Topic by Malcolm.Heeley

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  • Malcolm.Heeley
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  • Registered: 30-05-2025
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Topic: Digital overload distortion on non-minimal Organteq presets

I am trying to get to the stable Gig Performer surfacing of the Organteq VST3 sounds, which I am used to for the last year with Pianoteq, but get digital overload/distortion.

System:
Intel i7 2.8GHz 16 Gb Ram
Best Performance Power Option

Interface:
Focusrite 4i4 3rd Gen
48000 Hz Sample Rate
48 Buffer Size (Least worst distortion - 5.3ms latency reported

Organteq:
Polyphony = 256
Multicore Rendering = Checked
Limiter = Off
Volume = -24
Noise Volume = zero
Stereo Width = zero
Reverb = Medium Hall
Mix = 0
Duration = 1.86s
Room Dimensions = 27.83m
Tone = 0
Pre-delay = 0.010s
Tail / Early Reflections = 0

Even with these settings, I get distortion/overload (through my Interface headphone output) on all but the most basic registrations, and need to overcome this in order for Organteq to be usable as a performance instrument.
I'd be grateful for any ideas to remove the distortion. My next step is to reduce the Volume to -30 but surely this should not be necessary? I have low-noise amplifiers to add to low-noise active speakers if this (or lower) must really be the Volume setting.

Last edited by Malcolm.Heeley (13-12-2025 15:19)

Reply by Pianoteqenthusiast

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  • Registered: 25-10-2013
  • Posts: 4,315

Re: Digital overload distortion on non-minimal Organteq presets

Malcolm.Heeley wrote:

I am trying to get to the stable Gig Performer surfacing of the Organteq VST3 sounds, which I am used to for the last year with Pianoteq, but get digital overload/distortion.

System:
Intel i7 2.8GHz 16 Gb Ram
Best Performance Power Option

Interface:
Focusrite 4i4 3rd Gen
48000 Hz Sample Rate
48 Buffer Size (Least worst distortion - 5.3ms latency reported

Organteq:
Polyphony = 256
Multicore Rendering = Checked
Limiter = Off
Volume = -24
Noise Volume = zero
Stereo Width = zero
Reverb = Medium Hall
Mix = 0
Duration = 1.86s
Room Dimensions = 27.83m
Tone = 0
Pre-delay = 0.010s
Tail / Early Reflections = 0

Even with these settings, I get distortion/overload (through my Interface headphone output) on all but the most basic registrations, and need to overcome this in order for Organteq to be usable as a performance instrument.

I had a similar problem with my Mac mini, 8mega ram.  Could never use tutti in Organteq and some presets with many stops - said ”can’t handle all information” playing/recording a piece. Playing stopped.
Had to use only a few stops in some places.
Now I have a new Mac mini M4 chip and using tutti and everything works fine. (10-core CPU with 4 performance cores and 6 efficiency cores, 10-core GPUHardware-accelerated ray tracing16-core Neural Engine, 120GB/s memory ……)
What can I say,   Turn down the input signal…Is the signal level entering too high for its input stage….might help or not
I have the Focusrite too.

Best wishes,

Stig

Last edited by Pianoteqenthusiast (13-12-2025 14:48)

Reply by Malcolm.Heeley

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  • Malcolm.Heeley
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Re: Digital overload distortion on non-minimal Organteq presets

Pianoteqenthusiast wrote:
Malcolm.Heeley wrote:

I am trying to get to the stable Gig Performer surfacing of the Organteq VST3 sounds, which I am used to for the last year with Pianoteq, but get digital overload/distortion.

