Anyone who knows....please advise.

I am looking to purchase an iMAC (24"; iMAC, Intel 2.16GHZ Core 2 Duo, 500 GB HD, 2GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT 256 MB video) in the next 2 weeks, mostly to run Sibelius, Finale, and VDL:2.  I am wondering if anyone knows anything about the iMAC and running any of these software titles on it.

Being a long time PC user, I a curious about the sound card.  On a PC, usually to get high end sound, you need to invest in a good sound card.  With the iMAC, this really doesn't seem to be an option.  Am I able to run VDL:2 on an iMAC using the standard sound card? 

Any thoughts would be great!

Robby

I have a macbook pro with the same processor and I haven't had any problems running vdl2 w/sibelius. (besides some installation issues that were easily fixed) I have 1GB of ram and it runs pretty good, so Im sure with 2GB it will run even better. I think the sound card is just the basic built in mac audio which runs good. I dont think it is suited for extreme gaming, but then again I could be wrong. Like I said, I havent had any problems running finale, sibelius or vdl2 on my macbook pro. So, I hope I might have been some help. Good Luck

-Darryl Jones

macbook pro 2.16GHz(intel core2 duo)
sibeius 4
finale
vdl2
dp5

Hi Robby - you should be just fine with that machine. The soundcard wouldn't necessarily be considered ";pro"; level, but the important thing is the drivers. All macs come standard with Core Audio drivers which perform very well. This is nice compared to many PC's out of the box which come with less reliable DirectSound or MME drivers which often require upgrading to an audio interface that uses ASIO drivers. Don't worry about that. I think this will work well for you.

The main thing to keep tabs on is when certain programs go ";Universal Binary"; - aka compatible to run natively on intel macs. Currently, Finale 2007 is UB. This is good. Sibelius is not yet, nor is VDL2. The good news is that many people have seen very good results running Sibelius and VDL2 in Rosetta (emulates PowerPC programs until they have UB replacements).

So long story short...you should be good with this Imac you have your eyes on. If you run into any bumps in the road along the way, the forum is always here for you. :)

Good luck!

Hey everyone.  I need some serious help with VDL2 and Sibelius.  I bought the Mac from above that I mentioned.  I have installed all of the files (I think), and when I go to playback a file I was working on, I get the same problems I suffered with my out-of-date PC.  When the Bass' come in, you hear a dstorted squeel or buzz, then Sib quits playing things all together.

Any suggestions?

Robby
24"; iMac, 2GB Ram, 500 GB HD, NVidia GeForce 7600 GT 256 MB

[quote author=Flamdragz link=topic=1454.msg6728#msg6728 date=1166313512]
Hey everyone.  I need some serious help with VDL2 and Sibelius.  I bought the Mac from above that I mentioned.  I have installed all of the files (I think), and when I go to playback a file I was working on, I get the same problems I suffered with my out-of-date PC.  When the Bass' come in, you hear a dstorted squeel or buzz, then Sib quits playing things all together.

Any suggestions?

Robby
24"; iMac, 2GB Ram, 500 GB HD, NVidia GeForce 7600 GT 256 MB
[/quote]

In VDL2, go to File>Setup>Soundcard. What are your settings?

Also, are you playing any other sounds from your Siblieus score (i.e. from Kontakt Silver)?

Jim,

My sound card settings are as follows:
Interface = Coreaudio
Sample rate = 44100
Output Device = Built-in Output
OUtput Latency = 8 ms

As far as other sounds, to my knowledge I am only playing sounds out of VDL2, not other sources.  However, in Sibelius for playback I have 3 items.  APPLE COMPUTER IAC (latency of 8) M-AUdio USB, and DLS Music Device.  Anything sound like it could be the problem to you? 

Thanx a ton for your help,
Robby

Jim,

I started playing around in Sibelius.  The file I was attempting to play was something I tried working on under the old PC.  I went into the mixer in Sibelius and saw channels that I never selected, not even on the PC.  Further more, the mixer was showing hardware that I clearly don't have on my new iMac (such as a Sound blaster memory slot). Not only that, but the CPU usage was running near 95% with little to no relief.  I moved the latency to about 50 ms, and reworked the mixer until it reflected what I needed it to.  Finally after doing that, it seemed to play back.  Maybe not perfect but certainly better.

Anything else that you can think of?

