Who's a Slave to the Slaves?

[jasensmith]

I like to keep things simple.  Subsequently, I compose from one machine.  My entire compositional arsenal fits nicely in one machine.  If I need more, I just buy bigger harddrives and load it up. 

So, can somebody explain to me the advantage of daisy chaining a bunch of slaves together?

I'm too lazy to look it up but on another thread somewhere somebody mentioned something about having a system comprised of 9 to 10 slaves all daisy chained together into this massive bohemoth sample nerve center and that Hanz Zimmer supposedly has 40 machines.  Good God! What the hell do you need so many machines for!  What am I missing out on.  I'm a working composer and I do just fine with one machine.  Is it something like if you want to be one of the cool kids (Zimmer) you gotta have a slave system?

Don't get me wrong, whatever works for you use it because I'm all about ease of use but I just don't understand the mentality of having these elaborate systems which, to me, just seems to complicate things and that's counterintuitive to "ease of use."

I'm not trying to pick fights with anybody.  I've asked this question before and I just get ignored so if anybody has a really good reason for "going slave" let me know because if there is a good reason I just might become a convert.  

Thank you for your thoughts

[mh-7635]

Hi Jasen,

You're not missing anything as far as I can tell.......

For me there is no need for slaves at all. I have worked professionally for 30 years, the last 20 odd using computers. Early on, I did run 2 pc's for gigastudio. But as Moore's law kept up it's exponential curve, it soon became apparent to me and others, that all you need is one computer. This realization came about 8 years ago with new MacPros.

I now compose my own serious concert music, music that is not written for immediate consumption and I can playback 45 minutes of full symphonic music on my 2013 Macpro with a massive template consisting of not just a full VSL orchestra, but also Spitfire string  and Brass, LASS and Berlin winds and percussion.

I jampacked my Mac with 128Gb of ram and run most of the samples off ssd's. Even with all of that music and sound loaded, I still have around 20-30 gb left for the system. The slight downside was the bus speed going down a bit as a result of using non Apple spec ram. This may occasionally (and I mean only occasionally!) result in the cpu corpsing ever so slightly, when this happens, I just bounce whatever is causing the problem and mute the midi track.

Like you, I believe in a simple set-up, let's face it , it's hard enough staring at blank manuscript/piano roll without having to worry about slaves. Occam's razor definately applies to composing in general and most certainly the means to do it.

Best

Mike.

[William]

Using a slave allows a simple breakdown of one dedicated computer to play samples, and one to do sequencing/recording.  The software setup may be more reliable, though it depends on how perfect your computer is.   I like to use a very old, non-standard sequencer so I have to use slaves, but with all the technology now available it is simply a personal choice.  

Unless you are Zimmer, who has to have that many slaves so he can impress people.  They walk into his glowing studio and think "Oh my God! He can use all of these?  He must be better than Beethoven!"  Of course Beethoven used a pen and a piece of paper but never mind that.    

[Errikos]

Hi Jasen!

I also use one computer, and it is only a fully specified 27" iMac 3.4GHz with 16 GB RAM with the Vienna samples streaming off an external hard drive. My templates are also more than considerable in size, not just playing spiccati and sustained chords, and are running without any crippling problems.

However! I believe it is not further number of instances, but further number of plug-ins that would crash my system like a paper bag. For example, I would love to have many more separate reverb(s)/settings for each instrumental family rather than one for each genus (woodwinds, etc.), but it has proven prohibitive. Additionally, when I have tried to 'spatialize' my orchestra through Logic Pro's arsenal (I don't have MIR), I hit the ceiling pretty fast. Now I understand your setup is more powerful, but I think the same principles would apply, i.e. "sweetening" -rather than augmenting- the sound = exponential consumption of resources.

Bill I'm curious. Are you using Mastertracks by any chance?

At any rate, I propose the creation of a monster 40X4GHz logic boards computer music machine with everything on it including every library and stuttering arpeggiator on the planet, coffee maker and cognac fermenter, to be built by Apple, and to be reverentially named iZimmer (as in 'I, Titus' etc.).

[William]

Errikos, excellent to hear from one of the true reincarnations of the great Spartan warriors, now trained from birth to recognize then slay mercilessly  the Pretenders to Compositional Greatness and MIDI Prowess. 

However I am using ancient software that demands a previous operating system.  

"...coffee maker and cognac fermenter, to be built by Apple..." - Errikos

Sign me up!

[mh-7635]

+1 with Beethoven et al for using manuscript paper, pencil and (for me) shed loads of rubber. Forget RAM and CPU, how many staves does your m/s have!

[William]

I like it - my new motto:   Staves, not Slaves

[jasensmith]

Gentlemen,

Thanks for all of your input👍  It's good to know that I'm not the frustrated and detached loner I thought I was by not submitting to the slave trade😐

 

Mike,

I think you hit the nail right on the head when you mentioned the SSDs and that was the main reason why I didn't understand the current trend of veering towards the endless banks of slaves.  To use the tired old cliche, SSDs have been a real "game changer" in this business. (actually, that's two tired cliches, "hit the nail on the head") so you would think the opposite would be the case. 

