What's with Kompact DFD

[JayVee]

I had a simple set-up with Kompact:
A Trumpet and a Brass section, playing on the same MIDI channel.
A B4 organ on another MIDI channel

Whenever I played the Brass stuff (while playing the organ, I had these little pops... and the CPU meter was totally spiked - full.
When I took Kompact off of DFD, had no problems and room to spare.

Somebody explain what is supposed to be the most efficient way to use Kompact?
I'm gonna need a lot more than one instance to use live.

BTW ~ 2 GB RAM

[DanTimis]

Some samples are very, very large and they don't fit in RAM. Then, you need to use DFD (Direct From Disk). DFD will load the beginning of the samples in RAM, and when you hit a key will play the beginning from RAM for immediate response, and then stream the rest of the sample from the hard drive.

If you have little RAM, then again you need DFD even with moderately long samples. Another factor is buffer size. A larger buffer size (in the SETUP page) will allow for better performance.

If you can fit your samples in RAM you get better performance without DFD. You have 2 GB of RAM so you can probably work without DFD with many libraries. If you are trying to load huge sample libraries and they do not fit, you will have to turn DFD back on.

There are also some DFD settings that work best in Receptor. I don't remember exactly, but they were posted by Rick in this forum or on plugorama. And again you can also try a larger buffer size in the SETUP page.

[JayVee]

Okay, thanks Dan.
Now I was running @ 128 Samples, in the Sample Buffer Size ~ What are the disadvantages of going up to 256 Samples?

I was hoping to avoid having to switch around the Buffer Size; that's why I maxed-out the RAM

[DanTimis]

There is always a trade-off. A smaller buffer size gives you a smaller latency, but less performance. A smaller latency may be importand if you are playing live and want a very fast response when you hit the keys of your MIDI keyboard. If you are sequencing it may be less of a problem.

If you play acoustic piano from a MIDI keyboard, a buffer size of 256 may seem a little sluggish. If you play slow strings or any kind of instrument with a slow attack 256 should be just fine.

[JayVee]

: (

I play everything, well, just about. I think I'll head back to 128 Samples and see if I can find a 'happy medium'

Thanks again,

[Rick@MuseResearch]

Make sure you have updated to Receptor version 1.3 and in Kompakt verify that you are using this setting:

From the Kompakt Edit View click on Options > DFD
Set the Preload buffer size to 432.00 kb and the Voice Buffer Size to 528.00 kb
Click Apply
Return to the MIX view and reload Kompakt.

: (

I play everything, well, just about. I think I'll head back to 128 Samples and see if I can find a 'happy medium'

Thanks again,

[DanTimis]

Make sure z-load is off when you do that.

[JayVee]

I'm going to try all of this later tonight...

I'll let you know.

Here's hoping,