The horse is dead, but I'm just gonna keep kicking until I have this  $h!t figured out.

Here's what I got:
iMac/ 2.0 GHz/ 2 GB RAM/ samples on 7200 firewire external drive
K2/ Sib 4/ VDL2/ GPO wind samples

Here's what I'm trying to do all at once:
- full battery score, 1 channel for each keyboard (2 mar parts, 2 vib parts, etc.), all loaded into the K2 sampler, 13 channels in all
- full wind score (1 channel for each instrument (1st and 2nd kazoo going to one kazoo channel), all loaded into K2 DFD, 11 channels in all

I have messed with absolutely every knob in K2 and every slider in Sib 4 that I can think of, with the same result... clipping when the score gets full.

Shouldn't my iMac be able to handle a full score? How much of the problem is due to Sib 4 not being Universal Binary yet? Right now I have to make separate recordings of battery and band, and them put them together in Peak LE.

I guess a short version of my question would be... how much ";SHOULD"; a computer with these specs be able to handle?

Can anyone direct me to some threads?

Thanks.

a few things-

1. Make sure you disable DFD for each instrument under Kontakt 2 or else it is reading it off the hard drive which is slower- [u]especially[/u] a firewire drive which is very slow compared to your internal drive.  For example, I have an external 7200rpm hard drive that is the same model as an internal drive on my desktop.  When plugged into the Firewire port it gets about 30 MB/s, but internally connected it gets about 210 MB/s.  So anyways, If you get a low memory error when loading samples into RAM, then 2 GB is not enough. 

2. You don't need to have more than one marimba and one vibe instrument loaded, especially if it is with winds and battery.  Sustained instruments are the biggest culprit, so a lot of ringing vibes, bells, and chimes will slow things down.  I usually write for 3 marimbas and 3 vibes, but I use only one VDL2 instrument for each and it sounds fine. 

3. Sibelius is a notation program, not a recording studio.  You will get better performance and sound quality loading your project as a MIDI file in Logic, Cubase, Pro-Tools, etc. 

4. As much as Apple would like people to think so, an iMac is not a professional-class computer.  I had a 20"; 2 GHz iMac G5 myself and found it was fine for a full percussion section with 2 GB of RAM, but not much more.  It is more of a laptop/desktop hybrid with mid-range components.  Trying to play an entire wind + percussion score just isn't realistic, especially if it's not a Core 2 Duo or Dual-Core G5 Mac.

Solution: make a recording of only the percussion, then make a recording of only the winds.  You might need to break it down more than that.  Then take all of those AIF files and put them back together in something like Garage Band or Logic.  Then you'll also be able to balance the sound.

I know you want samples loaded onto a separate hard drive, but would it do anything if I partitioned the internal drive and put some samples on it? I'm not up to speed on the whole partitioning thing, would it be worth a try? Would I then put the wind samples in DFD and VDL2 in RAM, or vice versa?

(just when I think I have this stuff understood...)

Partitionning a hard drive would be one option but not really a needed one when using Mac OS_X. The only practical reason for doing this would be to have a place to record your actual audio files thus reducing the amount of read/write/search time needed when recording and playing back audio files. I added a second external firewire hard drive this summer but only because space was an issue. My original 60G HD was about 75% full with apps, sound libraries and iTunes. I needed the second to place my sound libraries and iTunes plus a partition for working recording files.


Ted

Ted (or anyone),
If you had these:
120 GB 7200 rpm internal hard drive
160 GB 7200 rpm External Firewire Drive
300 GB 7200 rpm External Firewire Drive
120 GB 5400 rpm External USB Drive

How would you set up your sounds? I figured I would partition the internal hard drive and have the wind samples on one partition, then the drum samples on the 160 GB Firewire, then probably use the 300 for iTunes and photos.

Or maybe partition the 300 GB Firewire and have wind samples on on partition and drum samples on the other?

[quote author=Lydian9 link=topic=1362.msg6031#msg6031 date=1158860530]
Ted (or anyone),
If you had these:
120 GB 7200 rpm internal hard drive
160 GB 7200 rpm External Firewire Drive
300 GB 7200 rpm External Firewire Drive
120 GB 5400 rpm External USB Drive

How would you set up your sounds? I figured I would partition the internal hard drive and have the wind samples on one partition, then the drum samples on the 160 GB Firewire, then probably use the 300 for iTunes and photos.

