Mac Studio on the way!

[AcousticDreams]

Originally Posted by Joseph Hanna

Any VI that has the ability to purge makes things so much more efficient. In my old machine, I found I could double, sometimes triple VI counts with purge. It's now just a habit and continues to dramatically reduce ram usage. I'd also suggest experimenting with voice allocation as often I can reduce the number of voices without compromising sonics. I haven't gone about methodically testing the limits of the new Mac, but I know I had a project last week with 20-ish instances of Kontakt (some of those I was using Multi's), a hand full of Spitfire Colossus, and some ever-present Omnisphere's. It felt like the machine was working with utterly no effort.

I think you'll be very happy with the Studio.

I have read a few articles on Purging, but honestly the How & When to use, still alludes me. Luckily because of Mac Studio large capacity, I have not had any issues regardless that I have not purged.

I own several Spitfire Audio libraries....They have a different method of purging Quote: "BBCSO allows you to remove unwanted articulations for each track, which means it functions like a purge."

Quote:
"A purged templete just means that each instance (usually kontakt) is loaded but purged (settings select “purge all samples”). Then Kontakt will just load the samples you need as you play them, allowing the rest to stay unloaded. This makes a large purged templete load much faster.

If you use VE Pro to play samples (better multicore support usually allows for more instruments to be played at once before the CPU overloads) you can also disable or turn off channels, allowing logic to ingore less used banks until you need them. I usually just keep my most used instruments turned on. Load times are much faster."

While I understand the basics of why you want to do it from the above explanation...It is still not crystal clear to me how & when to purge. I am even a bit afraid to try it for fear that I will erase something.

I find with almost all youtube videos, all articles, they leave out fundamental details, assuming you already know them. Do you recommend a truly complete video or article that covers every aspect of purging?

[Joseph Hanna]

Originally Posted by AcousticDreams

I have read a few articles on Purging, but honestly the How & When to use, still alludes me. Luckily because of Mac Studio large capacity, I have not had any issues regardless that I have not purged.

I own several Spitfire Audio libraries....They have a different method of purging Quote: "BBCSO allows you to remove unwanted articulations for each track, which means it functions like a purge."

Quote:
"A purged templete just means that each instance (usually kontakt) is loaded but purged (settings select “purge all samples”). Then Kontakt will just load the samples you need as you play them, allowing the rest to stay unloaded. This makes a large purged templete load much faster.

If you use VE Pro to play samples (better multicore support usually allows for more instruments to be played at once before the CPU overloads) you can also disable or turn off channels, allowing logic to ingore less used banks until you need them. I usually just keep my most used instruments turned on. Load times are much faster."

While I understand the basics of why you want to do it from the above explanation...It is still not crystal clear to me how & when to purge. I am even a bit afraid to try it for fear that I will erase something.

I find with almost all youtube videos, all articles, they leave out fundamental details, assuming you already know them. Do you recommend a truly complete video or article that covers every aspect of purging?

Using Spitfire and or Project Sam libraries as an example. When calling up, say for instance, a String/Short patch it generally loads multiple articulations for a single patch. ie: Spiccato/Staccato/Pizzicato all in one instantiation. The idea of course is to have multi articulations available in order to take advantage of key switching. I seldom use key switching as I'll record the articulations separately and on different tracks.

Spiccato/Staccato/Pizzicato all have ram allocated to each individually within the patch. If then, what I need is only a Pizzicato patch there's no need to continue to allocate ram to the other two articulations. In Spitfire's case (at least for the new Spitfire player) there is a single button that gets you to the articulation page where you'd simply switch off the Spiccato and Staccato articulations. The same sort of thing happens with all of Spitfire patches. The String/Long patch calls up both a "long" articulation and a very consumptive "legato" articulation. Switching off the legato articulation saves over a gig of ram.

With Spitfire libraries, "purge" is done manually as per above. In Project Sam libraries, since it runs in Kontakt, the purge is automatic. Whatever articulation you have selected Kontakt will auto-delete the unused articulations running behind the scene which is essentially wasted ram. That said many libraries within the Kontakt domain also offer manually deleting articulations exactly as done in Spitfire.

In the case of Spectrasonic stuff, there is only the option of loading the lite mode. It can be set globally and can stay on until you find the original multi-patch is more in line with what you need. Simply switch out of lite mode. In this case, sometimes it's a healthy savings of ram, other patches not so much.

