Hi Bob,

Well, Christian (Marin) is the bloke to talk to about stuff like this but I know he doesn't recommend FW disks for samples because it was on his recommendation that I added a third SATA HD just to hold samples a while back, I now use a FW one only for backups at the end of each session. My guess - only a guess, mind - is that Directory Manager was having trouble distinguishing between your different FW disks. As I'm not a VSL member of staff I'm not privy to how it all works but they certainly do recommend keeping VI samples on an internal disk and they generally have good reasons for their recommendations. Of course it is possible to run from FW - I did so for quite a while and hit no real problems. But since going down the SATA route there's been a definite improvement in things like sample load times and overall performance.

So if I were you I'd add a third SATA HD and keep your samples there. They're pretty cheap nowadays: I paid around £120 for a 750Gb Seagate a few weeks ago and if you're in the US then it's probably a lot cheaper. You'll get better streaming performance from SATA than from FW.

Either way it does sound as though that was the problem and, assuming it is, I'm glad it's one with a fairly simple solution.

Anything to add Christian? Come on, I know you're out there... [:)] 

Nick 

Now that you mention custom data, have you tried relocating your custom data folder inside the Directory Manager? I once had some problems with the custom data path after unhooking my firewire drive that I use to stream VSL off. Pointing to the correct folder again solved my trouble. 

@nick.halliwell said:

Anything to add Christian? Come on, I know you're out there...

hey guys, sometimes i go out for a beer ot two and unfortunately this time it has been one of those cosy pubs ("gmiadliches beisl") which unfortunately (or better fortunately) don't have internet ... 😉

RTAS on the G5 ... uhhh, must have slipped through my fingers, i thought it has been released for intel only ...

to be honest: i don't believe RTAS on PPC will ever get to a state of reasonable performance (as far it relates to VI or a VSTtoRTAS wrapper) and though many PT users are in certain way stuck to their PPC hardware this doesn't have a future sooner or later.

second side of the problem (firewire) ... well, basically not too bad, but miles away from sATA ... 2 FW-disks = double load 3 FW-disks = tripple load (for CPU and bus) and: you didn't mention if it is possibly a PT system with a FW-audio device (this would be the worst coincidence)

sidenote: what can happen i had to notice yestrday - a seagate sATA 1TB in a FW enclosure (macpower oxford chip) gave me - you won't believe - 14 MB/s (PC) and 4,7 MB/s (!!!) on a macPro .... dammned ... the same disk delivers 72 MB/s directly attached to sATA. admttedly this is far the worst performance i have ever seen since 1995 or even earlier with ATA 1 IDE drives.

if you have to stay on the PPC for some reason and have the chance to outsource the sampling to another machine i would do that, because i fear actually streamlining everything you won't get too far on the G5 ....

christian

i forgot: there is no correlation between Directory Manager and firewire regarding indexing the content - volume remains volume.

just make sure your energy settings are selected as *never allow this drive to sleep* what could cause problems.

the personal milage might vary, but i for myself do not consider 4-6 instances as *reasonable performance*, though of course it is nice to have at least a few instruments running directly on the host, but this is how to read *you don't get too far* above

christian

Hi Songman,

I already asked you this in one of my mails:

What happens when you create a new and empty Pro Tools session without any audio files or other plug-in´s? Please try to load only a small patch into VI. Does that work? Does Vienna Instruments Standalone work (set to "built in Audio")?

The above performance details are the result of tests on a "freshly installed" Mac PPC and no other plug-in´s were loaded in that Pro Tools session and there were no audio files.

Best, Maya

Hi Bob,

It's me again. Sorry, I'm still reeling from the revelation that Christian "goes out occasionally". [:)] 

Another thing to look at - if you haven't already - is your Playback setup in PT. Each VI instance is stereo so it uses 2 RTAS voices. If you're also using lots of RTAS plug-ins in your sessions then this can also be a factor. Another thing is whether you're using any other instruments which are streaming samples or data from your FW drives. 

Bottom line, though, is that you'll get far, far better performance on a MacPro with 3 SATA drives. I suspect I'm working similarly to yourself in that I also have a number of audio tracks and things running alongside a number of VI (or VE) instances. A lot of the people on this forum are, I suspect, essentially composers, so they're working primarily with MIDI sequencing of VIs. But then PT is much more of an audio-focussed app, of course: anyone working primarily with MIDI is going to better off with Logic, Cubase, etc. or one of the notation packages. Personally I prefer PT precisely because of its audio features and the beautiful simplicity of the Edit/Mix window paradigm.

As I say, with a MacPro quad 2.66 and 3xSATA, one for each basic task, I'm getting excellent performance. It's worth planning things a bit - when tracking I try to use TDM versions of plug-ins as far as possible because at that point my audio track count is fairly low (maybe 12-16 typically) so that way I can reserve as many of the RTAS resources as possible for my VI instances. 

Anyway, as we do seem to be working fairly similarly, feel free to contact me again to compare notes.

Nick