KVR Audio

hello1234 · Post by **hello1234** » Sat Jul 09, 2005 7:43 pm

what I think I forgot to say in the other post was........even though I am currently in a pretty good space.....I feel your pain.

Sometimes, I wish I'd never have gotten into this money pit........

SuitcaseOfLizards · Post by **SuitcaseOfLizards** » Sat Jul 09, 2005 7:43 pm

I can just imagine 4+ computers in my already packed studio apartment.. when I barely have room for the one computer I have. Maybe I could sell my futon and sleep on the floor to make room for a 5ft. tall 19in. rackmount to put all these boxes in!

I've already optimized the crap out of my computer.. I just demand too much from it, that's all. I shut just about everything down when I fire up eXT or Tracktion2.. didn't make enough of a difference to be noticeable.

I've shut off a dozen services, checked to make sure my process count is low (I'm at 20 right now, since I'm online, offline I run about 16).

Thanks for all the suggestions, but my mind's made up. Just call me WoolyLuddite!

Hink · Post by **Hink** » Sat Jul 09, 2005 7:59 pm

woolyloach wrote:I can just imagine 4+ computers in my already packed studio apartment.. when I barely have room for the one computer I have. Maybe I could sell my futon and sleep on the floor to make room for a 5ft. tall 19in. rackmount to put all these boxes in!

I've already optimized the crap out of my computer.. I just demand too much from it, that's all. I shut just about everything down when I fire up eXT or Tracktion2.. didn't make enough of a difference to be noticeable. I've shut off a dozen services, checked to make sure my process count is low (I'm at 20 right now, since I'm online, offline I run about 16).

Thanks for all the suggestions, but my mind's made up. Just call me WoolyLuddite!

get yourself one of those futon/bunkbed combos...gut the futon and build a work area under your bed...

TVD · Post by **TVD** » Sat Jul 09, 2005 8:35 pm

woolyloach wrote:/rant on

This is stupid. I have a 3GHz. P4/800MHz FSB CPU, 2GB of dual-channel PC3200 SDRAM, and I still can't bloody well get the layers I want without watching my CPU meter spike into the red!

Screw software synths! My Fantom X and Motif ES Rack work all the time every time and sound better than almost every soft synth I have, and I don't have to watch the CPU meter when I stack 4 patches!

I'm going to sell off all my soft synths and spend time making music, not saving up for yet another f**king computer upgrade to try to match the sound of hardware!

Curse! Rant! Swear! Adult situations and content!

/rant off

If your softsynths a problem, I feel bad of you son.
I got 99 Problemz and a bitch ain't one!

smellytongue · Post by **smellytongue** » Sat Jul 09, 2005 9:16 pm

Totally agree with woolyloach,cpu drain is a pain. You would have thought by now that someone would have come in and helped out the computer musician by making a pci card with just some raw processing chips on. Im not talking UAD-1 or powercore card just a plug in card with say acouple 2 or 3 gig processers for about £300. Yeah i know about receptor but thats way overpriced. Are you listening developers?

D-Fusion · Post by **D-Fusion** » Sat Jul 09, 2005 9:46 pm

smellytongue wrote:Totally agree with woolyloach,cpu drain is a pain. You would have thought by now that someone would have come in and helped out the computer musician by making a pci card with just some raw processing chips on. Im not talking UAD-1 or powercore card just a plug in card with say acouple 2 or 3 gig processers for about £300. Yeah i know about receptor but thats way overpriced. Are you listening developers?

There is one that is in the horizon that will be released early in 2006 (that let you process upto 50gflops)

http://www.reed-electronics.com/electro ... ryid=22113

McLilith · Post by **McLilith** » Sat Jul 09, 2005 9:53 pm

D-Fusion wrote:There is one that is in the horizon that will be released early in 2006 (that let you process upto 50gflops)
http://www.reed-electronics.com/electro ... ryid=22113

I gotta get me two of those!

