Symphonic Cube on 8-core Mac Pro

[Abel]

I'm about to jump for the Symphonic Cube and an 8-core Mac Pro with Nuendo 3.2.

- does it make a difference to have more then 4GB of RAM?
I recall that there's a 4GB limit per application,
does it mean 4GB for Nuendo and another 4GB for VSL engine
or just 4GB to share?

- how many disks should I dedicate for the Cube?
should I go for external SATA array of 4 or more drives
or is having just three internal drives (dedicated for the Cube) enough?
RAID recommended or better to have just a bunch of small 10,000RPM disks (e.g. 12 x 75GB Raptors)?

IOW what is the bottleneck of the 8-core system and
where should I invest the most?

[DG]

@Abel said:

I'm about to jump for the Symphonic Cube and an 8-core Mac Pro with Nuendo 3.2.

- does it make a difference to have more then 4GB of RAM?
I recall that there's a 4GB limit per application,
does it mean 4GB for Nuendo and another 4GB for VSL engine
or just 4GB to share?

- how many disks should I dedicate for the Cube?
should I go for external SATA array of 4 or more drives
or is having just three internal drives (dedicated for the Cube) enough?
RAID recommended or better to have just a bunch of small 10,000RPM disks (e.g. 12 x 75GB Raptors)?

IOW what is the bottleneck of the 8-core system and
where should I invest the most?

I assume that you're intending to run XP and not OSX, as Nuendo doesn't work on Intel Mac.

DG

[Abel]

@DG said:

I assume that you're intending to run XP and not OSX, as Nuendo doesn't work on Intel Mac.
DG

you got me here, I totally forgot about this minor "detail" [:)]
I guess I will have to stick to Cubase4 (or give Logic a try)
until Nuendo4 is out, but I will run it on OSX anyway.

[DG]

@DG said:

I assume that you're intending to run XP and not OSX, as Nuendo doesn't work on Intel Mac.
DG

you got me here, I totally forgot about this minor "detail" [:)]
I guess I will have to stick to Cubase4 (or give Logic a try)
until Nuendo4 is out, but I will run it on OSX anyway.
When N4 is released look at the features very carefully, as you may find that most if not all of them are superfluous to music production.

DG

[Abel]

DG, I use Nu3.2 right now on my G5 (+a GS3 PC).
For the project I'll start soon I want to get the whole symphonic cube,
so I will need to upgrade to a much faster Mac Pro. If this means, I will have to switch to Logic for a while, so be it.

I will appreciate any official advise on the part of the VSL team, as to what Mac Pro configuration should I get for orchestral film scoring (ie. working on a single cue at a time).

[Heimi]

Give Logic a try.

I work with a 8-core Mac 3 Ghz. with 8GB RAM and Logic...it's perfect.

[Abel]

Heimi,
How much memory can you use to load VI samples?
and what is your HD setup?

BTW is Logic already capable of using the power of 8 cores?

[Heimi]

2 x 500GB HD

everything works fine. memory i'll check.
The only problem: logic/cubase/whatever cannot use 8-cores at the moment.
But there'll be an update: logic 7.2.4 or logic 8.

heimi

[Abel]

@Heimi said:

The only problem: logic/cubase/whatever cannot use 8-cores at the moment.
But there'll be an update: logic 7.2.4 or logic 8.

so for now, the Quad is still sate-of-the-art I guess...

for sample storage I'm considering external SATA 1.25TB 5-drive RAID 0.
either this one:
http://www2.promax.com/ProMax-External-1-25TB-PCIe-5-Drives-Array-SATA-port-Multiplier-for-Mac-PC?sc=2&category=59756
or
http://www.kanotechnologies.com/products/XPD-5X250PM-E.cfm

any comments on that?

[Tom23]

After a few fitfull weeks of being able to record on my MacBookPro 2gig RAM, OSX 10.4.8 and Logic Pro 7.2 w/ VI Cube and Digi Design interface, I'm back in silent mode again. Usually when I don't get playback, shutting everything down and rebooting, then coaxing each VI track by playing it individually would at least let me get some recording done. But now, after a Core Overload message and an ERROR message concerning interface and Logic, I can't get any playback no matter what I try. Basically, since putting this system together in early March, it has worked about 15 percent of the time. I'm told I have enough memory, and have increased buffersize, checked and rechecked all connections, preferences, etc., spoken to Apple many times. Has anybody else with a similar system experienced this kind of playback/overload problems??

[JWL]

Tom--

A little bit of Logic logic here:

Logic, like all 32-bit apps, can theoretically access 4GB of RAM. With 2GB installed, OSX is using 500(512)MB or more. That leaves you with 1.5GB or less for an app and plugins.

When you think about it, it's not a lot. At some point, you may want to max out your RAM. Keep in mind that you are using one of the most demanding DAWs with one of the most powerful virtual instruments on the market. Just a thought.

Here's what I recommend in the interim:

Run a disk utility like DiskWarrior. At least repair your permissions.

Eliminate the Digi interface from this test and use Built-In Audio. Unplug the Digi altogether.

Make a test project template with one VI instance and one standard patch loaded. Check the performance. Add one at a time until things start to choke. Compare that project size to what you were using before and you'll have a fairly basic but honest idea of what your system can handle.

You can try this another way by removing one instance at a time from your current project template to the same results, but given you are having troubles, it may be best to start with a clean slate and build up from there.

If the performance is a bit better, then I suspect one of two things:

1. If you are using FW hard drives and if the particular Digi interface you are using is running via FW, you could be experiencing FW logjam. This is not uncommon where FW drives and FW interfaces share a single FW bus (there's only one shared FW bus).

--Solution: get a card bus for FW or even change your HD setup to eSATA for better performance.

2. There could be a driver compatibility issue between Logic and Digi.

--Solutioin try a later driver. Sometimes an older driver can work better.

Apple has just released Pro Application Support 4.0, recommended for users of their Pro apps, including Logic. Check the link for more info:
http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/proapplicationsupport40.html

[Nick Batzdorf]

Except that his machine was working fine before, which means something has changed wtih the data.

The real solution to this kind of problem is to make two snapshot back-ups of your system when it's working: a bit-for-bit disk image using Apple's Disk Utility; and an incremental copy of all the data using SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner (if its incremental feature is working now?). You update the incremental back-up every day (or whatever).

Then if your system stops working well, you replace the system drive's contents with the contents of disk image and don't lose any authorizations, and then you run an incremental back-up onto the newly restored disk from your daily incremental back-up to bring your email, documents, etc. up to date.

[JWL]

@Nick Batzdorf said:

Except that his machine was working fine before, which means something has changed wtih the data.

The real solution to this kind of problem is to make two snapshot back-ups of your system when it's working: a bit-for-bit disk image using Apple's Disk Utility; and an incremental copy of all the data using SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner (if its incremental feature is working now?). You update the incremental back-up every day (or whatever).

Then if your system stops working well, you replace the system drive's contents with the contents of disk image and don't lose any authorizations, and then you run an incremental back-up onto the newly restored disk from your daily incremental back-up to bring your email, documents, etc. up to date.

Excellent advice as a preventive measure once he gets things working again.