Thanx again,
Robby

8ms latency will definitely be too low for this type of playback. Low latency is nice, but it really slams your CPU, so aiming around 40ms should yield better results. Sounds like you've got that heading in the right direction.

Yes, the mixer will show the hardware of your prior system until you do a ";reset sounds."; This is normal. If you're running DFD, you may want to try de-activating it (this is done by clicking the 'options' button in VDL2). Since you have 2GB RAM, DFD may not be necessary and could perhaps contribute to a few bottlenecks.

I'd recommend you use the ";LITE"; battery instruments, keyboards, and timpani as they're not quite as taxing on your system. Also, if you're using vibes, glocks, chimes, etc (anything that rings), lower the value of the ";release"; knob for these instruments. This helps immensely during busy passages.

Speaking of keyboards, do you have multiple staves routing to one keyboard instrument? If so, this is ok. Not optimal, but it's ok if you're running out of channels. If you are doing this, you may want to watch the polyphony meter on just that instrument in VDL2 (this is the part that looks like a fraction - 0/32). To raise the amount of available voices for that instrument, just click on the denominator (32), and drag your mouse upward. Try 48, if that's not enough, try 64, etc. You'll have to play those staves back (all at the same time) and watch the polyphony meter to determine whether your maxing out that instrument's polyphony. If you are, raise it.

Jim,

Hopefully this will be my last questions in a while.  I am trying to work on a score in Sibelius that has 11 parts (Bells, Chimes, Vibe 1 & 2, Xylo 1 & 2, Marimba 1-4, and timpani).  Many of the parts are individual parts, how do I create a playback rack in VDL2 when I only have 8 banks to chose from and 11 instruments?  I tried to double up, have similar instruments share a midi channel, but that didn't work to well, and I couldn't figure out how to open a second keyboard of VDL2.

Also, on the PC, VDL2 came with VST plugins to use with Finale, I went to try to setup the VST plugin on this new Mac and couldn't find it?  Is there a way to use VDL2 as a plugin with Finale on the Mac, the book mentioned so, but I couldn't find the appropriate file types to do so.

Thanx for your efforts and time,
Robby

And one other thing....

I have looked at some of the software disks that have come with my new iMac, and I am unable to find AU Lab anywhere.  Do you have any idea how I might get it?

Robby

Robby,

With the Mac you do not need to use the VST plug in. The Mac uses Audio Units (AU). Check in the /librari/audio/plugins/components folder, if the installation was complete it should be there. When using VDL2 as a plugin with Finale make sure that under the MIDI menu you check use Native Instruments for playback. Right below is the Edit Native Instruments, here you will select the NI apps, load instruments, etc. this is also where you can load multiple instances of VDL2 show more than 8 instruments can be used. Hope this helps.


Ted Boliske

OK, I gave what you said a try in Finale.  When I go to select one of the options (to edit/choose NI instruments for playback) in the drop down menu in FInale, only Kontakt Player 2 is available, there are no options for VDL2.  Under Kontakt Player 2, there is only the option of using Finale's GPO.  Under the folder you mentioned (library/audio/....) there is a component called VDL2.  Do I need to do something else?

Thanx for the help,
Robby

OK, I look in the folder \library\Audio\Plug-ins\components and VDL2 is clearly sitting there.  However, Finale doesn't see it, and neither does AU Lab.  Have I done something wrong?  Being new to a Mac, I am not sure what is missing or what needs to happen.  Any help would be great.

Thanx so much,
Robby

OK, I think I figured it out....Finale 2007 needs to be running under Rosetta to work.  If this is incorrect please let me know.

Robby

[quote author=Flamdragz link=topic=1454.msg6774#msg6774 date=1166641423]
OK, I think I figured it out....Finale 2007 needs to be running under Rosetta to work.  If this is incorrect please let me know.

Robby
[/quote]

This is correct Robby. You will need to force Finale to launch in Rosetta in order to use the VDL2 AU plugin on an Intel Mac. We are working on a Kontakt Player 2 update of VDL2, that will be a Universal Binary for Intel Macs to take advantage of (along with a lot of other good features). Until that is released (no date yet), you'll have to do it this way.

Scott Hirsh has a great rundown of this process at Tapspace FAQ Central at:
https://www.tapspace.com/support/faq/index.php?action=artikel&cat=4&id=28

Hope this helps!