Hi Randin,

Thanks for the great feedback. One question regarding the continued use of my older MacBook Pro.

It is running:

• OSX 10.6.8
• 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
• 6 GB 667 DDR2 SDRAM

I noticed it is running DP 7 with horrible lag when using their MOTU Symphonic Instrument - but maybe that was because I was running both DP7 and Symphonic Instrument on the same machine instead of using a slave for the instruments?

I'd rather not have to buy the new MacBook Pro AND a PC slave (expensive). Are you noticing any performance issues with DP7 on your MacBook Pro?

noldar12,

I'm sold on getting a PC slave. Any recommendations on resources for purchasing this? I'm looking for the preverbial great price, great service, great warranty. I know VSL has a list of recommended vendors. Any recommendations?

Checking VSL's recommended list wouldn't hurt.  You will pay a bit of a premium by going with a specialized DAW builder, but IMO it is well worth it.  The ongoing service is of great use - as with anything electronic, parts at some point will fail.  The DAW builders know what parts play nice with others, and have knowledge that Dell, and HP support, and the like, simply do not have.

For my own situation, I have gone with ADK, and have been using them for some time - but that predates my use of any VSL samples, and technically,  ADK is not one of the certified builders (I would still suggest you check them out).  The VSL certified builder, VisionDAW, has been around for a long time, and should be checked out, but I have no direct experience with them.  In terms of general builders, there are a couple I would also tend to shy away from.  In the past DAWs made by both Rain Computers and Sweetwater (!) have been overpriced.  It is always possible that situation has changed.

I can't speak exactly to your situation as I'm on the top of the line 2008 MacPro, not a MacBook Pro, but here's the thing. If you're using a PC slave and are not mixing any other virtual instruments or live audio tracks, then all your MacBook Pro is doing is being a MIDI sequencer, which barely takes any power at all.

As for PC shopping, got any computer geek friends? I used ADK once before, for a mega-laptop when I was living in a remote place for several years, and I loved the computer and the service, as noldar said. But it is pricey. I was going to go back to them to build my current PC, but a friend insisted that I send him the specs I was going to get from them, and he priced out the parts at several thousands dollars less. I put most of that back into getting a more powerful machine than I would have. You lose the tech support, but all the parts come with warranties of their own. We built it just over a year ago and I have no regrets so far.

I started with Special Edition Vol 1.  It gave me a good taste of VSL without a huge price tag.  Sweetwater has good prices for this stuff.  Also - once you've purchased just one of these smaller items, you get reasonable upgrade pricing if you want to add on to it.

Also, also - once you have a license for Vienna, you can download a 30-day demo of MIR and the full Ensemble Pro. Please do yourself a favor and play with it before dropping another $500+.

I gotta say - MIR did NOT blow me away.  In fact I found it not remotely as impressive as I thought it would be.  They even tell you in the instructions for MIR that putting things visually in places you think they'd sound good in does not always work - they recommend playing around with locations in an unrealistic fashion to make things sound better.  To me - the whole idea of MIR would be that you'd lay out your orchestra just like you see one on stage and then it should just sound good. If I'm gonna be putting my violins on top of my trumpet players heads and turning them all backwards to face away from the stage, then put the flutes in the back left corner behind the timpani --  well, I'd just as soon run them through some Cubase reverb and call it a day.

MIR was no miraculous solution. I also could not tell the difference between most of the mics unless I did extreme things to the configurations.  It's kind of a BS selling point.

I'm getting conflicting recommendations regarding the Dual Intel Xeon E5-2630 - six core 2.3 GHz Server class processors:

Opinion A:

“Doing the xeon's, the six cores are kind of a waste. You will get a much better result from doing a single six core that is overclocked to 4.5ghz. The 2.6 8 cores will do OK, but the to take real advantage of what the xeon can do you really need to go on up to the 3.1's.”

