Jim Roseberry

To clarify about M.2: M.2 drives come in two varieties SATA - speed is same as 2.5" SATA SSD NVMe (M.2 Ultra) - speed is ~3400MB/Sec for the best drives Conventional HDs sustain ~190MB/Sec SATA SSD sustains ~540MB/Sec M.2 Ultra SSD sustains ~3400MB/Sec IMO, NVMe (M.2 Ultra) is overkill for a boot drive. A machine is going to boot fast... and apps open quickly using a standard SATA SSD. Use M.2 Ultra drives "strategically"... if/when necessary. If you have a particular sample library or libraries where you need massive polyphony, M.2 Ultra SSD is a great solution. If you have a particular library that loads slow, put that library on a M.2 Ultra SSD... and it'll load much faster. ie: I find HALion 6 to be a bit sluggish when loading samples... so I put the library on a M.2 Ultra SSD (now loads much faster). You could run a single/large M.2 Ultra SSD... and partition it for OS/Audio/Samples... but that's not ideal. From a performance standpoint, you're still best having separate physical drives for OS/Audio/Samples. If you're making heavy use of Samples, I'd want those on multiple SSDs (scaled based on your disk-streaming polyphony needs). We have some clients (mostly doing huge orchestral mock-ups for scoring video games) who want to be able to achieve 4000 stereo voices of disk-streaming polyphony. That takes multiple SSDs (including M.2 Ultra)...

Tone-Matching is not the same thing as Kemper style "Profiling". Tone-Matching uses FFT to match the frequency-response of the Amp/Cab/Mic "Rig". Tone-Matching (Impulse-Responses) can't capture/represent non-linear (distortion) components. None of the source amp's distortion characteristics are captured/reproduced. You can actually "Tone-Match" with any AmpSim that allows loading IRs. The FFT process has to be done separately with your DAW. Use an FFT to match the frequency content Shoot an IR using that resultant FFT Load this IR into your AmpSim Bias Amp and ReValver sound nothing close to the realism of a Kemper.

Cab IRs capture the frequency response of a mic'd guitar/bass cabinet. You can then play an Amp signal (real or amp-sim) thru the Cab IR... and it sounds very close to the real Amp/Mic'd Cab. If you've heard of the Kemper Profiling Amp, it sends a series of test signals thru a real mic'd Amp/Cab... The result of what the Kemper receives back allows it to very accurately reproduce the whole mic'd Amp/Cab "Rig". The Rig Player in TH-U has all the parameters that are present on the Kemper. The only thing missing (vs the Kemper); the ability to create profiles yourself. I'm assuming Overloud is doing this for legal reasons. If you could create your own Profiles (and assuming they're as accurate as the Kemper), it's very much a game-changer. The ability to very accurately reproduce the sound of any mic'd amp/cab (with a $200 plugin) would be revolutionary.

Even similar guitars can have significantly different output levels. I've got two guitars with humbuckers in the bridge (one covered and the other open-coil) Using exact same preamp settings, the guitar with open-coil is ~5dB hotter. BTW, This is the reason that all presets are terrible. If they weren't created with a very similar guitar, they're going to sound "wrong" because there's so much variance between instruments/pickups.

Even similar guitars can have significantly different output levels. I've got two guitars with humbuckers in the bridge (one covered and the other open-coil) Using exact same preamp settings, the guitar with open-coil is ~5dB hotter.

Use the input-meter to adjust your gain going into TH-3 or TH-U. Peak/loudest playing should be in the green area of the meter.

Clint, that GTX-1050 is fine. If you have the budget, a GTX-1060 would be even better. For about $100 more, you can get the GTX-1060 with 6GB onboard RAM.

Don't like the stock Cabs (don't like them in Helix, HeadRush, and most other AmpSims both hardware and software). Using my preferred Cab IRs, TH-U is sounding pretty good. Comparing it to Helix Native and HeadRush (hardware) side-by-side, it's holding up pretty well. Overloud has a set of "British" profiles available for purchase for the Rig Player. The included Profiles are (IMO) a little on the lower-end side. Just enough to show what's possible... but leaves you wanting better Amp/Cab/Mic "Rig" profiles. CPU use is pretty low (even when running at 96k) On higher-gain setting, background noise is a little lower than some other AmpSims. Working with guitar/bass pickups in close proximity to a computer (EMI), that's always a welcome thing.

