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  4. MIR and Dual Quad cpu machines...?

  • MIR and Dual Quad cpu machines...?

    M
    M
    I wonder if the new machines that look like they will come out January next year - the quad core dual cpu machines (one person already managed to swap a pre-release intel quad core cpu in their mac pro successfully for a test) will come close to being able to run MIR in offline mode? Would 8X2.66ghz intel cpu's be able to do the trick I wonder? 100 + convolutions is certainly a lot.

    Also another question about MIR - will it include Microphone 're'-modelling and high end pre amp simulation as well as microphone placement simulation technology on a per instrument/section basis? If that could be realistically modelled, it would totally complete the picture I think?

    What would be cool is a selection of just 5 microphone models, plus 5 top end pre amp models, with just a gain control for drive perhaps, very simple, plus basic placement that mathematically could zero out the microphone and pre-amp signature used in the VI recording process - so you could select and mic you wanted, add some 'air' to the recording, then do your MIR processing all in the one 'box'.

    Miklos.
  • DietzD
    VSL Team
    DietzD
    Yes, CPUs seem to become fast enough for our needs in the not so distant future (FINALLY! [*-)] ). You know that the MIR will be PC only, though.

    Regarding the signature-sound of our preamps - all our IRs are already inverse-filtered, so technically there will be no trace of the box, the mics or the preamps [:)] . - Apart from that, I can just say that we have plans and working concepts for mic-modelling (... take a closer look at the preview-video), but this is not on the top of our priority-list.
    /Dietz - Vienna Symphonic Library
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    @Dietz said:

    You know that the MIR will be PC only, though.


    Is there any reason MIR would not run on an Intel Mac that was running Windows under Boot Camp?
  • J
    J
    I would have thought the high end (not hobbyists) music production, MIR's target purchasers?, split is 50% Mac 50% PC if not more towards the Mac.

    With no Mac version that effectively halves the potential market.

    Julian
  • R
    R
    Dietz,

    Could you give me an understanding of how MIR will work in my workflow (probably similar to many)

    I have a main Daw (running Cubase 4, various plugs, VI Percussion) and then 4 slaves running the rest of VI - distributed equally.

    I assume that I run with a 'writing verb' (I have W2 now) and when my writing is complete I then do what to reap the benefits of MIR???

    Sorry for such a basic question - just trying to get my head around this and plan for it.

    My main PC is only 9 months old but I will upgrade to the new Intel Duo duo 'conroe' chip.

    Thanks
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    @julian said:

    I would have thought the high end (not hobbyists) music production, MIR's target purchasers?, split is 50% Mac 50% PC if not more towards the Mac.

    With no Mac version that effectively halves the potential market.

    Julian

    If it has to run on its own machine, then who cares if it is a PC or an Apple PC?

    DG
  • DietzD
    VSL Team
    DietzD
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    @Dietz said:

    You know that the MIR will be PC only, though.

    Is there any reason MIR would not run on an Intel Mac that was running Windows under Boot Camp?
    As long as the Mac-hardware won't thwart us and the MIR's very specific needs, BootCamp could be a possibilty. I can't say for sure at the moment, obviously.
    /Dietz - Vienna Symphonic Library
  • J
    J
    If it has to run on its own machine, then who cares if it is a PC or an Apple PC?

    DG[/quote]

    Modern production environments take no prisoners. Having seperate machines is yesterdays news. Why fight with setting up networks or external farms when a single box solution will have the potential to work... and if MIR won't work as an integrated package there will be other options queuing to take it's place.

    Whereas the VSL sample library has obtained premiere status the field of post produced/induced reverb is a fiercely fought sector at all levels.The other thing to consider is that though sample libraries have evolved fantastically over the past 3 or 4 years post reverb/space convulution has been delivering pretty cool results for over a decade. My feeling is a lot of Mac users will seek a OSX centric solution than fight with another operating system.

    Julian
  • M
    M
    Acknowledging the cutting edge nature of the MIR project, and it's specific needs, and the fact that it would raise the production cost to have to develop for two platforms that are too different, if there is a way that it is relatively easy to run MIR on mac intel machines under OSX as well there are many users out there who would love you for it I'm sure [:)] even under boot camp. It is so nice for some of us to just stay with the one platform I wouldn't like to buy a PC. In fact, only MIR could get me to do that again.

