pops and clicks when using Vienna VE and SE on G5 2x2Ghz Dualcore

[A.S.]

I have just set up a system on my G5 where I send midi from Finale2008 via IAC to Vienna Ensemble (standalone). The current score has 26 staves (individual instruments) so that means 26 midi channels.

The first instance of VE (mid-channel 1-16) play back more or less accurate. But when I try to open a second instance of VE it seems I run out of processor power(?). I hear almost only pops and clicks and the computer becomes incredibly slow. CPU usage in VE shows approx 30-40% when playing the first 16 channels and ca 90% when trying to play 26.

In GPO and the bundled VSL Kontakt edition I can reduce the polyphony for every instrument in Kontakt and this normally solve a lot of problems. Is there a way to do this in Vienna Instruments? I can't find this setting anywhere.

Or is it even possible to run 26 midichannels with Vienna SE on my current computer? (PPC G5 2x2Ghz Dualcore, 4.5 GB RAM)

Thanks
Albert

[Paul]

Hello Albert,

you are indeed reaching the limits of your machine. DId you try to increase the latency of your soundcard? What is your latency?

The Vienna Ensemble as an AU plug-in is a bit more "CPU hungry" than Vienna Instruments, we are working on that. It will be helpful to freeze some of your tracks or bounce them to audio. 

I believe that you might be able to run about 20 instantiations of the Vienna Instruments (no Vienna Ensemble involved) on your machine, but I wouldn´t add much processing, this is definitely the limit.

Our Special Edition Demo Song #1 with 24 Vienna Instruments is running fine on a PPC G5 2x2.5 GHz Dualcore with 6 GB RA, for comparison. But that is the top performance.

Best,

Paul 

[A.S.]

Hi Paul,
well now I feel just a little bit stupid... Since Finale 2008 has a new(!) bug and only plays through the left channel when using Digidesign Audio Interfaces (in my case a Digidesign Mbox USB interface) I had disconnected this device and played audio through the built-in soundcard. That was apparently not a good idea with Vienna Ensemble...

When I switched to the Mbox I could actually playback all 26 midichannels with only minor pops and clicks. This movement is however very "light" orchestrated so I doubt this will work with more tutti passages. I use Sample Rate 44100 and Latency 1024. I really don't know why. I just guessed... :-)

What would be the optimal sample and latency values for my setup?

Could I improve the performance of my machine if I installed more RAM? Lets say additional 4 GB? (total 8.5 GB RAM)

And what about reducing polyphony? Doesn't this method work with Vienna Instruments?

Thanks
Albert

[cm]

as paul mentioned ... you're close or even beyond the limit of your machine - adding some RAM might help if you are using all available (physical) memory already ... try to keep the RAM sticks *even* (pairwise and of equal size and type).

low latency = high CPU usage and vice versa ... you have to find a compromise what is still usable for you and bearable for your system.

streaming the samples from an internal disk instead of a firewire disk gives you back some CPU (if this applies in your case)

see if you can switch off release samples for certain tracks

make sure you have a good driver for the MBox - sample rate should remain 44.1

hth, christian

[stevesong]

 Albert:

If my experience is any guide, you will run out of processing power before you run out of RAM. As noted below I have a dual 2.5GHz G5, an external SATA RAID 0 array attached to a Firmtek SATA card and latency is set to 1024.

One problem is that NO version of Finale (whether for Windows or Mac OS)  - - including Finale 2008 - - is multi-processor aware. (So. even if you had 8 processor cores, Finale would use just one of them.) 

In addition Finale 2008 is, as far as I can observe, extremely processor intensive during playback - - using approximately 57% of the processor on my system (under OS 10.4.11) simply for MIDI playback of a string quartet score - - with scrolling and Human Playback turned off! (And no instruments instantiated in Finale or elsewhere.) One might wish that Finale's MIDI playback code were more efficient, but, unhappily, that does not seem to be the case now.

My advice - - don't invest in more RAM for your G5, instead, if possible, buy a MacPro. (And, if you do, buy RAM from a third party reseller like Other World Computing and not from Apple which charges several times the normal market price for RAM.)

[A.S.]

@cm said:

streaming the samples from an internal disk instead of a firewire disk gives you back some CPU (if this applies in your case)

see if you can switch off release samples for certain tracks

Thanks Christian,
I have two internal SATA disks in my G5. I use one for the system and the other for samples. (I also have an external 500GB with FW800/eSATA that I use for backup)

Sorry if this is a simple question, but what is "release samples" and how do I turn them off?

[A.S.]

Stephen:

Paul mentioned that Vienna Ensemble is a bit "CPU hungry". Do you get better results if you use Logic as a host app.? And I read somewhere that Logic can only adress 3 GB RAM. When I played this piece with two instances of Vienna Ensemble (27 channels), Activity Monitor showed over 4GB used RAM. Are there any tricks you can do in Logic to minimize RAM and CPU use for Vienna Instruments?

And yes, I will buy a MacPro sometime in the future but as you say, Finale is not multiprocessor aware. I doubt if a brand new 8 core MacPro would improve playback from Finale? Or?
(I never buy RAM from Apple. I wonder if anybody does?)

[cm]

a release sample is triggered with a note-off, for how to them switch off please see Vienna Instruments Manual page 14 - the according screenshot is on page 13 and information on the optimize feature can also be found there (the latter is related you your question how to use less RAM)

christian

[A.S.]

Christian:
I did all the things you suggested, turned off release samples for all instruments. No signifact improvement. I also did the optimize procedure (with learn/optimize). Activity Monitor showed less used RAM but the pops and clicks are still there.

I suspect this is a CPU issue. Activity Monitor shows almost 100% all the time. The only thing that puzzles me is that in order to hear ANY thing, I have to restart the computer. If I have used any apps before launching Finale and Vienna Ensemble my G5 becomes incredibly slow and there is almost no sound from VE at all.

[A.S.]

@stevesong said:

In addition Finale 2008 is, as far as I can observe, extremely processor intensive during playback - - using approximately 57% of the processor on my system (under OS 10.4.11) simply for MIDI playback of a string quartet score - - with scrolling and Human Playback turned off!

Ok, now I tried with another score for chamber orchestra with 16 channels. Though this meant only one instance of Vienna Ensemble I get pops and clicks during tutti passages here as well. I'm beginning to suspect that It might not be possible AT ALL to get decent playback when using Finale with VE. Activity Monitor shows 95-100% CPU usage (% Idle) during playback from Finale via IAC to VE. It seems that Finale's processor use is the culprit here. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

If this is the case I have two options if I want to use Vienna SE for my scores.
1. Buy Logic and use this app as a host and hope it will be less CPU hungry than VE.
OR - Dump midi-data from Finale, export this to Logic and play the midi from here (with Finale turned off) and hope this is less CPU demanding.

2. I also have an Intel MacBook at home (Intel Duo Core 1,8Ghz, 2GB RAM). Would it be possible to use this one for Finale only and send midi to my G5 to let this machine only handle VE. I've seen people on this forum talking about "Slave" computers but I have no idea how to set this up. Is it described somewhere here on the VSL site? Or can anyone tell me how to do this?

Albert