EWQLSO Platinum on Receptor? VisionDAW? Something Else?

[soapbox]

I'm currently running my copy of the East West Quantum Leap Symphonic Orchestra Platinum under Pro Tools LE DV Toolkit 2 on my Dual 2.5 GHz G5. I can get the job done, as long as I stop to track every so often while sequencing. But lately, I've tired of having all of my eggs in one basket, and I've started looking more seriously at additional options to help host my EWQLSO library and perhaps some of my other virtual instruments as well. (These currently include Ivory, the Komplete 2 bundle, EWQLSC, Stormdrum, Atmosphere, Trilogy, Stylus RMX, BFD, Ultra Focus, DrumCore, GPO, and one or two others.)

Receptor is currently at the top of my list as my next VI host. I like the idea of it's UniWire integration with Mac DAWs, and I tried Ivory on it at Winter NAMM and found it very playable. My main concern at this point is how well it handles Native Instruments' DFD Extension in conjunction with EWQLSO Platinum. Does anyone here have first hand experience with this?

Before Receptor came along, and perhaps even still, East West recommended the VisionDAW PC as an ideal host for EWQLSO Platinum. The advantage in this case is that these programs were designed for PCs and Macs, and the VisionDAW PC has been optimized with EWQLSO Platinum specifically in mind. Its fan noise should also be quieter than Receptor's. On the other hand, this box wouldn't integrate as seamlessly with my Mac, it would probably require its own monitor, and it would cost more than a Receptor as well.

I'm also considering adding another Mac to my setup. I have Logic Pro, but I rarely use it as a DAW. If I were to buy another Mac, I could install Logic Pro in it to host all of Logic's wonderful VIs, like Sculpture and UltraBeat, making them accessible via MIDI to my current Pro Tools Mac. I could also use that computer to host a section or two of my EWQLSO Platinum library (using Logic Pro) at times when I have no need to access the Logic Pro instruments. The downside of doing this now is that a lot of my software isn't yet compatible with the current crop of Intel Macs. On the other hand, I may not buy another VI host until a few months from now; and by then, MacIntel incompatibility problems may no longer be an issue.

Last, but not least, I'm not sure I want to try the "build it yourself" PC option. I've spent way too much time troubleshooting my Mac, first in December after it was ravaged by some bad third party RAM I installed and this month again when its hard drive bit the dust. I want to make music, not computers.

Of course, there are a lot of other options out there besides those I've mentioned above, and I'm interested in what other EWQLSO Platinum users have tried. What works for you?

Best,

Geoff

[looneytunes]

Hi Geoff,

I can't offer alot of info, but I do have all of EWQLSO Platinum running on a receptor. I have not tried to sequence using more than a few channels (I think I tried 4 - 6 max), but I see no reason why this wouldn't work.

I think Receptor makes a relatively good "Auxiliary Processor" for these types of things. From what I have read about Logic's ability to stream plugins from other Macs, I would think this might be more flexible than the Mac/Receptor combo - probably a more seamless interface to your Logic environment. But I'm guessing this would be more expensive, (setup, maintenance, etc) than the Mac/Receptor combo.

I think one value for Receptor in the studio is that it can be separated from the rest of your DAW, and used live (or in another studio's DAW).

For my studio environment, I have many different things running on Receptor that I am glad to unload from my main (DAW) processor:

Ivory, Garritan Stradivarius, LPC Guitars, Scarbee Slap n Fingered Bass, BFD Drums, Atmosphere/Stylus/Trilogy, EW Colossus / RA / SO Platinum, USB Charlie, many analog emulations, ...

One note is that DFD seems OK with multiple Kompakt instances, but a bit flaky with mixes of Kompakt and Kontakt on Receptor.

Hope these random thoughts help.

Regards,
Kevin L.

[soapbox]

Kevin, thanks for those real world examples. Yes, they're certainly helpful! Could you please share how much RAM you have installed in your Receptor and what size its hard drive is? I'd also love to know how much processing power was left over after you had loaded those channels of EWQLSO Platinum.

One note is that DFD seems OK with multiple Kompakt instances, but a bit flaky with mixes of Kompakt and Kontakt on Receptor.

This is exactly the kind of information I'm looking for.

I think Receptor makes a relatively good "Auxiliary Processor" for these types of things. From what I have read about Logic's ability to stream plugins from other Macs, I would think this might be more flexible than the Mac/Receptor combo - probably a more seamless interface to your Logic environment.

Kevin, that's a good idea; but I think I'd have to use Logic as my main DAW for that to work, and I'm reluctant to switch. (While I own a copy of Logic Pro, I currently use Pro Tools LE DV Toolkit 2 as my main DAW.)