    Miklos.
  • S
    S
    There is always the potential that Parallels Desktop - - software that allows you to create multiple virtual machines each with its own OS on Intel Macs - - with little overhead due to the virtualization capabilities built in to the new Intel chips - - will have evolved to make it possible to run MIR on a Mac running Windows and OSX simultaneously. (But you will have to install Windows on your Mac for this or for Boot Camp. Boot Camp, however, forces you to choose between Windows and MacOS, Parallels Desktop does not.)

    Right now, Parallels Desktop allows Intel Macs to run OSX, various versions of Windows and various iterationns of Linux simultaneously - - so that you can copy and paste between programs running in diferent operating systems. I have actually seen an Intel Mac running 4 different operating systems (and programs in each) simultaneously.

    It is also rumored that something that has capabilities similar to those of Parallels Desktop will be built into MacOS 10.5 ("Leopard") and it has been announced that Leopard will be a true 64 bit system but will run 32 bit apps without the apps having to undergo modification. So you have the possibility of machines with 8 processor cores able to access vast amounts of RAM and able to run multiple operating systems simultaneously. In other words, something close to a "one box" solution may be closer to reality than it has ever been.

    BTW Intel Macs are not slouches when running Windows. A friend who is an IT manager at a design firm tested a MacBook Pro running Windows under Boot Camp and found it, very much to his surprise, measurably - - if not significantly - - faster than a new 4 processor core Windows native machine when both machines were performing certain of the same tasks in Photoshop.

    If none of the above turns out to work, one could always buy a relatively inexpensive Windows machine - - or, if Boot Camp works for this purpose, a Mac Mini - - and dedicate it to MIR.
  • cmC
    VSL Team
    cmC
    to say it frankly: it is just another urban ledgend to assume one could do everything (together) on a single machine - people who try to give the impression this would be possible are IMO simply hipoctites.

    finally i am very happy we decided to have prefered the intel platform. imagine we had decided to go the PPC route (what has been very tempting for a longer time), we had to throw away months of R&D now.

    if OS X somewhen gets its stuff together (main point: window handling) then it should not be too hard to make it crossplatform.
    but note: i fortunately neither have to program it nor would it realistically run *just along other applications*, a dedicated machine is IMO mandatory.
    christian
    and remember: only a CRAY can run an endless loop in just three seconds.
  • M
    M
    Well Christian you're the expert but I don't think people are hypocrites to suggest one box solutions of which I personally am a hopeful fan...

    What stevesong is saying is actually very interesting, that even with a 32 bit software, you could run multiple versions of it, and therefore access all the ram of a 16Gb Mac Pro - a machine with 8cpu cores should do this no problem. Also, you are right - investing in the ppc in the past would have been a big mistake and it's great that you didn't - but now it's a level playing field, surely it wouldn't be hard to at the least consider the possibility of looking at MIR running on a Mac with the Windows running in paralell, or preferably, native in Mac OSX. Anyway, as I said, you're the expert all I'm saying is as a Mac user, MIR for Mac has my vote - although it was developed exclusively for PC, it is now a world where macs use the same cpu's so perhaps a review of that decision is possible?

    Miklos.
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    @Another User said:

    to say it frankly: it is just another urban ledgend to assume one could do everything (together) on a single machine - people who try to give the impression this would be possible are IMO simply hipoctites.


    cm, are you talking specifically about running Mac and Windows software simultaneously on the same machine, or about doing *everything* together - i.e. MIR plus VSL plus internet and and and?

    Also, just out of curiousity what is it about the Mac windows handling? I'm interested because I've never seen the issues with Vienna Instruments in any other software - but then on the other hand I've never seen any other software that works the same way (running outside the host) other than ReWire, which is different.

    That's obviously not a negative comment, because the upside of the way it works is that you can load 3GB of VSL + 2GB of other stuff on one machine. In fact I loaded 5.5GB total one time.

    As you know.
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    @DG said:

    If it has to run on its own machine, then who cares if it is a PC or an Apple PC?

    DG


    Modern production environments take no prisoners. Having seperate machines is yesterdays news. Why fight with setting up networks or external farms when a single box solution will have the potential to work... and if MIR won't work as an integrated package there will be other options queuing to take it's place.

