Hey Dennis, good to see you here.
Some background. First, the current Giga (and by all accounts the upcoming v.3) can load 1GB of samples if you have 2GB installed - if you set up Mattias' tweaks as described here: http://henningson.triona.se/musikbanken/gigastudio/
Second, I'm not sure you'll need 3.2GHz even with Giga 3 - although I could be wrong; maybe someone will correct me. The standard-issue sample-streamers people are putting together today have an Intel motherboard, P4 2.8, 800MHz front side bus, Serial ATA on the motherboard (not on a card), and 2GB of fast RAM. Maybe CM can advise about SATA hard drives. Or maybe not SATA, but I think they're the best way to go.
Note that this kind of machine is extreme overkill for the current Giga version, which is limited to 160 voices. But Giga 3 will stream as many voices as your system can deliver, so you may as well get maximum mileage. Plus it has a built-in convolution reverb.
Also note that with the exception of 3-lay Legato instruments (which right now are only on EXS), VSL is not polyphony-intensive, since it's recorded with extremely short reverb - i.e. notes don't keep ringing when you release them. So whether you *need* more than two machines is hard to say. You can do a lot with only one cheap PC in Giga 2.5 (the current one) - as long as you don't run a lot of Legato instruments. And you'll always want one more machine, no matter how many you have!
Some background. First, the current Giga (and by all accounts the upcoming v.3) can load 1GB of samples if you have 2GB installed - if you set up Mattias' tweaks as described here: http://henningson.triona.se/musikbanken/gigastudio/
Second, I'm not sure you'll need 3.2GHz even with Giga 3 - although I could be wrong; maybe someone will correct me. The standard-issue sample-streamers people are putting together today have an Intel motherboard, P4 2.8, 800MHz front side bus, Serial ATA on the motherboard (not on a card), and 2GB of fast RAM. Maybe CM can advise about SATA hard drives. Or maybe not SATA, but I think they're the best way to go.
Note that this kind of machine is extreme overkill for the current Giga version, which is limited to 160 voices. But Giga 3 will stream as many voices as your system can deliver, so you may as well get maximum mileage. Plus it has a built-in convolution reverb.
Also note that with the exception of 3-lay Legato instruments (which right now are only on EXS), VSL is not polyphony-intensive, since it's recorded with extremely short reverb - i.e. notes don't keep ringing when you release them. So whether you *need* more than two machines is hard to say. You can do a lot with only one cheap PC in Giga 2.5 (the current one) - as long as you don't run a lot of Legato instruments. And you'll always want one more machine, no matter how many you have!