But I'm guessing this would be more expensive, (setup, maintenance, etc) than the Mac/Receptor combo.

Perhaps, although I might be able to get away with using a well-equipped Mac mini for this purpose; and I already have a spare Mac monitor, mouse, and keyboard. Considering these factors, it might actually cost me less.

Thanks for your feedback, Kevin!

Best,

Geoff

[soapbox]

By the way, I also started this topic at two other forums. Here are the links, in case anyone wants to follow along:

Thread at Keyboard Magazine's Keyboard Corner Forum

Thread at East West/Soundsonline General Discussion Forum

Best,

Geoff

[looneytunes]

Hi Again, Geoff,

Regarding Receptor configuration -
I have 2 Receptors: one used for gigging and experimenting with running unsupported VSTis, and one used for project studio work (where I try to keep stable hardware and plugs).

The studio unit just came from Muse last January, and has 2gig RAM and a 400gig HD. This unit runs VERY smoothely, and I barely see CPU peaks on it. This unit is running most of the Sample Library type plugins I listed before.

The gigging unit also has 2gig of Ram, and a 100g hd. I find this unit is almost as smooth as the studio unit, but not quite. For example, running Ivory at buffer size 32, and with heavy playing will cause some cpu spikes (same settings will not cause the same spikes on the studio unit). Of course, this is a torture benchmark - Ivory can be played quite well at 64 and 128 buffer sizes.

Here are the HW differences: Muse is now suggesting using a different RAM than they initially specified (PC3200 DDR, instead of PC2700) - claiming the different RAM gives you better data bandwidth. The other possibility is that larger HDs can have greater RAM caches, and different paging characteristics.

Muse recommends only using the 400g HD Receptor in studios, saying the fans are louder, and ventilation requirements are more strict.

Regarding DAWs, I mainly use ProTools, and also like DP as a front end. I'm betting that both of these platforms will have some kind of multi-computer solution to compete with Logic eventually. Totally makes sense for DP. Kinda makes sense for ProTools, even though it undercuts Digi's own hardware a bit.

Regarding the Kompakt/Kontakt flakiness - It mostly has to do with loading and remembering settings. A little to do with engine performance. I try to keep-in-Kontakt as much as possible, accessing Kompakt Libraries (like SO platinum, Ra, or Collussus) from one Kontakt instance, using multiple outputs.

I'm having a hard time characterizing processor usage for Platinum on receptor. I really haven't done any good benchmarking, nor very intense sequencing this way. With simple 4 channels of Kontakt going, I'm guessing that I was getting something like 50-60% Receptor CPU averages. This is highly dependent on the Midi-Activity and DFD activity, but I get the impression this is on the low side.

I hear that many users get frustrated with DFD, and simply load as much into RAM as they can before playing sequences (turning off DFD). Of course, this will give you the best CPU/Disk performance.

Best Regards,
Kevin L

[Syncopator]

Kevin,

Thanks for this fantastic review. Just for clarification, you wrote:

[quote="looneytunes"]With simple 4 channels of Kontakt going, I'm guessing that I was getting something like 50-60% Receptor CPU averages.[/quote]

I'm hoping you didn't mean 4 MIDI channels. Did you mean 4 instances of Kontakt, which were each loaded with presets, or something else?

Thanks,

-M

[soapbox]

Thanks so much, Kevin. I've got a pretty good feel for how EWQLSO Platinum functions on Receptor now, thanks to your posts.

Here are the HW differences: Muse is now suggesting using a different RAM than they initially specified (PC3200 DDR, instead of PC2700) - claiming the different RAM gives you better data bandwidth. The other possibility is that larger HDs can have greater RAM caches, and different paging characteristics.

I presume you're saying that your gigging Receptor has the PC2700 RAM and your studio Receptor has the PC3200 DDR. Is that right? As for the larger hard drive issue, I'm left wondering whether I made the right choice by equipping my G5 with a Western Digital Raptor drive for my EWQLSO Platinum library. The Raptor drive is faster at 10,000 RPM than other drives. On the other hand, the 74 GB Raptor drive I purchased was the largest on the market at the time, but still small by the standards we're talking about. I wonder if a slower but larger drive would have been better suited for the EWQLSO Platinum library.

This is very helpful. Thanks again, Kevin.

Best,

Geoff

P.S. Good to see you here, Syncopator.

[looneytunes]

Hi Again,

Glad I can help guys.

Syncopator: You are correct, my 'lame' benchmark was simply 4 instances of Kompakt.

