Hi Christian, I am interested to know if it's easy on the CPU/RAM/resource to load a complete (5-part) string orchestra on a single computer (say with only 1GB RAM). I will be upgrading my DAW and re-allocating the setup with all my host/servers. And since I broke my promise of not buying any dongle-based softwares by upgrading Samplitude already.... might as well... [:D] [:D]

Cheers,
Frankie

Well - depends on how many articulations you want [:)]

CPU wise its no problem at all - The 1 GB will be a bottleneck. But with 2GB you could easily load violins, celli, viola and basses with quite an impressive amount of articualtions.

When/if I get the time I can do a test where I tell you all the data, including what articualtions I have loaded etc.

I will say that there is about 300-400mb free ram in difference bewteen my main DAW (which has to load up cubase) and then a similar computer which only has to load up V-Stack.

Thanks Christian! Just one more thing, not sure if that's answered before coz I wasn't following the VI thing too closely. [:O]ops: Let's say if you load 2 instances of violins on the same computer, do the same articulation load twice into RAM or only once? Or is there actually an alternate way to work with 1st and 2nd viollins with the new VI interface?

Man I can feel your excitement too! [[;)]]

Cheers,
Frankie

@Frankie Ho said:

Thanks Christian! Just one more thing, not sure if that's answered before coz I wasn't following the VI thing too closely. [:O]ops: Let's say if you load 2 instances of violins on the same computer, do the same articulation load twice into RAM or only once? Or is there actually an alternate way to work with 1st and 2nd viollins with the new VI interface?

Man I can feel your excitement too! [[;)]]

Cheers,
Frankie

Apparently it's the same as GS; the same sample only loads in RAM once.

DG

Thanks Daryl, that's great to know!

Cheers,
Frankie

Hi Frankie

I have now mad a test, loading 4 instances (Violins, Celli, Viola and basses.)

Its a 2gb machine, starting with a little over 1500mb free when I started loading instances. After the four had been loaded, 800MB remained.

Each instance had the following articulations loaded:

Short staccato
Staccato
Short Detache
Long Detache
Sustain
Legato normal
Legato Portamento

Bare in mind also that the legatos have both p and f layers loaded, and that each of the other articulations have 2 versions of each note loaded. Personaly I find it pretty impressive

Now I will test how much of the remaining 800mb I can fill up.

Christian, is it hard to figure out how to set up a "patch"?

I want some lead violins that can go from Legato, to sustained, to pizz, to a choice of decresendos. Do they include tutorials on how to set up all this? I'm sure after a few days of having it this will seem like a silly question but right now it's going to be priority one for me and I'm just wondering how brain damaging it is to do...

Thanks
Tom

Its a bit of trial and error. But learning the basic principle of it is easy. Whats hard is finding out exactly how to set it up as you want it, and in a way so switching from one patch to the other is natural. But its dooable sure. The example you mention is just a matter of loading each patch into a cell in the horizontal matrix, and just telling it that you want to switch patch using keyswitches.

What hard is setting up the advanced stuff. But there is no braindamage involved as its plenty of fun if you have the time to do it [:)]

[TEST UPDATE]

I just loaded 4 new instances, but only used three.

I loaded Oboe, Flute and ClarinetB

Each wind had loaded

Staccato
Short Portato
Medium Portarto
Long Portato
Sustain
Legato Normal

I had about 137MB left

There was appearently no problem with playback, but I dident test it thoroughly. Bare in mind also that this test was done on a slave machine. On my main Daw I only have a little over 1GB left for samples after cubase is loaded. However that would still be enough to load all the solo strings with the articulations I mentioned.

@Christian Marcussen said:

Bare in mind also that the legatos have both p and f layers loaded, and that each of the other articulations have 2 versions of each note loaded. Personaly I find it pretty impressive

That's really impressive! Thanks so much for checking it out.

Actually what I was thinking is, since I am goning to buy a new machine (have 2 at the moment) so I can spread my orchestral work to 3 computers for each dedicated section (strings, brass and wind with percussion staggering around hehe). Instead of needing to go through the god-knows-what-will-happen-when-you-install-GS3 route, I might as well have the new host running with VSTi only. Was thinking strings coz it seems it would need the fewest instances to load up among the 3 families.

Thanks again! [[;)]]
Frankie

Thanks Christian for the infor. Very impressive. With 4 slaves and Host It sounds like 'freezing' will not be necessary in all but the biggest projects/arrangements.

Still have to sort out how to deal not having GP (during writing stage). What are you going to do on this?

I still have to pick up VStack - was that a clean install and setup?


Thanks for all the 'advance look' for us poor saps that can only dream about it (still waiting for Illio to ship).


Rob

Setting up V-stack is no prob. As long as you have MOL installed, V-stack fits right in.

Still dont have a verb solution yet.

@Christian Marcussen said:

Setting up V-stack is no prob. As long as you have MOL installed, V-stack fits right in.

Still dont have a verb solution yet.

Sorry Chrisitan, what is "MOL"? I'm going to have to get VStack for my PC, and as a Mac guy (I use Mac for sequencing and Pro Tools) I'm a little slow on the PC side of things...[;)]

Tom

@tom@aerovons.com said:

Sorry Chrisitan, what is "MOL"? Tom

MIDI over LAN

DG

www.musiclab.com

They have a program called Mide OverLan (MOL) which allows you to send midi signals over your network to any computers you may have.

Daft question...is Midi Over Lan available for Mac users or is it just for Windows?

So many things to learn... [[;)]]

Looks cool, but I don't see it's advantage for a simple two computer setup like I have. I record on the Mac, and take a MIDI out to the PC. Done...[;)]

TH

It is cross-platform, so that your DAW can be a Mac or a PC and your slaves can also be either. Where it can be useful is that you don't need to connect a MIDI device to use a Giga (for example) PC with a Mac sequencer, and the MIDI timing is tighter than any hardware device.

DG

@jamriding said:

Daft question...is Midi Over Lan available for Mac users or is it just for Windows?

So many things to learn... [[;)]]

I beleive the new version called MolCP supports mac. I think the CP stands for Cross Platform.

@DG said:

It is cross-platform, so that your DAW can be a Mac or a PC and your slaves can also be either. Where it can be useful is that you don't need to connect a MIDI device to use a Giga (for example) PC with a Mac sequencer, and the MIDI timing is tighter than any hardware device.

DG

Yes, I have timing problems a lot with Giga, especially if I dare do any drums.

I'm embarassed to say I'm really dumb about this, I read the manual on this but....I need some kind of network cable going from somewhere out of the PC to the Mac...right? [;)]

Gee this is silly I know but I have not messed with networks. My Mac is connected to DSL and that's about as far as I've gone...

Thanks for any help in setup.

Tom