yes, yes... and a VI SoundWorld set for Sibelius 5 (you can write these yourself, though it's a considerable pain in the butt), with a Mac Pro, Leopard, and a 64-bit VI, running on 16 GB RAM. Oooooh... the thought just breaks my heart...

Maybe October will bring something significant from that wonderful, benevolent, cell phone manufacturer... who also makes computers, I hear...

One thing I'm wondering, though: is VSL working on a 64-bit, OS X VI at the moment? I mean, the developer releases of Leopard have been around for a long time now. Surely it must be possible to at least get close to a new VI release for October, to coincide with the launch of 10.5. No?

J.

okay, well...

I'll be moving house in September, which means a general shake-up of the studio situation. Although I've managed to get it running reasonably smoothly, it could certainly be better, so I'm looking at other possible approaches (currently running 4 machines, totalling around 8 GB "wired").

The ideal is a Mac Pro with loads of RAM, all 64-bit. "One machine to rule them all" kind of thing... that is, pure fantasy... but maybe not in the next year, or so...

The 2nd option is to try to get it down to 2 machines: 1) Mac Pro, 8 GB RAM, running my sequencer (Sibelius, Logic), and hopefully maxing out at the current 4-ish GB of loaded samples, and 2) an XP64 beast, 8 GB RAM, hosted in Bidule, and hopefully wiring up somewhere close to the full 8 GB.

Is option 2 realistic in the near future - I'm thinking September or October?

J.

@jbm said:

"One machine to rule them all" kind of thing... that is, pure fantasy... but maybe not in the next year, or so..

That's what I do. It's not fantasy. Maybe you meant fantasy for you?

es gibt keine eierlegende wollmilchsau - what should translate to: there is no wool making milk giving eggpig [6]

another try: egg-laying wool-milk-pig [:P]

Haha, I am not getting that. But it sounds funny. Is there a better translation?

Hehe, I'm still not getting that. It just sounds like a bunch of english farm words mixed together, with nothing leading to the next. Is it something like:

Cows don't lay wool for pigs to eat?

It pretty much doesn't translate so far.

It means-- too many things are being expected from one source or more literally---

There is no such thing as an egg-laying pig that grows wool and gives milk (that anyone would want to drink).

("es gibt keine" translates as "there is no...")

If you want eggs-- go find a chicken who is good at this sort of thing.
If you want clothing-- look for sheep with a good coat of wool.
If you want milk-- it's better to look for a cow.

And make sure each animal is willing to share what it has with you!

Even with this, some people don't eat pork, so the pig could easily be rendered totally useless! [:P]

Likewise-- too many things running on one machine could render the machine totally useless.

hahaha

Even though my dad is as fluent in English as I am, German was his first language, and he often quotes German expressions like that. And of course the translations into English always come out just the same way: excuse me while I shave my mole, a maiden in shoes doesn't water a tree, four dancers on a bicycle always wet their beds...whatever.

My mom (also born in Germany) laughs at the expressions themselves, and I laugh at how silly the literal translations are. [:)]

Okay! I totally get it now. JWL's translation is right on:

Sounds like an "egg-laying pig that grows wool and gives milk". Perfect.

Now let's see ...
what was the context ...

ah yes, I see. Well, I think one day we will be able to do everything. That's a certainty. If we still have a planet then (100 years from now). But in the immediate future, I think we'll have to settle for a pig that gives milk and grows sustainable plant life ==== can you say "CHIA PET" ?

The nice thing about where we are with technology is that even though cows don't have wool-- they can offer you a nice pelt of suede instead.

And if the cow won't give milk, you can always try a cooperative goat-- unless you are lactose intolerant!!

This means we have some options right now that are quite useful as long as we're willing to remain technologically creative.

