Hi Sergino,

An interesting project - thought I would add some thoughts ahead of other more expert replies.

My first concern/thought is the sheer loading the midi I/O would have to handle on one machine. Granted newer USB midi interfaces have much wider bandwidth and in theory should handle the I/O traffic. But in practice I have found problems with only 4 midi ins active. (Emagic's Unitor II via USB to a Pro-Tools I/O unit)

The number of midi-ins on any particular box does not guarantee that all of them can be in use at one time. Mostly these were design for matrix switching to save rewiring time etc.

With 8 played midi keyboards being handled via the Midi I/O you might also run into unacceptable latency problems. Giga itself does have very low latency but you also have to factor in your Audio card or Audio box.

The path for any one instrument would be keyboard - midi I/O - Sequencer Application - VSL Performance Tool - Gigastudio - Sequencer Application - Audio/Soundcard - External Mixer - PA.

Off the top of my head I would say you are looking at a minimum of 2 PC** systems fitted with 160's (acting as virtual instruments) and a 3rd PC to handle the midi routing. Remember you can split the samples on to any number of external disks so for example you could have Brass and Woods on a disk streaming to one PC and Strings and Perc on another disk streaming to the other PC.

**These PCs do not need to be that powerful.

VSL have to fully answer the licensing question but my understanding is that you are purchasing the right to use the SAMPLE and this should not be an issue - particularly if you register your ensemble as the end user.

64 bit and hyper threading are really issues for TASCAM. The VSL library is currently sampled at 16 Bit resolution with 24 Bit being prepared (as an option) for the Symphonic Cube.

Hope this helps a little.

tattie

My personal opinion, but anyone who uses Gigastudio in a live performance is nuts. It's much too unstable. And 8 keyboards? I would take bets on how long before the whole thing crashed and burned. Sorry for the glum outlook but my opinion of GS is very low!

I don't know, Peter. My GigaStudio rig never crashes - which is what people have been reporting for years, of course.

welcome sergino,
the lagato instruments are rather huge, but depending on your machine you can load 8 or even more. although playing from 8 keyboards might work better with 2 PC's (so each keyboard has it's own channel in gigastudio) and would have 16 channels to switch, because you probably don't play only legato instruments.
to archieve the needed performance i would recommend one of those 800 MHz frontside bus motherboards with 2 GB RAM (and an 8 channel stereo soundcard of course).
we are using PC's with 2 GHz and above - with and without hyperthreading, there is no noticable difference. regarding 64 bit you are currently limited to opterons, because they run 32-bit applications (what gigastudio still is), but as mentioned before: it's not a matter of processor power but of RAM.
having licensed the library you can install it on as many machines you might find usefull, as far it is not used by another person for another project.
christian

Nick, I know that many people never have problems with GS. But many do, and it's very unpredictable. It's like saying most people go their entire lives without getting hit by lightning. Does that mean you swim in a thunderstorm? PCs in general, but especially Gigastudio, most pros will tell you are simply too unstable to be used in a live show.

I used a PC once to control all the sound and video cues for a musical I produced. Everything in the PC was flawless until the week of the show. Had to switch PCs hours before the show because of a breakdown that just had to do with video codec configurations. Like I said, just too unpredictable.

Yes, I'm saying that people have been reporting problems and no problems with Giga all along. That's the thing with Windows machines: there are many combinations of hardware and software, and some are obviously more stable than others. Files do become corrupted in all computers, though, so you have to have a Plan B - not just for live performance, but in studios as well.

My Plan B is a MOTU Firewire interface on a Powerbook that I can use if Pro Tools has a bad day when I'm recording someone. It hasn't happened, but it would if I didn't have the back-up!

Edit: actually, that's my Plan C. Plan B is an image of my system disk partition, on a Firewire drive that I can start up from. Can you do that with Windows machines, anyone?

Maybe it’s because I’m a long term computer programming but I set up 2 PC (one with W 98 SE - 1 giga RAM 2,4 - Pentium 4 and the other with W 2000, 512 RAM (older MOBO) and 800 PIII) with gigastudio 96 and have NEVER had a problem.
We have played live music by Italian classical composer Cherubini in front of 500 people. We had 10 Midi keyboards (6 via Midisports 8x8 and 4 via MOTU XT Express) and made two concert with choir and solos (voices) and everything was OK except for the quality of the samples when played fast or legato.
My answers are different. I’m not concerned with Gigastudio, to me it’s almost perfect!
Please help me answering my questions and not talking about problems I don’t have.
Anyway thank you very much to you all.
Sergino Futurino

@Another User said:

My answers are different. I’m not concerned with Gigastudio, to me it’s almost perfect! Please help me answering my questions and not talking about problems I don’t have.

Congratulations. When your system crashes and burns in the middle of your performance you'll have my sympathies. Ever heard of Murphy's Law? You should learn it.

Shure I know the laws, and very well: I am a computer programmer!
And that's why I do my homeworks, I am very careful in doing everything as best and simple as possible.
I ask to dozens of people and learn the statistics...
Obviously, we can do nothing against Murphy:
if you play Beethoven on a piano a string could brake during a Forte, or the lights could turn off suddenly.
It happens.
And remember, never flight "charter", they may lose your baggages, and after all, airplane crashes into towers sometimes.
The people that comes to our "virtual" concerts knows that everything could happen as we are pioneering it.
And, in the end, we have a spare piano, the one that was used befor the virtual orchestra.
Ciao
Sergino

Sorry, I'm not trying to pick a fight, but surely as a programmer you must know how especially unstable Windows PCs are. You said you're surveying people for information? Then survey this: pros don't use Windows in live environments. It's just too unreliable. XP is better, but still not perfect. You can run a PC 1000 times flawlessly, and on the 1001th time, it won't boot.

Soi anyway, indeed, good luck - I really do hope it works out. I guess my recommendation would be to have a 2nd fully configured PC, mirrored to be exactly like the main one(s), ready to go at a moment's notice.

Hi... sorry I cant answer your questions since i'm only a soon to be owner of a VSL product. I just wanted to chime in and say "come on and answer his goddamn questions" [:D]

peter, this is a discussion i have the pleasure to follow literally for years (at least more than 12) now and the arguments are still not getting better or more conclusive - the opposite seems to happen, they are more emotional than ever before.
whereas my observation in several companies is another, that is windows based systems seem to run more and more stable especially since W2K opposed to mac OS which actually causes more troubles than ever before.
and i'm not talking about *surfstations* and *electronic typewriters* but machines under heavy load for 8, 10 and more hours a day, be it for audio, video, gfx & animation, servers, ect.
everything depends on the used components (hardware, software, drivers) and how carefull one is maintaining a system and in an enviroment which is intended to provide highest availability you will need a backup system or spare parts anyway, be it a simple bulb or a nuclear power station.
just my two bit, christian
btw: this kind of discussion includes but is not limited to the both mentioned operating systems [;)]

@Another User said:

whereas my observation in several companies is another, that is windows based systems seem to run more and more stable especially since W2K opposed to mac OS which actually causes more troubles than ever before.

I actually agree with that 100%! People tell me I'm the only one who ever has a problem with Mac OS. I think Win NT has gotten dramatically better and was overjoyed when they scrapped the Win9x kernel.

Nuclear power plant you say? Well, despite all that, if you know of any nuclear power plants being run on Windows OR Mac PCs please let me know, because I'm not living within 200 miles of them!!! [:)]

peter, this was meant only related to spare parts and backup - at least that is what i'm hoping too [;)]
christian