Here the dialog box blanks for a full minute, for Fast, Balanced and High settings.
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Same here with the blanking. But I’m not too worried about it, as long as the process eventually starts and finishes… which it does!
One thing I noticed with various reports here, older GPUs with little memory seem to fare worse than more modern ones with more VRAM. Which isn’t surprising, considering what we’re asking the system to do… Remember, this stuff was considered science fiction about 10 years ago!
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My “benchmark” and observation contributions to the topic, although I’m not a big user of the Unmix Song feature.
Unmix Song with a 4:00 minute long stereo file, CD quality. All instruments and highest quality selected (excluding “Unmix Sax & Brass first” in SL 12).
System with Windows 11 Pro 24H2, AMD Ryzen 9800X3D (8C/16T, ~5,2 GHz), AMD Radeon RX 9070XT (16 GB VRAM), 64 GB RAM DDR 5 6000MT.
All data approximated by checking Windows Task Manager and a stop watch.
SpectraLayers 11.0.70 - CPU only
- ~ max 50 % CPU usage (seemingly only using 8 of 16 CPU threads)
- ~ 8 GB RAM usage
- ~ 10 1/2 minutes to process
SpectraLayers 11.0.70 - GPU accelerated
- ~ max 12 % CPU usage (seemingly only using 1 of 16 CPU threads, probably no more needed)
- ~ 1.5 GB RAM usage
- ~ max 50% GPU usage
- ~ 5 GB VRAM usage
- ~ 1 1/2 minutes to process
- = about x7 acceleration
SpectraLayers 12.0.20 - CPU only
- ~ max 50 % CPU usage (seemingly only using 8 of 16 CPU threads)
- CPU load seems inconsistent or in intervals, matching with CPU fan ramping behavior
- ~ 24 GB RAM usage
- ~ 8 minutes to process (including about 20 seconds “warmup” before it is doing anything)
- = despite the strange CPU behavior it is faster than SL 11 with CPU only, somewhat unexpected
SpectraLayers 12.0.20 - GPU accelerated
- ~ 50 % CPU usage (seemingly only using 8 of 16 CPU threads)
- CPU load seems more consistent, interruptions match with GPU processing spikes
- ~ 10 GB RAM usage
- ~ 50% - 60% GPU usage in short spikes in about 8 seconds intervals
- ~ 13.5 GB VRAM usage
- ~ 3 minutes to process (including about 25 seconds “warmup” before it is doing anything)
- = only about x2.7 acceleration, and slower overall speed compared to SL 11 with GPU
I don’t have data written down to compare with SL 12.0.10, but 12.0.20 doesn’t really feel faster. I mean, GPU acceleration definitely DOES accelerate the process, but far less than in SL 11. Oh well, not my priority anyway.
Still, I’m somewhat curious how my older NVIDIA RTX 3080 would perform with SL 12 and if the CUDA cores would process things quicklier, but I’m sure way to lazy to change things around.
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Hello,
I could imagine that SL 12 is fundamentally slower in the unmixing process than SL 11. The reason for this would be that SL 12 uses more complex algorithms to achieve better quality. And that takes more time!
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This is likely the reason. Classic computing conundrum… 
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Bare in mind that models have also became more complex, therefore more processing is required. That´s why it may seem slower, but the quality is also better IMO, more options on unmixing
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Installed version 12.02 but it is still very, very, very slow. After 10 minutes only 6% down with unmixing a 3 minute song in balanced quality….
I am sorry, but with those computer specs it’s no wonder that unmixing will take that long.
It’s hugely underpowered for that task.
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Metal has nothing to do with Apple Silicon and has been around since 2015.
Most developers have already moved to Metal. OpenGL has been deprecated on macOS for a decade, if not longer. All of the newer frameworks are based on Metal, etc.
Metal predates Apple Silicon by over 5 years, and most developers had moved over to Metal within ~2 years of its introduction because it performs WAY better than OpenGL ever has - and this was the case on Intel Macs, even those with iGPUs, years before M-series Macs had existed on the market.
I am not sure how they do Unmixing in SpectraLayers. It is, unfortunately, among the slowest that I’ve tried. Serato, Logic, and a few others are much faster. I think the only thing comparable to SpectraLayers is RX/Maschine 3 (that I’ve used).
I actually have a good GPU, so that can’t be the issue - nor can RAM or the CPU. My machine isn’t cutting edge, but it’s absolutely not slow.
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Version 11 works normal….
SL 12 is much more complex than SL11. For example SL11 took only 6-7 GB VRAM, while SL12 takes all of my 8 Gb VRAM + 13 Gb shared RAM, also processing is slower with my GPU compared to SL11, but the quality has greatly improved.
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DEMUCS-GUI can unmix the same song in 1/20th of the time of SL12, same with Logic and others…..If a bunch of amateurs and small devs can use the GPU on a MAC then so can Robin!
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is it really, though?
My understanding is a lot more AI demixing models are crammed into SL12, but the actual working of the app is not much more “complex”.
The inclusion of lots of large AI demixing models is also the Sword of Damocles for SL now that the dominant use of the app seems to be AI unmixing instead of spectral editing.
Demixing is constantly evolving with moving goalposts - one major release per year isnt ideal for delivering the latest models to SL users. The stability issues are mostly related to demixing.
SL updates can never keep pace with competitive AI unmixing tools which use continually updated online processing, such as reStem (by far the best drum unmixer IMO), Fadr (16 instruments!), LaLaLAI, Moises, AudioStrip, AudioShake etc.
The main advantage of SL (and Acon’s realtime unmixer apps) is pro users don’t have to worry about their client’s tracks being uploaded to a 3rd party server. In Acon’s case, their unmixers are real time, licensed from HanceAI. (Maybe the new Ozone 12 also licenses HanseAI?). I’m very impressed with HanceAI’s realtime models, which typically require models less than 10MB in size.
I hate to say it, but for me, other tools are faster and more reliable for spectral editing. Samplitude has an excellent built-in spectral editor (free with Samplitude). Axon’s Acoustica includes a spectral editor. Izotope RX offers superb spectral editing. I use Algorithmix reNOVAtor. Cedar’s spectral tools including Retouch are still available. In theory, SL should annihilate the competition (and does in some ways), but the original mission seems to have forked off into AI demixing, which isnt really a part of spectral editing.
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Just bought a new windows laptop. i7 processor, 32 gb ram but a balanced remix of all the instruments except the sax & brass took 6 minutes for a 3 minutes song. I really hope the next version will be a lot faster…
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Don’t expect miracles from laptop..
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blue in the face
we spec our hardware to run the software we need to run, not the other way around!
Sorry, I don’t understand what you mean
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Stop complaining and buy more powerful hardware. That’s what I think he means 
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It’s not meant as a complaint at all. I just try to find the right specs for a computer or laptop to get this Spectralayers 12 working just as fast as Spectralayers 11. This is a forum to help eachother so maybe someone can help me by letting me know what kind of processor and how much ram is needed to get this right?
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Especially not after you removed “it’s not fun anymore …” from your post.
Anyway, I’m just guessing. Maybe ctreitzell meant something else.
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