Opinion B:

“For pro audio it’s not all about clock speed. It is true that single processor systems are extremely capable machines and may work, but when working with the pro level software, looking to run one system is almost never enough. The Xeon’s clock speed per true core is lower but you gain from the benefits of having a dual processor architecture, dual memory controllers, dual PCIe controllers, and a dedicated SAS2 controller.”

Any recommendations on which way to go?

Which way to go?  It really all depends on what you want to do, and how you intend to work.

For streaming samples, clock speed is critical, not the number of cores.  Slower clock speeds equates to a lower number of samples being streamed.  Thus, for the VSL sample libraries clock speed matters.

For processing data, and doing calculations, i.e. for general plugins, and programs that require processing power like MIR Pro, the number of cores becomes important.

Thus a dual xeon, with a slow clock speed will not help.  If you were to go dual xeon, you would need to get one with a faster clock speed.  For most users, a single CPU will be fine.  However, if your goals put you outside "most users" then you might need a high end dual xeon.  Also, a single xeon has no advantage, as they are in essence the same chips as the i7's.  With the xeons you can simply have a dual CPU, which is not possible with an i7.

As always, thanks for your advice.

I have decided to go the i7 route, which was verified by VST Support as a good option, given my needs/workflow.

One vendor wants to overclock the i7: i7 overclocked 4.5GHz or better with HT 12meg cache

Another vendor says they NEVER overclock.

I'm getting 4 SSD drives for the i7, totalling about 2T

64GB DDR3 RAM

My sample library will include:

Do I overclock or do I not overclock?

I agree with icecubeman... MIR Pro would be worth adding if at all possible.  It will significantly help your final results.  One option would be to demo it once you become familiar with your other software.  For me, MIR 24's earlier version MIR SE, is vital, and I would not want to be without it (as mentioned I do hope to upgrade to MIR Pro at some point).

As for the i7, am guessing that you settled on the 3930k?  That will be fine.  As for overclocking, things appear to have changed in the last couple of years.  Scott - the owner of ADK - a pro DAW builder in Kentucky, overclocks that chip for customers (note: I have no personal experience), and is on record as being pro-overclocking with the new generation of i7 39xx chips.  It used to be that overclocking could potentially cause instability, and possibly shorten the life of the chip.  I have no idea if those are still potential factors, though Scott, as a builder, has always been concerned with potential stability issues (ADK has built my admittedly much older computers).

Hi, a few thoughts on libraries: the Dimension series is overkill for what you do, and there's no immediate prospect of it containing woodwinds. The Symphonic Cube has everything most pros would need, but since you're a beginner you could test the water by buying the Special Edition (whose instruments use fewer samples, but still sound great) and maybe upgrade to some of the full instrument collections later. That way you would avoid over-committing financially too early on, and you wouldn't be buying instruments you don't need (such as chamber strings).

Good decision to buy VI PRO. Its simple on-board reverb isn't top quality, but it will make an enormous difference to your mixes. (MIR is cool, but not essential when starting out.) You can't record into VI PRO's sequencer in real time, plus it only operates within one instance of VI PRO, which means you couldn't use it to construct a whole arrangement.

BTW neither the basic Vienna Instruments player nor VI PRO is MIDI multi-timbral - they both play whatever MIDI data you send to them, regardless of its channel. To build a multi-instrument arrangement therefore requires multiple instances of the player. Some people (including me) find it helpful to use the free (and excellent) Vienna Ensemble mixing host - it can hold multiple Vienna (and third party) players which you can assign to different MIDI channels, insert effects, etc.

HTH! Good luck with this.

@SKellogg said:

• I've seen VSL's bare bones piano scroll MIDI software, which may actually be enough for me. Thoughts?

One could set up very elaborate things of course, and I suppose it would quite enhance live capabilities but as pointed out, a sequence in it is contained within the single VIP instance. The one thing that may appear to resemble a multitimbral soft instrument is the capability to output matrices up to four different stereo outs but we can't have more than one matrix at a time.