Herb,

Though I have P4 running Giga with VSL right now, I am trying to move more and more away from the PC, and stay more on my G5 which runs Pro Tools.

Do you think that my G5 Dual 2G will handle multiple instances of the software (via VST wrapper) while running Pro Tools, or would I be better off to put everything on the PC?

I'm also interested in how much memory I should have in the G5 to run VSI, right now I have 2.5 gig. I wasn't sure whether memory was that important since it is streaming off the disk, or not.

Thanks
Tom H

@herb said:

I see,
at the moment I only can give you again my personal test results:
Pentium 4, 2.8 GHZ
32 VI instances
160 voices (stereo/24bit)

our developping team is doing at the moment last performance optimisations, so we will make final testings with the new release content versions

best
Herb

Must say - that seems well enough given each one of these VI's takes the place of 'multiple art files'. I imagine that RAM is still ultimately the bottleneck. Of course there is the ram purge but for starting out a cue (and 'un-purging') an instrument to make a change could drive the capacity given.

Rob

Rob,
I suspect it's more a software limitation than Ram, and i mean that in, for example. Logic being limited to 3.7GB. If Logic could address 80 or 90% of installed Ram, then we'd all be loading 16GB or so, and having a reasonable time of it.
And in addition, if the Ram required wasn't dependent on Logic, i.e. All VI's and presample loads were handled external of the program, then 4 x G5, 16GB= 64GB, 50 usable, you get the drift. The fact remains though, Logic won't address anymore than 4, and software companies who develop for this platform will always have to keep that in mind. Standalone software is ok, but it would be a lot simpler to load the lot into one program and go play. That's why we have 'Ramplimise', and a zillions comments from every forum about limits and overloads on machines. As i understand it, Kontakt takes anything up to half a gig, and Gigapulse will only play with 2 or 3GB, so there's a general shortfall across the audio board. The day a developer gets their act together and builds a great DAW with no built in limits, is the day Cubase, Logic, and the others will get the push.

But who knows? Maybe one of them will wake up in time?

Regards,

Alex.

Anybody thought of a Linux VSTi Host?

@herb said:

I see,
at the moment I only can give you again my personal test results:
Pentium 4, 2.8 GHZ
32 VI instances
160 voices (stereo/24bit)

our developping team is doing at the moment last performance optimisations, so we will make final testings with the new release content versions

best
Herb

Hi Herb - A little more info would be good. Like what are those 32 instances used for. We need to know stuff like how many instruments can be loaded in universal mode. And since all 32 instances cant be universal mode, I'm curious what you then have loaded into them... The info you provided tells us very little about how the VI can change/impact/improve our setup [:)]

Personally I don't care about the data. The VSL first edition had proven itself to be amazing, and judging by the demo vids of the VI I can't wait to get my hands on it. I have an amazing G5 and I think that it and logic can handle whatever VSL can throw at it, and even if it can't handle more than 32 VI instances I'd still use it. Cos the chances are that you won't need so many instances with the new cube.

If I had the money I'd be buying it, but sadly I'm going to have to wait about a year .. you guys should consider a part-payment plan for impoverished musicians [:P]

With an amazing G5 you cant be too empovrished [:D]

In my stresstest I've tried to simulate a typical orchestral score situation: melody, harmony, bass instruments.
The universal mode is not much more CPU hungry than a simple single note patch, it's only a question of Ram management.
If you want to use a lot of different universal mode instruments on one computer you defenitely have to use our RAM management options earlier.

Also it is important to keep an eye on the polyphony. If you use a lot of velocity crossfaded, layer stacked instruments, with release samples you will run out of polyphony with less instances performing.

But the good thing of the Vienna Instruments is, that you can switch Velocity crossfade On/Off and Release Samples On/Off on the fly.
That means if you have a very polyphony extensive part in your piece, many instruments performing at the same time, you can switch Release samples and crossfade off exactly at this part (because of the dense instrumentation you won't need this features there), and switch it On again, when the selected instruments needs it.

In summary: our goal is to offer a system, where you can perform with a classical sized orchestra on one computer.

best
Herb

Ok. Well I'm the kind of guy who likes to have the entire orchestra sitting infront of me, just waiting to do whatever I tell them. In other words I would imagine myself having as many universal mode instruments as possible loaded at once.

With 6, 2gb P5 3ghz computers - how many universal mode instruments do you think I would be able to have?