Geoff: Yes, the gigging unit has PC2700 RAM. I'm thinking about switching that over to the PC 3200 DDR RAM as well.

Just some other random notes:
I have the WDR Raptor on my G5, and I use this strictly for recording. I went the route of having eSATA drives in an external enclosure for all my sample librarys that I play from the Mac. The theory was that if/when I move to the next Mac, I would simply bring all the libs with me. In actuality (due to NI's auth scheme), I will have to deauth and re-auth when I move machines, but this shouldn't be too big a deal. The latest crop of 7200rpm eSata drives seem to have really good specs, and nearly compare to the Raptor.

I also wanted to say - just in general - that although I think that offloading to Receptor lacks the seemless approach that other DAWs are moving towards, I like the idea of re-factoring certain plugs/libraries to certain independent devices. Also, I tend to have some redundancy in plugs on my DAW and on my receptor - so in a way, Receptor is a HW version of Freeze Tracks for me. I still want my Receptor to do more, and faster, but for what it is today, I find it quite capable.

Please keep asking more questions if you gottem!

Best Regards,
Kevin L

[Syncopator]

[quote="looneytunes"]Hi Again,

Glad I can help guys.

Syncopator: You are correct, my 'lame' benchmark was simply 4 instances of Kompakt.[/quote]

Thanks again, Kevin. This is all very helpful. That actually sounds pretty good. This has been very helpful!

(I wonder why the quoting isn't displaying properly in my replies! Aargh!!)

-M

[soapbox]

Please keep asking more questions if you gottem!

Thanks, Kevin. I'm happy to oblige!

I have the WDR Raptor on my G5, and I use this strictly for recording. I went the route of having eSATA drives in an external enclosure for all my sample librarys that I play from the Mac. The theory was that if/when I move to the next Mac, I would simply bring all the libs with me. In actuality (due to NI's auth scheme), I will have to deauth and re-auth when I move machines, but this shouldn't be too big a deal. The latest crop of 7200rpm eSata drives seem to have really good specs, and nearly compare to the Raptor.

That's interesting. Are they set up as a RAID? How are they connected to your Mac? I don't recall G5's coming with external SATA ports, so I presume you had to buy some sort of SATA PCI card. Is that right?

I also wanted to say - just in general - that although I think that offloading to Receptor lacks the seemless approach that other DAWs are moving towards, I like the idea of re-factoring certain plugs/libraries to certain independent devices.

I like that idea too. I would imagine though that Receptor would be much more seamless under UniWire. While I realize that an RTAS version of UniWire is still in the works, I understand that the VST version of UniWire can be wrapped into Pro Tools using fxpansion's VST -> RTAS Adapter. (I believe Muse's Ted Rackley used that combination in one of his video blogs.) Have you tried UniWire yet, Kevin?

I still want my Receptor to do more, and faster, but for what it is today, I find it quite capable.

That's reassuring. Thanks again, Kevin.

Best,

Geoff

[looneytunes]

Hi again,

Yes, I went with a FirmTek Sata PCI card, and dual bay external enclosure. I believe the disks are Maxtor DiamondMax 3 300g drives. The drives are not Raided, they simply appear as two separate disks on my desktop. These work quite well for me, even sharing the pci bus with ProTools cards (for you, running PT LE, you could use as much PCI bandwidth as you wanted). I am running the Dual 2g G5, so it doesn't have the PCIexpress sata cards (which have double the throughput as the one I have - for about the same price). If you are doing heavy disk streaming, this is the way to go. You will isolate your recording drive bus-trafic from your sample-playback drives, good/better than internal drive bus speeds, and an external solution that you can potentially migrate to new machines. I find the drives/enclosures quieter than the old SCSI ones I used to use too.

I've played with early versions of Uniwire/RTAS adapter, but haven't tried seriously recording with it yet. The early versions were a bit tricky to balance buffer sizes between PT and Receptor. I hear this is much better now.

Regards,
Kevin L

[soapbox]

Kevin, thanks for the description of your G5 drive setup. I offloaded my recording drives to a separate bus as well; but in my case, it's a SCSI bus - an Atto Express PCI UL3D card coupled with a Glyph dual bay removable drive Naked rack. I agree that its noise level is less than ideal, but the drives still work very well. As for sample playback, the rest of my libraries are on a FireWire 800 drive (EWQLSO library excepted, of course).

I'm tempted to try it your way in the future though. If so, your post above will certainly come in handy!

I also appreciate the UniWire balance buffer size info you shared. I'm glad to know it's better now; but if I buy a Receptor, I'll keep in mind, just in case it's still a minor issue.

Thanks again, Kevin!

Best,

Geoff