Effect Routing On Performance Optimizing Question

Say I have a Footstep Event:
It’s one-shot and short and will be trigger around 4 times a second.

When I want to apply a reverb effect on it, which method would cost less CPU?

  1. On Audio Track
  2. On Event Master Track
  3. On a Mixer Group which contains the event
  4. On a Mixer Return

I imagine it would be 4=3>2=1.

And if there’re more than one tracks and events involve, 4=3>2>1.

Am I right?

The most optimal would be to use solution 4. The reason for this is if you aren’t using the reverb (eg. you’re not in an area that requires reverb) you can mute the return bus. Muted buses will cause their effects to go idle. In the case of 1, 2, and 3, even if you have the effect set to 100% dry it will still be active as there is signal going into it.

You can use snapshots to control the mixer return’s fader.

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Hi Thank you for answering!

How do I mute the bus?

Simply turn the fader down to -∞ dbfs with snapshot?

It would be better to set the bus to -oodB in the normal mixer view, and use snapshots to increase volume. This way it’s muted without the need of a snapshot playing.

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In a common game audio setting solution 4 works best also, because then multiple sound events can use and share the same reverb as a send effect. This is usually the most common case when multiple sounds are playing in the same space. And then you’ll only need one DSP instance for all the sound events.

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