sharing your experience regarding SS's CPU performance.
That sounds pretty bad..

Do you also suffer from your macbook's fans, spinning loud with just one Sample Deck loaded in a SS Project ?
Which OSX version and which audio interface do you use ?

No offense to Serato but starting to think that SS is totally not CPU (and GPU ?) optimized for mac (yet).
Regarding GPU: wondering if SS takes advantage of Apple's latest METAL API for graphic calculations ..

not sure if it's the same problem. i have a macpro 2015

back when testing studio, things were running hot until i changed something like the display resolution or something. i posted about it in the beta forums. it would be all the way back on the first page.

Thank you for detailed report, Vanhaze2000.

It looks like the system considers Serato Studio as a GPU intensive application a switches automatically from integrated to discrete GPU. That increases heat generation and turns on the cooling fans, undesirable for music production.

I have not seen such behaviours on later MacBook Pros but I’ll try to find and test same configuration. Interestingly MacBook Pro 13 (2015) without discrete GPU doesn’t spin fans when performing simple tasks in Studio. I wonder if you’d be able to get same results when manually switching to integrated GPU with a 3rd party tool (but I don’t know if there’s one compatible with Catalina)