Or maybe partition the 300 GB Firewire and have wind samples on on partition and drum samples on the other?
[/quote]


If you do partition any of the drives for samples, partition the internal drive first and place ALL of your libraries in one section and the OS and apps in the other. One partition option would be 60/60, you could also try 40/80 with your samples in the larger partition. Place all of your iTunes and photos on the 300G drive, use 1 drive only for backup and the other recording or working files.

Likewise, reduce the number of instruments loaded while you're working in Finale. Just because you're writing for 3 marimbas and 3 vibes doesn't mean you need 3 marimbas and 3 vibes actually loaded. With part doublings you really end up increasing the amount of work load on the CPU and the drives.


Ted

I'll give it a try when I get home (I probably shouldn't be checking this forum in the middle of my trombone class, but oh well).
Ted, if all this works out I owe you a wheat based beverage at PASIC in Austin if you go:)

Ralph

Thanks for the good thought Ralph. I won't be at this year's PASIC, just a bit too far to travel this year. Now, if you go up to Chicago for MidWest we might have a deal! Anyway, let me know if there are any other issues or questions.


Ted

Ralph - sounds like you are on an ambitious quest, and I'm glad to see some great information being exchanged here. Thought I'd chime in with a few things from my own experience as well.

If you're trying to run a full band score along with all your percussion stuff, you do need to know that you'll be asking a lot of your system. Especially if your music tends to have a lot of staves playing simultaneously (aka - lots of polyphony). There are things you can do however, much of which is being discussed here already. Here are some other suggestions.

DFD - You mentioned you're loading everything into Kontakt 2. Since Kontakt 2 doesn't really give you the option to globally turn DFD ";off"; completely, you should try fiddling with the DFD slider in the ";options"; area. It can be a bit misleading, and dragging farther right, does NOT necessarily mean you'll achieve better performance. In your Kontakt 2 folder, look for a PDF document called ";DFD Demystified";. It contains some helpful info to better understand some of its quirks.

CPU - as has already been mentioned, having a lot of RAM is great, but CPU performance is equally important, especially when playing back high amounts of polyphony. One thing to easily guage this performance is to keep an eye on the CPU meter at the top of the Kontakt 2 window. If it's continually leaning on the high side, you may be asking a lot of your iMac. And ditto on the prior comment. Imacs are awesome machines, but not necessarily pro level. I sometimes push the limits doing what you're describing on a Quad G5.

If you do end up reducing the amount of instruments used (for instance, one marimba being accessed by multiple staves), be sure to keep an eye on the polyphony reading for that instrument. You may need to raise it if multiple staves are sending info to that one instrument.

Be sure to use the ";LITE"; instruments.

On instruments such as vibes, glock, chimes, etc (instruments that ring for a long time), enter this at the start of that staff in Sibelius:  [b]~C20,10[/b]. Essentially what this will do is reduce the release time (once note is released) so that these instruments won't eat up so much polyphony. This command is essentially the same thing as lowering the ";release"; knob for those instruments in the VDL2 player. Manually doing this in K2 will be more of a pain, so it's easier just to enter that command in Sibelius. If you ever want to raise it again, you can do another midi command (i.e. ~C20,127 means all the way up).

Consider using Sibelius' built-in Kontakt Player for your wind sounds, and Kontakt2 for your percussion sounds. You can route them in the Sibelius mixer to do this (this is what i do if i'm running on one machine, which helps keep Kontakt 2 humming along nicely). You'll still be using CPU from both K2 and your SibKontaktPlayer, but it may not max out K2 so easily.

If you do decide to use Sibelius' Kontakt Player (silver or gold), be sure to use the ";eco"; versions of those instruments, keep reverb ";off";, and have multiple staves share the same instrument (these are all settings within sibelius). There's an ";audio options"; button in the Sib Kontakt player that allows you to adjust latency. Set it to the same amount as what you have Kontakt 2 set to. Which brings me to....

Latency settings. If your CPU is maxing out, it's often because latency is set too low. Try aiming for around 30-40ms. Adjust this in the ";soundcard"; in Kontakt 2>File>Setup. By default it may be set too low. This one can make a huge difference, so be tuned in to where you have it set.

Hope some of these suggestions are helpful.

And THAT is why Jim ROCKS!!!!!