All in one box? It's fun to dream-- and that dream just may come true in this lifetime.

hehe... well, I'm still going to dream of having an "eggpig" of my own, one day! [;)] But I am curious about my "option 2" above - is a two-machine setup getting any more realistic these days, cm? Anybody?
I've checked out whatever 64bit posts I could find (I'm thinking of an XP64 slave machine, now), but they don't seem to state anything conclusive. My thinking is that I could go with an RME card in an XP64 slave, and lightpipe all the audio into a Mac Pro, running my ProFire Lightbridge (a decent little box, so far, though the driver seems a little sketchy, in typical m-audio style).

snaverave: I realize this is all a matter of one's workflow. Yes, you can work on a single machine, if you use the memory management tools, freezing, and so on. But an "all up, all online" setup on a single machine is not currently possible. Unfortunately, in the way I work, I virtually never use the memory management stuff. I'm not going to get into a big debate about workflow, but the more forum threads you read, the more you'll realize that memory allocation, and system-wide memory limits are the single biggest problem users face in running VIs. Breaking the 3.xx GB barrier will obviously reveal new problems (memory latency and bandwidth), but it's not as though that will happen at 4.1 GB, 6 GB, or even necessarily at 8 GB. And keep in mind that often it's only a matter of a few 100 MB that prevents loading that one "must have" articulation... It will be interesting to see golem's (Christian Teuscher) upcoming thread about challenges the development team is facing in providing 64bit support. That thread should generate some *serious* discussion! Looking forward to hearing the details.

J.

jbm,

My setup is "all up, all online". With video. It's true, that in the really dense sections, I freeze a track or two now and then, when some rare glitches occur on like a syspended cymbal track (it cutting out), or anything else I find crucial. But an offline bounce always yields the perfect rendering since it can take it's time (non realtime) playing it.

But I have every sound I need, plus extras, and articulations, and legatos, up and running. I use the smallest playback buffer sizes so I can fit more. I have about 55 EXS24 instances running, 2 AltiVerbs, 30 or so EQs, and 40 or so PanningAUs, and a mastering Ozone plugin. Some of those EXS24 instances have 30 layers/keyswitched articulations (ie: Violins I have two EXS24s each with 30 layers).

If you live in LA, come on by this week.

...umm... this is a Vienna Instruments thread, is it not? You don't mention VIs, so I'm not sure whether you're using VIs at all in this setup...

Anyway, the point is that, for the template I use, I simply can't get all articulations up, all the time, on a single machine. Not even close. I'm absolutely not complaining about it - I think, considering the sheer volume of sample material the VIs have to access, VSL has done an amazing job - but it's a fact. And I'm not particularly special in that regard. Many, many users have 4+ machines running - there's even somebody here with 8 Mac Minis running his template. But I do think I also said I wasn't going to get into a debate about workflow! [;)]

It's great that you've got a setup that works for you. There are so many factors to consider, it's hardly even worth comparing between two composers' setups. I know I need lots of RAM to run my template. That's all.

J.

I was just replying to your seemingly general statement:

@jbm said:

...an "all up, all online" setup on a single machine is not currently possible.

That's all. I thought we were talking pigs with wool and milk. Not southern Lousiana farm fed chickens that lay Grade AA eggs.

[;)]

@jbm said:

But I am curious about my "option 2" above - is a two-machine setup getting any more realistic these days, cm? Anybody?

I've got a G5 2.5 Dual connected to a MacPro 3G Quad , 8GB RAM each. The MacPro seems to be doing twice the work as the G5, but again, where the MacPro *can* load more instances, the RAM remains the hurdle-- so some things on both machines are neck and neck. The MacPro won't go into a coma like the G5 will, but if I'm frugal with my matrices, I can comfortably get 15-20 instances on the MacPro and 7-10 instances on the G5, saving Altiverb for later. I will run quite a few instances of DP's Trim plug which narrows the stereo field.

Typically, it's just more comfortable to have more articulations on deck, so I've been working with closer to 10-12 instances on the MacPro and 6-8 instances on the G5. While that's hardly max'd out, I still feel the need to have a third computer. [:'(]

or a fourth
or a fifth (vodka would do nicely).... [[;)]]

Right, good to know.

This is why I've been wondering what might be possible with an XP64 slave. If we could, for example, run multiple copies of Bidule, then we could presumably get past the 3 GB-ish barrier for a single process. This way it might be possible to have 2 or 3 "virtual" machines (well, not virtual machines, but memory spaces) on one XP64 PC, just by having multiple Bidules. This isn't possible on the Mac because of the server-client model they've used for plugins, but I think it would be possible on Windows, as it seems to me that all the VI memory is allocated to the host app. XP64 would just be used to increase the user memory space. Mind you, I really don't know much about Windows, but I'd love to slim down my setup this fall, if at all possible.

J.