Folks are all over the map (particularly in orchestral scenarios) concerning purged templates. I have a bunch of Spitfire patches that I've saved after I purged. In other words, I have two Spitfire Long String patches saved. One in which I switched off the "Legato" articulation and the other in which I switched off "Long" articulation. They load MUCH faster and run much leaner.

Hope that helps.

[AcousticDreams]

Originally Posted by Joseph Hanna

Using Spitfire and or Project Sam libraries as an example. When calling up, say for instance, a String/Short patch it generally loads multiple articulations for a single patch. ie: Spiccato/Staccato/Pizzicato all in one instantiation. The idea of course is to have multi articulations available in order to take advantage of key switching. I seldom use key switching as I'll record the articulations separately and on different tracks.

Spiccato/Staccato/Pizzicato all have ram allocated to each individually within the patch. If then, what I need is only a Pizzicato patch there's no need to continue to allocate ram to the other two articulations. In Spitfire's case (at least for the new Spitfire player) there is a single button that gets you to the articulation page where you'd simply switch off the Spiccato and Staccato articulations. The same sort of thing happens with all of Spitfire patches. The String/Long patch calls up both a "long" articulation and a very consumptive "legato" articulation. Switching off the legato articulation saves over a gig of ram.

With Spitfire libraries, "purge" is done manually as per above. In Project Sam libraries, since it runs in Kontakt, the purge is automatic. Whatever articulation you have selected Kontakt will auto-delete the unused articulations running behind the scene which is essentially wasted ram. That said many libraries within the Kontakt domain also offer manually deleting articulations exactly as done in Spitfire.

In the case of Spectrasonic stuff, there is only the option of loading the lite mode. It can be set globally and can stay on until you find the original multi-patch is more in line with what you need. Simply switch out of lite mode. In this case, sometimes it's a healthy savings of ram, other patches not so much.

Folks are all over the map (particularly in orchestral scenarios) concerning purged templates. I have a bunch of Spitfire patches that I've saved after I purged. In other words, I have two Spitfire Long String patches saved. One in which I switched off the "Legato" articulation and the other in which I switched off "Long" articulation. They load MUCH faster and run much leaner.

Hope that helps.

Yes very helpful! I get it now about the Value of a purged Template.

Currently, I am not using any Templates. I am Not using VI's in the way that many others are using them, which is to try and Mock a realistic staged Orchestra. I have written some fun tunes all using symphony, but not with the standard orchestral staging.

In fact purging the other articulations would then not allow me to experiment with the other articulations at the spur of a moment. Which I often do. Maybe it is because of the power of the Mac Studio,...Loading speed has not been a problem.

To clarify:
* Is there a need to purge a recorded VI midi track? Once recorded, but left in Midi, are the other articulations still taking power? Or is there another value as well?
* Is Purging best for saving CPU for the play mode only?
Does this only makes a difference for load times? OR is purging mandatory if you were trying to play 10 different instruments all at the same time?
* Or is there yet another value for purging that I am not seeing?

[Joseph Hanna]

Currently, I am not using any Templates. I am Not using VI's in the way that many others are using them, which is to try and Mock a realistic staged Orchestra. I have written some fun tunes all using symphony, but not with the standard orchestral staging.

Originally Posted by AcousticDreams

In fact purging the other articulations would then not allow me to experiment with the other articulations at the spur of a moment. Which I often do. Maybe it is because of the power of the Mac Studio,...Loading speed has not been a problem.

Yes, in this scenario you would lose your key switch ability. As I mentioned however you could save a purged patch to be used when appropriate for a particular task at hand. Purged templates would be one way to accomplish this.

Originally Posted by AcousticDreams

* Is there a need to purge a recorded VI midi track? Once recorded, but left in Midi, are the other articulations still taking power? Or is there another value as well?

There would be no reason to not purge a finalized midi track, and every reason to do so

Originally Posted by AcousticDreams

* Is Purging best for saving CPU for the play mode only?

Unless, and as you mentioned, you wish to do key switching, purge will improve playback, recording, and drive retrieval times. In some cases significantly.

Originally Posted by AcousticDreams

* Does this only makes a difference for load times? OR is purging mandatory if you were trying to play 10 different instruments all at the same time? Or is there yet another value for purging that I am not seeing?

Load times are primarily affected, first and foremost, by hard drive speeds. There are a couple of SS drives that many who use VI's regularly gravitate towards that significantly increase load speeds. Of course how much ram a patch uses would also affect load times. A patch requiring 100 Mb of memory obviously loads faster than some of the 2 gig Spitfire Library. Purging is never strictly mandatory but ram, no matter the machine, is finite. When you're out, you're out. At some point thining things out (purging) would be the only way to reclaim ram and continue on with more VI's

[jim1960]

Is it May yet?