    Julian
    Actually if you think about it that's not really true. All studios have multiple machines. Have you never seen all the outboard gear that the top studios have? I'm sure that you have loads of similar stuff in your studio. It just so happens that you don't think of them as computers, but of course that's what they are. I know that you don't want to learn a "new" operating system and would like to run all the computer based stuff from one box, but the reality is that if MIR is so processor intensive this would not be possible if you wanted to do anything else on that machine at the same time.

    When Vista is released (and stable) I will probably be as near to doing everything on one machine as ever before, but I'm sure that within a short space of time developers will invent something new that means that it would no longer be possible.

    As far as I'm concerned it is not a Mac vs PC issue, it is a matter of practicality. If MIR was Mac only and I felt I needed to get it, I would not hesitate to buy a Mac.

    DG
  • M
    M
    Both sides of the debate offer intelligent points of view, and both are relevant. For example, a single in the box solution would mean one logic or project file (which ever sequencer you use) with total recal, that is a big plus. Learning Windows for MIR is not a big issue, I assume you would just turn it on, start MIR and never touch anything else (if you knew what is good for you) [[:)]]

    For elegance and simplicity, an in the box solution is also my preference.

    Also, external gear although they are computers, they don't have screens and their jobs are generally simple from a user point of view, I wouldn't count them as the same thing, although your point is also relevant, I mean, if you look at the PC as only operating MIR, then it does in fact make sense that you will only use it for mixing, but there are other practicalities to consider. For example in my studio, i have the keyboard in front with the screen behind that, and the monitors on either side, set up ideally for listening in the room. This is important when composing and putting songs together, but then if I have to mix in a different box, it's going to be in a different location etc etc with a different screen, it would be much more elegant for me just as one user, to be able to just then start MIR and run the mix, hopefully in real time with the sequencer (one day far in the future) but at least on the multitracks as an offline bounce. There is the issue of room - in my studio there wouldn't be any room for another machine and screen. Also, there is the fact of wanting to streamline your expendature on hardware. If I buy a 8 core machine to run VI, why should I buy an 8 core PC machine to then run MIR? I'm going to want to use that same hardware for the two jobs and save money and before you say macs are more expensive than PC's [[:)]] the top of the line Mac is actually last i read slightly cheaper than the comparable Dell machine (current models), and you can run Windows AND osx and OSX with windows apps in paralell all at the same time. So my vote is for a Mac version although I realise the official position is otherwise - never too late to change especially since that decision (I believe) was made during PPC/pre mac intel.

    Miklos.
  • J
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    @DG said:

    If it has to run on its own machine, then who cares if it is a PC or an Apple PC?

    DG


    Modern production environments take no prisoners. Having seperate machines is yesterdays news. Why fight with setting up networks or external farms when a single box solution will have the potential to work... and if MIR won't work as an integrated package there will be other options queuing to take it's place.

    Julian
    Actually if you think about it that's not really true. All studios have multiple machines. Have you never seen all the outboard gear that the top studios have? I'm sure that you have loads of similar stuff in your studio. It just so happens that you don't think of them as computers, but of course that's what they are. I know that you don't want to learn a "new" operating system and would like to run all the computer based stuff from one box, but the reality is that if MIR is so processor intensive this would not be possible if you wanted to do anything else on that machine at the same time.

    When Vista is released (and stable) I will probably be as near to doing everything on one machine as ever before, but I'm sure that within a short space of time developers will invent something new that means that it would no longer be possible.

    As far as I'm concerned it is not a Mac vs PC issue, it is a matter of practicality. If MIR was Mac only and I felt I needed to get it, I would not hesitate to buy a Mac.

    DG

    If you start a single project from scratch build it up, mix it, then archive it never to use it again, then workflows can be adapted to whatever set up Mac, PC, external, internal, analogue, whatever. When, which is often the case in my work, you have to bounce between a number of totally different projects that are in parallel development and often have to do remixes, updates, a few months down the line, then having a single file to load that configures the whole system is a massive plus.

    You're quite right that this isn't a Mac/PC issue but a convenience/flexibility issue.

    MIR may be what could be descirbed as a sweetner tool, I'm sure it will be unique and the best at what it does but, unlike the samples themselves (which could be descibed as origination tools) it will compete in a field already populated by world class proven products that have already helped create some of history's best recordings.

