It has been nearly 8 years since I visited these forums--often due to being heavily preoccupied with things other than music production. We've all been there; such is life. Anyhow, there is a matter that I need to address regarding Harmless.
I absolutely love this VST and the synths that I have created when using it rival those of Cubase, Propellorhead Reason, Native Instruments and even ProTools. I'll even go so far as to say that Harmless has proven to stand its ground against even Sytrus and Harmor in many categories.
Every once in a blue moon when I am able to devote free time toward producing music via FL Studio, I first turn to the presets of Harmless. The CPU Load is relatively light when playing polyphonic notes, using chorus, flange, unison mode, or any combination of these parameters. I've rendered a lot of songs using only Harmless presets under MP3 format; however this is the issue I have had since doing this. I have noticed that it takes an extremely long time to render to an MP3 file.
Mind you, I use 64-sinc, disable maximum polyphony and the songs in and of themselves do not exceed 3 minutes in length. The computer and laptop that I use with FL Studio both exceed minimum requirements for optimal performance--but yet Harmless presets causes rendering to slow down. Usually I would find myself waiting as long as 45-50 minutes before rendering has completed This doesn't seem to affect, say Poizone, Sawer, Toxic Biohazard or any of the other VSTs. Maybe it is because of the type synthesis Harmless uses, or it could be something beyond the scope of my current knowledge of synths.
What I would like to know is whether or not anyone who has used Harmless in the past ,or uses it currently, notices the long time it takes to render a song to MP3 when using Harmless presets in their projects. What are your thoughts?