 

However, and to get to William's point, if you have an older machine that works perfectly well then why not put it to some use and get all that you can get out of it.  And, if the software you like to use requires the use of slaves then that goes along with what I said in my OP about "ease of use."  In other words, you do whatever you have to do to realize your compositional dreams slaves or no slaves.

 

Errikos,

As always, it's good to hear from you.  And especially in this thread because you mentioned something that I hadn't even considered before; plug-in management.  I guess a slave system has the potential to spread the allocation of resources in your case.  Although it can be laborious and quite mind boggling at times but bouncing sub mixes doesn't help with your reverb conundrum?

A coffee maker?  But Zimmer seems to be a latte sipping kind of fellow to me.

[daerp]

Hi

Just came across this thread and wanted to ask for some related advice.

I too am a one computer set up guy. At home I have an iMac 27" with 32 GB of RAM. When travelling (like I am now) I use a MacBook Pro (16 GB of RAM). My samples are all on a 4TB LaCie Rugged Raid hard drive connected via Thunderbolt.

Most of the time, this works pretty well. But recently I added Dimension Strings to my collection and the load time is excrutiatingly slow. 

Does this mean I should be using an SSD drive for my samples? I have a second, unused Thunderbolt port on my laptop. Should I look at getting an external SSD and put my samples there? I understand that external SSDs have limited capacity and I own slightly over 1 TB of samples. (Yes, I am a tad crazy).

Thanks for any advice.

Paul

[jasensmith]

Well, according the the system requirements page for Dim Strings it is recommended to store the library on SSD's  

http://vsl.co.at/en/Dimension_Strings_Bundle/Vienna_Dimension_Strings_I#!System_Requirements

How slow is "excrutiatingly?"

[mh-7635]

Hi Paul,

Have you looked at the preload time in the directory manager? I have my VSL on SSD and the pre load for my Dimension strings is 3172. Have you tried to tweak preload to see what best suits your RAID. Without doubt though, SSD is the way to go and they now go up to 2TB. I have 3 SSD's in a Blackmagic dock going into my MacPro via 1 thunderbolt 2 port and it works fine, no bottleneck whatsoever.

Mike.

[fraz]

Hello who ever you are,

People would have a studio to house everthing, it needed be massively huge but big enough and dedicated to one thing only, your interest!

You've probably heard of Cat 5 / Cat 6 - These are RJ45 connectors the same you plug into your ethernet LAN on your computer if you have a wired connection,  They look like a big telephone socket but you don't plug the phone into it! and is know as a data connection, bread and butter stuff for electricians who do call centres with hundreds of them.

Each room of the studio would have one but even if your room was just one big room you could still set one up but on a smaller scale.

Then you'd look for a net gear type of [forgot the name] router which has say 16 connections on for RJ45 connectors.  It may need to be above average and have features on for protection from the outside world from bad people!

Anyway then you have a box like this in each room - they can have just a few connections on or be bigger - they are like a big multi plug adapter but not for plugs but for network connnections from all the machines that man has ever made!

Then when the software is set up correcrtly Vienna Ensemble Pro there is a network connection for all the machines.

It's not easy to get your head round things and you need a few sleepless nights figuring everything out and then hit the forums'

Apologies if any of this is not correctly explained but know you know a little more.

Have a look online for a company that sells computer equipment and look for a router then you can see what I mean

Happy reading!!!!😃

[jasensmith]

@fraz said:

Hello who ever you are,

People would have a studio to house everthing, it needed be massively huge but big enough and dedicated to one thing only, your interest!

You've probably heard of Cat 5 / Cat 6 - These are RJ45 connectors the same you plug into your ethernet LAN on your computer if you have a wired connection,  They look like a big telephone socket but you don't plug the phone into it! and is know as a data connection, bread and butter stuff for electricians who do call centres with hundreds of them.

Each room of the studio would have one but even if your room was just one big room you could still set one up but on a smaller scale.

Then you'd look for a net gear type of [forgot the name] router which has say 16 connections on for RJ45 connectors.  It may need to be above average and have features on for protection from the outside world from bad people!

Anyway then you have a box like this in each room - they can have just a few connections on or be bigger - they are like a big multi plug adapter but not for plugs but for network connnections from all the machines that man has ever made!

Then when the software is set up correcrtly Vienna Ensemble Pro there is a network connection for all the machines.

It's not easy to get your head round things and you need a few sleepless nights figuring everything out and then hit the forums'

Apologies if any of this is not correctly explained but know you know a little more.

Have a look online for a company that sells computer equipment and look for a router then you can see what I mean

Happy reading!!!!😃

 

Er... I'm sorry, is there a question or comment here?  I don't understand the point of this post😕