McLilith

SuitcaseOfLizards · Post by **SuitcaseOfLizards** » Sun Jul 10, 2005 2:58 pm

Hink wrote:get yourself one of those futon/bunkbed combos...gut the futon and build a work area under your bed...

Now there's a workable concept! Would make it really easy when I wake up at 2:00am with a song in my head I need to get down...

FaX · Post by **FaX** » Mon Jul 11, 2005 8:23 am

woolyloach wrote:My issue is I'm a stack whore. I'll typically stack a Rhino2, Cameleon, Vanguard and sometimes either Kubik or Vectrik to get the sound I want to hear. Do this a few times.. ugh.. freezing is mandatory.

Screw that! I don't like interrupting my creative flow to make up for the fact that the software is power-hungry. And I get problems in Tracktion2 and energtXT, the two hosts I use.

I'm glad it works for some people, though. More power to you if it does! Me, as soon as I get confirmation from the various devs, I'll be dumping my entire VSTi collection.

Mmmmm OK.
Get a a Clavia G2 with full expansion.
Model/Patch all those above mentioned synth patches.
Stack them up and tell me how much polyphony or on board CPU you've used.
Seriously maybe you're just asking a bit to much CPU wise from your PC.
I mean come on layering Kubik / Vectrik / Rhino 2 and Cameleon

- what the hell do you expect.
My Ambient Textures bank for Kubik 2 is pretty CPU intensive even on my machine and certain Vectrik patches can chew 20% CPU per instance on 3.2ghz HT P4.
I'm amazed you can even stack that much and not have your computer crapout myself.

FaX · Post by **FaX** » Mon Jul 11, 2005 8:24 am

PS: how about a Muse Receptor or TWO .
If i had the available funds I know I would.

SuitcaseOfLizards · Post by **SuitcaseOfLizards** » Mon Jul 11, 2005 5:24 pm

I've actually started saving for a Receptor. I figure I'll have enough for one by the end of the year, so a Receptor will be a Christmas present to myself!

Yeah, I ask too much from my computer. I'm trying to wean myself off massive stacks, but with the Fantom X6 and the Motif ES Rack it's hard to quit!

lawapa · Post by **lawapa** » Mon Jul 11, 2005 5:52 pm

Soundfont your stack. Sounds kinky doesn't it. But in reality I do it all the time. To build a voice I might use Tassman, z3ta, FM7 and more. Once I got that puppy humming just like I want I render a wave track and turn that into a font. There are some limitations as I'm sure you know but running a font cuts less cpu off the top than say 4 to 6 softsynths.

Edit: I forgot all about chainer. And as per the norm McL knows the trick

+) I do mine the hard way by hand so I can use automation as well In Sonar. But for a straight shot to wave the chain's the game.

McLilith · Post by **McLilith** » Mon Jul 11, 2005 6:25 pm

Chainer is a handy tool for doing this sort of thing. It will let you render a stack of synths directly to soundfont format. It's all automated. You tell it which notes of the MIDI scale you want to sample, and how long the notes should be. It does the rest.

Then, just play that soundfont in SFZ and you have drastically cut your CPU consumption.

McLilith

SuitcaseOfLizards · Post by **SuitcaseOfLizards** » Mon Jul 11, 2005 8:10 pm

Hmm... all good suggestions. Maybe I can save myself $1400US!

McLilith · Post by **McLilith** » Mon Jul 11, 2005 8:43 pm

If you want something a bit more extensive than soundfonts, Chainer will also render your stack to a collection of WAV files. You can then use a FREE program named "sfZed" to create an SFZ sample set. This will provide more options for tweaking and special effects than soundfonts, and it also supports practically any sample rate, keyboard zones, velocity layers, and stereo samples, among many other features. (Did I mention that SFZ sample sets can have much higher quality than soundfonts?)

I also forgot to mention that Chainer will let you specify the MIDI velocity to render all the notes with. You could use sfZed to create sample sets with lots of velocity layers if you want.

take care,
McLilith

Those soft-synth CPU sucking blues...