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>What is the exact hardware this unit is based on? >How does it perform? How is it really built?"
Hopefully some of your questions are answered below.
As a quick aside- one off the funny (ironic) things about the current state of electronic instruments is that if a solution is computer based, then people naturally want to know processor specs, etc. in deep detail. At the same time if you are talking about a Triton then the issue of "what kind of processor it is" suddenly disappears- sound quality and flexible speedy operation are the more immediate concerns.
Let me say this first- Receptor sounds GREAT. Receptor definitely delivers the goods. Of course this is a guy from the company talking and I know that doesn't mean a whole lot. But I can honestly tell you that invariably, this is the first comment I hear when I show someone the box.
We have a proprietary audio card that was designed by the same guy who has designed the audio output for lots of the most expensive and successful high end samplers in the marketplace over the last decade or so. Receptor is also fully realized in the sense that you can just open it up and make music- you don't have to go down the "specs" journey if you don't want to.
Receptor currently uses an AMD Athlon 2700 processor, the internal components are fairly standard computer motherboard parts. As time goes by we will of course change processors. Using standard computer parts means we can adapt as generic parts pricing and performance improve.
As a caveat related to processor speed: please note that Receptor utilizes a small footprint Linux environment optimized for one use only (music). Receptor thinks fast on its feet. The way Receptor performs with an Athlon 2700 is dramatically different from the way Windows XP performs with the same 2700.
A large portion of our differentiation has to do with the way we've optimized OS performance as well as the Muse Control front end mixing and editing environment that we've developed. Muse Control makes the process of stacking plug-ins and creating new cool blended sound flavors easier and a lot faster.
How many Plug-ins
Theoretically you could run 16 VSTi instruments with three VST effects inserts on each instrument, plus two bus inserts with three effects on each bus, plus 3 more effects you can add to the master fader. As an example you could have a VSTi instrument that has 12 VST effects assigned to it.
From a real world specs standpoint it is kinda hard to nail down exactly how many plug-ins it will run at a time, how much polyphony, etc. because of the extreme variance in efficiency between the plug-ins themselves and the way they are written by each third party plug-in developer. You might only be able to run a couple monster plug-ins at a time with only a few notes of polyphony if the plug-ins themselves are true CPU hogs. On the other hand, to give a general idea of what is possible I can at least say we ship with a ton of multi-plug in preset patches that might typically integrate 10+ VST and VSTiplug-in mixtures.
By the way, the built in presets sound great, and can also give you some good direction on how to build your own sounds.
RAM plays a role in how Receptor performs as well. Like any computer Receptor loves RAM, and you can add up to a total of 2GB giving you lots of headroom for sample playback applications.
Here is some latency info-
Test conditions: we used a Tektronix digital storage oscilloscope model TDS350 to capture a MIDI event and the onset of an audio waveform from a plug-in in the case of measuring MIDI latency, and the onset of an input and an output waveform in the case of measuring throughput latency. In the case of audio input to output testing, an Audio Precision ATS-1 audio analyzer generated a pulsed audio test signal and the delay between the test signal and the output of Receptor was measured. In the case of MIDI to audio output latency testing, the 4Front E-Piano VSTi plug-in was used.
In the case of audio input to audio output, the line input was used, at nominal gain, with no effects instantiated so as to measure true A to D to A latency. In both cases the delta between the triggering signal and the audio output was measured using the TDS350 internal delta measurement tools, and worst case numbers were used. The unit under test, Receptor (serial number R40129030027) was pulled at random from production inventory, no tweaks or modifications were done to the unit.
In each case the measurements were made at all four different audio buffer settings and three common sample rates used in Receptor (1s = 1000mS)
Line in to Line out:
Code:
Buffer setting 44.1kHz 48.0kHz 96.0kHz
-------------------------------------------
32 4.3mS 4.0 mS 2.0 mS
64 7.2 mS 6.7 mS 3.3 mS
128 13.0 mS 12.0 mS 6.0 mS
256 24.5 mS 22.7 mS 11.3 mS
As a frame of reference, sound travels at 1100 feet per second (at standard atmospheric pressure and temperature). This means an amplifier located 10 feet behind you on stage will have 9.09mS of “latency” between the time the sound leaves the cone of the speaker and the time it hits your ear. So if you perform through Receptor on-stage, at a buffer setting of 64 buffers at 48kHz, the latency is similar to an amplifier located 7.4 feet behind you.
MIDI input to Line out:
Code:
Buffer setting 44.1kHz 48.0kHz 96.0kHz
-------------------------------------------
32 3.4 mS 3.1 mS 2.0 mS
64 5.1 mS 4.3 mS 2.7 mS
128 9.0 mS 7.5 mS 4.6 mS
256 18.0 mS 16.0 mS 7.5 mS
By way of comparison, we will compare Receptor's latency with two common, comparable configurations: a laptop with an external audio/midi USB interface device, and a desktop pc with an internal audio/midi solution. The results for the desktop system are forthcoming, the lap top configuration test results follow:
For the laptop comparison, we repeated the test using an HP Pavilion model ze3500 lap top computer (2.66Ghz P4 processor, 448MB Ram, running Windows XP) using an M-Audio Audiophile USB audio / MIDI interface. The Laptop was configured to run Cubase SX, with only one VST instantiated (4Front E-piano) with project sample rate set to 48kHz. Device settings were configured in Cubase so that the “lower latency” radio button was checked.
The latency settings were then changed on the M-Audio driver panel, and each time Cubase was rebooted so that those new settings were used.
Code:
Latency setting 48kHz
-------------------------
“Very low” 14.6 mS
“Low” 21.6 mS
“Medium” 25.3 mS
“High” 36.4 mS
“Very high” 59.2 mS
In this particular test case, using this particular I/O box, Receptor’s worst latency is nearly as good as the laptop’s best case latency.
Of course, the latency of a desktop computer system with an internal sound card should (theoretically, at least) be better than that of a laptop using a USB interface due to the absence of the latency contributions of the USB interface layer. And due to a variety of reasons, no two computers are exactly the same in terms of performance, so computer tests can vary significantly. We will be doing some comparison tests with a desktop system soon and will post the results when they become available.
Hope this info helps!
Keith