[jim1960]

My new Mac arrived at the store weeks earlier than Apple's original date. I called the store in Delaware and explained that I was driving down from NY to pick it up and made plans to do that on the first Saturday it was supposed to be there. The store agreed to hold it until the following Sunday.

The friend who is taking the ride down with me told me last night she may be able to do the ride this coming Friday, so my Mac Studio Ultra might be here a lot sooner than expected.

I have a lot of housekeeping to do on both my studio iMac and my PC before I can start setting up the Mac Studio. I need to make a full list of all my plugins and check compatibility on all of them. And then there's a ton of stuff I'll need to move from my PC to the iMac, do backups, and all that jazz. I also have to order some peripherals I know I'll need and can't really set up until those are here. Things are about to get interesting over here.

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by jim1960

My new Mac arrived at the store weeks earlier than Apple's original date. I called the store in Delaware and explained that I was driving down from NY to pick it up and made plans to do that on the first Saturday it was supposed to be there. The store agreed to hold it until the following Sunday.

The friend who is taking the ride down with me told me last night she may be able to do the ride this coming Friday, so my Mac Studio Ultra might be here a lot sooner than expected.

I have a lot of housekeeping to do on both my studio iMac and my PC before I can start setting up the Mac Studio. I need to make a full list of all my plugins and check compatibility on all of them. And then there's a ton of stuff I'll need to move from my PC to the iMac, do backups, and all that jazz. I also have to order some peripherals I know I'll need and can't really set up until those are here. Things are about to get interesting over here.

Cue the theme from JAW's

Hey very cool
Jim are you familiar with the Pete Gates. PT preference helper app ? Seems very popular on the DUC and has own sticky page there was just wondering about it,, https://duc.avid.com/showthread.php?t=340741&page=30

Looks like you can get ARM plugin info maybe ?
Quote "Hey Pete, the program has been so useful (especially for getting AAX ARM plugins and checking for updates)!"

[jim1960]

All my peripherals arrived and the trip is on for Friday to pick up the Mac Studio. I did my due diligence so far as researching what my best options are, and this is the list:

ACASIS 40Gbps M.2 NVMe SSD Enclosure
WD 4TB WD_BLACK SN850X Gaming Internal NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD
CalDigit TS4 Thunderbolt 4 18-in-1 Hub
Acasis Multi USB 3.0 Hub 10 ports

Those pieces should leave me with a pretty clean layout with enough connection options. I'll be able to set up a mirrored monitor through the CalDigit TS4 to use for midi entry and editing. For the first time in 6-7 years, I won't have my midi controller in my way all the time.

I also put an order in with Redco for a four channel TRS-XLR snake. I've been short on cables since I got the new racks and finally had room for all my gear.

And speaking of racks, I found these clamps on Amazon that look like they're strong enough to join my two racks into a single rack without any need of modification to the racks themselves. Currently, to move the racks requires inching one away from the way, then the other, and going back and forth a dozen times so I don't put any strain on either the cables or wherever they're inserted. It's a real pain in the neck and an issue I hadn't fully anticipated when I ordered the racks. Getting them to move as one solves that problem.

And the last potential problem with the Friday pickup was having a physical Apple card. It's a good thing I fully read the emails they sent me. I was told over the phone that I need to bring the order number and a photo id. But in the email it said I also need to bring the credit card. I applied for an Apple Card in order to get 12 months/0% interest financing (it's makes buying this computer a lot less painful) but they don't automatically send a physical card because they assume people will use the Apple Wallet app. My cellphone is a Samsung, so no Wallet app. I had to request the physical card and that arrived today. I'm all set now.

But life being what it is, I wasn't allowed to simply enjoy getting the new computer. My dishwasher decided to die last night. I can't complain. It's about 23 years old. A new one is coming tomorrow and I put in a call to my plumber. I'm really hoping he can get here on Saturday. The dishwasher was filled last night when it passed on and I had to hand wash all that mess this morning. I'm a delicate flower and not meant for such things ...okay, not so delicate and not so flowery, I just don't like washing dishes.

[KevWind]

Loos like a great set up
(the ACASIS links are not working on my computer but no matter I remember the units from earlier posts )

Also just a thought ,, you may want to consider not using the second display in "mirror " mode for mixing. Thus allowing you to have the edit window on one display and the mix window on the other (at least that is how I like to mix) ..Of course with a simple selection you can toggle the displays in and out of "mirror" mode..
Note it's been so long since I set up my displays I do remember which is default -mirrored or none mirrored ????