    I can understand a complete standalone system being set up to create a fantastic sample machine (Vienna Instruments) but for a post production device that is available elsewhere as a simple plug-in the sell for a devoted system just to run it is going to be that much harder. Therefore the more accessible and user friendly it is for both PC and Mac users the easier the task.

    Julian
  • cmC
    VSL Team
    cmC
    it is really not a PC vs. MAC question ... it is a question of available bandwidth for several components needed to make a computer work. this starts with RAM, continues over the chipset and various controllers ending at the processor(s) and i'm leaving aside now the slowest of all - the harddisk-part.

    every single action on a computer has more or less I/O-operations - read from storage, store data to RAM, read from RAM, load into processor cache, load into processor register, write back to memory, send to (audio-)device, ect. now there are three principles to increase the overall number of I/O operations: increase speed of processor, increase number of processors, increase number of clustered computers - each of them has its pros and cons.

    a series of adjustments in computer design during the last years resulted in currently more powerfull machines than we ever had - crossbar technology (ICH-chipsets), larger and shared processor chaches, dual-bus RAM, serial communication (sATA, PCIe), but beyond certain limits it becomes very expensive very quickly. everybody who denies or at least palliates that, is - sorry - IMO a hypocrite.

    once we have a really working 64bit multi-processor operating system on the desk developers can adjust their applications to make the most possible use of the offered power and i'm predicting: just to find new bottlenecks. considering the amount of data which is needed to be processed we cannot assume one will see a system running eg. a full symphonic cube (and more) plus an application like MIR on a single system.

    and let me add another two points regarding platforms and operating systems:
    as soon as we have more power available it will be eaten up by some nifty features no one really needs. just as good as i personally don't need aqua, i don't need the playmobile-appearance of XP and VISTA (the first thing to be switched off after a setup), for some reason the very old and very good openGL idea was ignored, sometimes it actually seemed to be dead and it looks like re-inventing the wheel is the favourite job of GUI-designers.

    in the PC world i can run windows95 programs still on VISTA (no matter if i'd even need them or not) but try to launch an application built for OS7 and 68K processors on an ourdays MAC. OS8, OS9, OSX (in several flavours) passed by by as well as the PPC processor. i have still in the storeroom my iMAc 233 from 1998 which was never capable to run more than OS 10.1 - on the other side i have an ASUS P55T2P4 (dual PII 266) from 1997 originally running NT which does - tiring but nevertheless - run windows2003.

    so whom should one trust if a decision for a platform has to be passed?
    christian
    and remember: only a CRAY can run an endless loop in just three seconds.
  • M
    M
    christian you surprise me! you are in fact starting a pc vs mac debate which I won't counter your arguments, which are of course the pc side arguments, and there are many on the mac side, or at least arguments to neutralise some of yours, again I don't want to go into it because it's something that has been running SINCE 1997 all over the net and beyond, and has been discussed and argued to death. As I said, you're the expert, if you decide that it can't be done on Mac or is too expensive or bad for the project, people will trust you decision on that, however, I think backwards compatibility that you have pointed out, at the risk of countering your argument, is one of the great things about mac osx in my opinion, so, it does often come down to a matter of perspective much of the time. I still don't however understand your point on hypocrasy... from reading the thread I think nobody has denied the fact that computers cannot presently run a VI+MIR set up on a single machine, or could in the near future - we're just debating being able to run VI, mix down to bus groups or just audio files, then playback the audio files through MIR with say a machine predicted to be available around January (8cpu machine). In THAT case, it would be good for somebody like myself who would possibly buy such a machine to have it capable of running both VI and MIR on the same machine (but not necessarily at the same time), as I only need then to invest in one hardware box of cpu's instead of two. At least that was my point perhaps it wasn't clear from what I said. PC's and Macs are fairly on par in terms of power and architechture at least compared to PPC Macs, I'm no expert but if you can run most windows apps paralell, that's a pretty big testament to the fact, however, nobody is arguing that MIR is a unique piece of software probably requiring fulll dedicated access to the hardware. Still, my point is simply that it would be better as a mac user to buy one machine rather than two, even if I have to mix down to audio buses or many stereo files than having two machines (in which case I would still need to find a way to send the audio into the pc either via audio files, hard disk or some kind of audio or network streaming,), and although the "single project file" argument seems a small and trite argument on the surface, I think in the real world with how much work people do in audio to be able to save and archive a single project file is really quite a big issue, not just for convenience but also for "backward compatibility" he he. [:D]

    However I understand from a purist point of the view the idea is that MIR take the direct output of VI and mix it - that would depend on whether MIR will be designed to run with the outputs of VI being streamed into it over network, or if it will be able to run from audio files generated from VI - which is how I have to mix now anyway.