@SomeGuy, I've been building DAWs professionally for 25 years. 😉 I'm well aware of not being able to disable Windows Updates with the Home version of Win10. That's why we recommend the Pro version. If you have a laptop running off battery-power... and you allow full Performance and Power throttling, it's DAW performance will be terrible. CPU throttling causes high DPC Latency CPU core parking (at the wrong time) can cause glitches/dropouts Power-Management shutting down USB Root Hubs can cause attached MIDI controllers and Audio interfaces to lose connection. Regarding Fast Startup, apparently you've not seen the bizarre issues it can cause (corrupt and lost data - especially when dual-booting - even when the OS installs are completely isolated). We've disable this setting on hundreds of machines... and it's never cause an issue. Apps constantly running in the background (especially numerous apps)... and "phoning-home" information to Microsoft is not what you're looking for in a well-configured clean/lean DAW.

Hi John, Either the GTX-1070 or a Vega-64 (AMD's offering that's about equal to a GTX-1080Ti) would both do well. Neither will cause high DPC Latency Both have a 0dB fan mode (noiseless when working with audio).

If you're into AmpSims, Overload has now released TH-U (update to TH-3). https://www.overloud.com/products/th-u-full There's a lot of cool new options/capabilities. One of the biggest being the Rig Player. It's similar to a Kemper Profiling Amp. For the time being, you can't create/load your own profiles (have to get them thru Overload), but hopefully they'll open up that process. With a plethora of stock Amp models, the ability to load your own Cab IRs, the ability to load Rig profiles (Amp and Cab sections can also be used separately), and the ability to alter Tubes in the Pre/Power Amp sections of many models, TH-U is one deep AmpSim plugin. Check out the demo... I loaded it and had a go with some of the (few) included Rig profiles. They sound/respond pretty good to my ears. The SLO and Dumble models were also sounding pretty good.

Hi John, GTX-1050, 1060, 1070, 1080 (and Ti varieties) are just fine.

GTX-1060 comes with either 3GB or 6GB of onboard RAM.

With Win10, there are numerous things you want to disable. Automatic Updates Performance throttling Power Management Fast Startup Privacy Settings The more you're pushing the machine (especially at the smallest ASIO buffer sizes), the more important the OS configuration.

Hi Clint, We've seen high DPC Latency from the latest Nvidia RTX-2xxx series. Nvidia will ultimately get that ironed out... but avoid those for now. No trouble at all with the GTX-1xxx series... I'd recommend a GTX-1060. It'll work just fine for most gaming, AutoCAD, video editing/rendering... and isn't overly expensive. We don't sell individual parts.

That solves the power-supply issue... but wouldn't help with large transformers. If you need several channels of higher-end front-end gear in a small/portable package, you live with the slight trade-off. By comparison, something like the Neve Portico-II channel strip (mic pre, 4-band EQ, compressor) is 2U and 12.5" deep (takes a lot of space).

Yes, I was referring to 44.1k. To get sub 4ms round-trip latency from a USB audio interface, you'll need a current generation MOTU (AVB series or spin-off)... or RME.

The higher the sample-rate, the smaller amount of time for a given ASIO buffer size (which reduces latency). Using high sample-rates is one way to potentially mitigate higher round-trip latency. The downside; CPU use will be considerably higher Note that the audio interface's safety-buffer is the major X-Factor when it comes to round-trip latency.

+1 on the dedicated audio interface. Integrated audio was never built for use with DAWs. The drivers are not robust... and don't provide low-latency. The audio inputs/outputs are also unbalanced (resulting in more noise).

The noise-floor on that pedal-board would have to sound like a jet-plane. 😂

FWIW, That DPC Latency is unfortunately on the very high side. Working at low-latency isn't going to happen without glitches. Even working at mid latency settings is going to be tough when DPC Latency is upwards of 1000uSec. Peak DPC Latency for a Clevo shell laptop should be ~200uSec.

The only advantage to 500 series gear is the small form-factor. You can put several pieces of "a-la-cart" quality gear in a small space. Kind of like a guitarist's "pedal-board" ... but for studio gear. Rupert Neve will tell you a 500 series unit (due to size limits - smaller PS and Transformers) is not equal to the full sized option.

If your machine has Thunderbolt-3, ~$600 would get you into Quantum-2. Quantum can get RTL down to 1ms. If you need to go USB and want something simple, have a look at the Audient ID14 (~$299). Best fidelity you'll find at that cost (Burr-Brown Converters) Round-trip latency is ~5ms at a 64-sample ASIO buffer size 44.1k To achieve better than ~5ms total round-trip latency with a USB audio interface, you're looking at RME or MOTU (recent AVB series and spin-offs). Either of those will get you down to just under 4ms RTL.

Back then, having good sounding EQ and Dynamics on every Channel/Bus... along with quality Delay/Reverb was a real break-through. It's funny how we (now) take all that for granted.

FWIW, To my knowledge... all the new audio interfaces that have USB-C ports are actually USB-2 (not USB-3.1). There's zero performance advantage. Some of these new audio interfaces come with a USB-C to USB-2 adapter cable (to connect to standard USB-2 ports).