Maybe 30 different instruments/instances, maybe some more. I'll check it out tomorrow, I don't know the exact sample amount datas of the individual instruments in universal mode at the moment.

best
Herb

@Christian Marcussen said:

With an amazing G5 you cant be too empovrished [[:D]]

My amazing G5 is the reason I'm impoverished [:P]

Hey I volunteer to stress test the VSI on a quad G5! Well I haven't seen anyone here mention the mac side yet, so why not eh! Please [[:D]]

Yeah I know what you mean [[:D]]

I'm have the same problem but inversed. I would love to switch to a few G5's but I cant afford it, becuase SC empoverished me [[:D]]

please whatever you do, make it completely multi-threaded!!! rack mounted XEON processors could prove most amazing.

Any word on how percussion will be handled?

Dear Herb

Before I purchase the SC upgrade, Could you please answer these 3 Questions for me: Just so one can prepare Hard Drives Etc....

1. If the new Interface can support a vast amount of Articulation per Instrument.
Then can we load up 64 tracks, say in Exs, but this time Instead of just one instrument per track, its 64 tracks of multiples. Or will the memory exaust itself?
And one will have to manage aditional memory.

2. Currently in scoring we're using single Instruments ex: stac 1 stac 2 etc. And not using the alternate tool or the repetition tool. Because its not fast enough or its just more to content with in regard to chasing notes ect. Question :
Will the new interface be fast enough to handle stac 1 stac 2 in extremly fast passages in Score? Or will one have to say; load 2 complete solo violin matrix articulations in more than one instrument to ofset or set up ahead of quick passages?

3. If you owned the new SC , will you ever need to use the pro edition or open samples anymore? Or will the SC completely replace? And can be used alike as well.


Thanks !

Hi RK.

Here's what I'd say.

1. You can have 1 MIDI Track to 1 VI VST, which means (theroretically) you can support up to 64 VIs in Cubase SX3, other VST hosts will differ.

Each VI can have multiple articulations and multiple instruments depending how you set up the patches.

You are only limited by RAM and CPU (which is apparently 1%-1.5% per VI on a 3.6GHZ P4 PC)

2. Not quite sure why the ALT tool isn't fast enough for your fast passages, the REP tool is a pain at the moment but the new VI makes REPs much easier to do (or so the videos intimate). I'd guess anything too fast wouldn't sound realistic anyway as there's only so quickly a real player can play.

3. This depends upon your needs. If you think that the VI will do everything you want then get rid of the Pro ED samples. However any sound mangling of individual samples you need to do is not possible with the VI so you may want to keep the PRO ED samples afterall.

Best


Tim

Hi Timkiel

Actually, the present way of dealing with fast passages is working fine, infact its stunning what one can do with the present set up. Its the limitation of instruments
thats the drawback. And the rep tool is apparently the pain,in regards to limitations, again. I get the feel that one should keep present set ups, just in case. and add on the upgrade for more technological break throughs. Guess will have to order a couple more glyphs to daisy chain.


Sincerely

Just a thought

The difference between a human player and samples are the speed.

The first piano sample that is fast or close to human playing is Ivory synthogy.
The first orchestral samples that are fast enough to be real are VSL.

Question: How will the new SC interface player use the stac up, down, bowing in the score?

I just now discovered (Solo violin) has "spic marc" for fast passages.
anxious to use "short stacs" in chamber strings.

Calling all herb !---- Calling all Herb !

Actually as a pianist I find that the ArtVista Virtual Grand Piano has a very "human" feel to it. Can't tell the difference to Ivory though as I don't own the latter.

PolarBear

Just heard the sweedish piano sample. It has a lot of presence, up front dry clear sound. Sounds great. It has a cut of much like a playel, but sounds alittle more tamer. I'm having to back of from using Ivory's effects. Different parts of fast passages need effects taken out. Ofcourse thats not real human acoustic, but its more effective. these piano samples seem to keep up with the new and bigger CPU's/memory as they expand. Wish one could say the same towards the sequential programs. 64 bit processing into the atmosphere.

Polar bear
this is a little question to ask. But do you know if one can load single samples in the new VSL upgrade much the same as present way. All the video shows , is using the new player. Which is of course great.

I might just buy a couple of 24 track recorders and get the whole VSL with all its glory. Just the same.

sincerely