    Miklos.
  • S
    S
    Command line interfaces are much faster than GUIs. When I first bought a Mac, many colleagues told me that I was getting a "kiddie" computer. They were, evidently, happy typing in codes in Score. Their scores were indeed very beautiful - - although they did not ofer playback. Meanwhile I was struggling with a slow, bug-ridden, early version of Finale - - in which, among many things - - ties did not make it through time signture changes. At that time, Score's printed output was infinitely superior to Finale's. But Score is no longer around while Finale has been vastly improved and Sibelius has come into being. (All those who kidded me about using a "kiddie" computer are now using Finale or Sibelius...)

    Similarly, before HTML, the internet was the province of a realtively few people but is now ubiquitous. (Did I mention that Windows was devveloped and became viable during this same period?) It is quite clear that the computer revolution would not have occurred without the development of sophisticated GUIs. But computers are still more difficult to use than would be ideal - - since for the vast majority of people who use them, they are not an end in themselves, but a tool used to other ends. Perhaps the most significant result of the development of GUIs is the de-centralization of power. For example, a composer with relatively little investment can produce scores of very high graphic quality or listen to pretty good mockups of her or his work played by sampled instruments. Not long ago, professional level engraving was the province of music publishers who had made huge investments in the necessary equipment while readings of music required composers to negotiate with and successfully persuade a chain of gatekeepers.

    When neither the music font, Petrucci, that originally came with Finale, nor Adobe's Sonata font satisfied my needs, I bought Fontographer and created a music font that did - - something I would never have previusly imagined being able to do. I doubt this would have occurred to me if I'd used a command line interface.

    GUIs are going to continue to evolve - - right now there is a lot of interesting work going on in regard to 3D user interfaces where, for example, several programs are open and each inhabits the face of revolving cube or other geometrical figure. In any case, this is not Mac vs. PC issue - it is just the path of development that computers and software are likely to take.

    As far as Mac vs. PC all I can say is that I own both. My Windows machine is dedicated to Gigastudio. It runs 16-32 channels of samples - - a little more than 1GB - - (depending, of course on which samples are running.) My Mac running Logic runs 2.5 GB of EXS samples and 2.5 GB of Vi samples simultaneously. At the same time, I can play all those samples (Gigastudio, EXS and Giga) from Finale (running on the same G5 as Logic and the VI instruments) and bounce the resultant "performance" to a stereo track in Logic. MacOSX has NEVER crashed in two years of daily use while performing such tasks - - or any others. The same cannot be said about my Windows machine whose only task is to serve as a platform for Gigastudio.
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    @Another User said:

    If I buy a 8 core machine to run VI, why should I buy an 8 core PC machine to then run MIR?


    Because you want to then run MIR!

    Frankly, I have a hard time understanding the concern over a product that hasn't even been described in detail yet, let alone released. But never mind that; Dietz and others have already explained that MIR is running ten billion impulse responses at once! How can anyone expect that *and* the whole freaking VSL to run on a single machine?!

    We're living in the age of multiple computers. Music software has always been ahead of the machines it runs on, and if anything that trend is only gaining momentum - as cm said in different words. Hopefully 64-bit memory access will make things more convenient so we don't have to use as many machines for loading samples, but what we're doing absolutely brutalizes computers.

    Those of us who were doing this in the '80s and '90s are used to having a separate box or even a keyboard to do what a single plug-in now does! As a friend of mine pointed out when I was whining about a fully-loaded Mac Pro costing $5000, a single channel of an SSL used to cost that much. He succeeded in shutting me up.

    That's why i have a hard time getting excited if a company announces a really ambitious product that requires its own machine to run on.

    ***
    cm, I hate to admit it, but I *like* all the eye candy in OS X. Of course we don't need it, and it's obviously not very efficient, but I sit and work on these stupid boxes all day long, and damn it, I want it to have a sense of fun and be enjoyable to get around! I like products with a nice sense of design. We're only passing through here for a very short time; why not add some gratuitous rose-smelling to our surroundings.

    [:)]