[jim1960]

Originally Posted by KevWind

Also just a thought ,, you may want to consider not using the second display in "mirror " mode for mixing. Thus allowing you to have the edit window on one display and the mix window on the other (at least that is how I like to mix)

That won't work well for me. The mirrored monitor solves a logistics issue. If you look at where my midi controller keyboard is now, that beast is always in my way and it's too heavy to take off the desk and get out of my way every time I want to use the computer. So I either have to do my mixing and editing with the computer keyboard on top of the midi controller or in front of it on that sliver of desk. Neither is a comfortable option.

When the new computer arrives, my plan is to set it up where my iMac sits currently but to move the midi controller keyboard to the left side of the desk where my PC setup is in the photo. The PC will be gone and where the PC monitor is, is where I'll set up the mirrored monitor. That way I'll have a station just for midi entering and editing. Getting that keyboard controller out of my way is something I'm very much looking forward to.

[FrankHudson]

I did the same thing for my keyboard player in my studio space a few years back, even put a trackball over by the monitor and MIDI keyboard so they could edit MIDI parameters from where they were playing. For various reasons I'll leave out for brevity, they never got to make much use of it.

Are you planning to have any computer control in that MIDI keyboard controller location? Minimally one could put say a Apple Magic touchpad over by the MIDI keyboard. What I've used for myself where there's little space is this small, cheap Logitech K400 keyboard. I wouldn't write a novel typing on it, but as a remote keyboard for little things that you want handy, it works for me.

Logitech K400 - dirt cheap wireless keyboard/touchpad

[jim1960]

Originally Posted by FrankHudson

Are you planning to have any computer control in that MIDI keyboard controller location? Minimally one could put say a Apple Magic touchpad over by the MIDI keyboard. What I've used for myself where there's little space is this small, cheap Logitech K400 keyboard. I wouldn't write a novel typing on it, but as a remote keyboard for little things that you want handy, it works for me.

I don't think I need a separate keyboard and mouse for that station since I get there just by swiveling my chair. I can use the same wireless mouse and keyboard for both monitors.

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by jim1960

That won't work well for me. The mirrored monitor solves a logistics issue. If you look at where my midi controller keyboard is now, that beast is always in my way and it's too heavy to take off the desk and get out of my way every time I want to use the computer. So I either have to do my mixing and editing with the computer keyboard on top of the midi controller or in front of it on that sliver of desk. Neither is a comfortable option.

When the new computer arrives, my plan is to set it up where my iMac sits currently but to move the midi controller keyboard to the left side of the desk where my PC setup is in the photo. The PC will be gone and where the PC monitor is, is where I'll set up the mirrored monitor. That way I'll have a station just for midi entering and editing. Getting that keyboard controller out of my way is something I'm very much looking forward to.

Ah I get it---- I had envisioned them side by side like mine are and I have my midi keyboard on a metal stand one the opposite side of the desk from my rack gear. It's under the red and white striped saddle blanket And as you can see I have the edit window on the left display and the Mix and video window on the iMac on the right

[jim1960]

Originally Posted by KevWind

Ah I get it---- I had envisioned them side by side like mine are and I have my midi keyboard on a metal stand one the opposite side of the desk from my rack gear. It's under the red and white striped saddle blanket And as you can see I have the edit window on the left display and the Mix and video window on the iMac on the right

I don't think I could be efficient setting it up like that. Having it right in front of me is what I've always needed. It was easier when I was using a lightweight midi controller that I could just lean against the wall or the rack when it wasn't needed but my Hammer88 weighs close to 40 lbs.

On the good news front, my new dishwasher was delivered this morning. That's pretty impressive since I only ordered it Tuesday night around midnight. Now I just need my plumber to get back to me.

[AcousticDreams]

I do not have an Ideal recording set up. Far from it. I am faced with many logistics problems, as my living room is my recording room as well. Setting up and tearing down mic stands and Gobo's still take too much time.

However, the one thing that has worked out so well for me, is having my Midi Keyboard on a wheeled stand. I have a twelve foot cord. I can more it from the side of my table (and out of the way)...to being close to me in two seconds. Nothing is easier than that.

Midi Keyboard on wheels is the only part of my recording set up that I am totally happy with. I would really like to get a wheeled rack space...so I could easily get to the back of my hardware. Total pain for me right now as it is.