System:
Intel i7 2.8GHz 16 Gb Ram
Best Performance Power Option

Interface:
Focusrite 4i4 3rd Gen
48000 Hz Sample Rate
48 Buffer Size (Least worst distortion - 5.3ms latency reported

Organteq:
Polyphony = 256
Multicore Rendering = Checked
Limiter = Off
Volume = -24
Noise Volume = zero
Stereo Width = zero
Reverb = Medium Hall
Mix = 0
Duration = 1.86s
Room Dimensions = 27.83m
Tone = 0
Pre-delay = 0.010s
Tail / Early Reflections = 0

Even with these settings, I get distortion/overload (through my Interface headphone output) on all but the most basic registrations, and need to overcome this in order for Organteq to be usable as a performance instrument.

I had a similar problem with my Mac mini, 8mega ram.  Could never use tutti in Organteq and some presets with many stops - said ”can’t handle all information” playing/recording a piece. Playing stopped.
Had to use only a few stops in some places.
Now I have a new Mac mini M4 chip and using tutti and everything works fine. (10-core CPU with 4 performance cores and 6 efficiency cores, 10-core GPUHardware-accelerated ray tracing16-core Neural Engine, 120GB/s memory ……)
What can I say,   Turn down the input signal…Is the signal level entering too high for its input stage….might help or not
I have the Focusrite too.

Best wishes,

Stig

Reply by Malcolm.Heeley

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  • Malcolm.Heeley
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Re: Digital overload distortion on non-minimal Organteq presets

Thanks Stig - Really useful. I'm thinking that multi-core is a prerequisite and my laptop is i7 but from 2018 and not multi-core (my desktop i9 is).
I'll play with using only certain presets but it begins to look like full use will only be possible with a new Laptop.
Best regards
Malcolm

Malcolm.Heeley wrote:
Pianoteqenthusiast wrote:
Malcolm.Heeley wrote:

I am trying to get to the stable Gig Performer surfacing of the Organteq VST3 sounds, which I am used to for the last year with Pianoteq, but get digital overload/distortion.

System:
Intel i7 2.8GHz 16 Gb Ram
Best Performance Power Option

Interface:
Focusrite 4i4 3rd Gen
48000 Hz Sample Rate
48 Buffer Size (Least worst distortion - 5.3ms latency reported

Organteq:
Polyphony = 256
Multicore Rendering = Checked
Limiter = Off
Volume = -24
Noise Volume = zero
Stereo Width = zero
Reverb = Medium Hall
Mix = 0
Duration = 1.86s
Room Dimensions = 27.83m
Tone = 0
Pre-delay = 0.010s
Tail / Early Reflections = 0

Even with these settings, I get distortion/overload (through my Interface headphone output) on all but the most basic registrations, and need to overcome this in order for Organteq to be usable as a performance instrument.

I had a similar problem with my Mac mini, 8mega ram.  Could never use tutti in Organteq and some presets with many stops - said ”can’t handle all information” playing/recording a piece. Playing stopped.
Had to use only a few stops in some places.
Now I have a new Mac mini M4 chip and using tutti and everything works fine. (10-core CPU with 4 performance cores and 6 efficiency cores, 10-core GPUHardware-accelerated ray tracing16-core Neural Engine, 120GB/s memory ……)
What can I say,   Turn down the input signal…Is the signal level entering too high for its input stage….might help or not
I have the Focusrite too.

Best wishes,

Stig

Reply by tmyoung

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  • tmyoung
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  • Registered: 20-09-2012
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Re: Digital overload distortion on non-minimal Organteq presets

If you can stand greater latency, that might win you a lot.  I know on my decent 2016 CPU, I could use tutti on most presets (certainly not with all the couplers engaged), but the Historical presets are usually much lower processor overhead just because of how much smaller they are.  I think on that machine, I had close to 12-20ms latency.  Considering that most large pipe organs can run into the region of 1000ms to 2000ms latency (especially if there's an antiphonal division), I don't tend to notice much up until 150ms latency or higher.

After being able to upgrade to a new Win11 machine, I use 6.7ms latency on a Threadripper (though I'm usually direct audio instead of using my Focusrite), and everything works without any issues.  Also, taking down the headroom from 48kHz to 44.1kHz might also give you a little more processor to work with if the rest of your setup pipeline can handle the lower rate.

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