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joergalfter
03-23-2013, 12:30 AM
Hi Community.
Ok. I'm on of this frustrated Kontakt users, and it is about time that something happens. I waited a year now for updates (toAAX) and bug fixes, but nothing changed....

First, here's my setup:

MacPro 2x2.4 Quad Core Intel Xeon, 32GB RAM,
Boot Drive 256GB SSD
Samples on 1TB HHD intern
OSX 10.7.5
ProTools 10HD Native 10.3.2
Apogee Symphony I/O
Audio: Glyphs GT050Qs via FireWire800

I'm running KONTAKT 5.1 AAX with LASS Strings 2.0 Full, Galaxy Vintage D,
Komplete 8 and Abbey Road Drums.

It is still a joke. There is no f...n way that I can have the workflow I need to work, especially with the LASS Strings.
The CPU usage is ridiculous.

4 Audiotracks (Acou. Guit. & Voc), a few AUX tracks with effect (BreVerb, Alitiverb, act), and with TWO KONTAKT 5 INSTRUMENTS open, (running LASS Strings) a HW Buffer Size of 256 is not possible anymore... but 512 not acceptable for me to play.

Memory Server ON in Kontakt does a little bit, but that's not the holy grale. Multiprocessor in Kontakt is OFF, and ProTools reserves 4 Processors out of 16.

Does anybody here have an idea, since NI does not, and a hand full of Logic users telling me that is runs great .... sure.

Any help is highly appreciated!

Thanks
J.

TOM@METRO
03-23-2013, 12:54 AM
Have you tried Reaper ReWired for the Kontakt instruments?

peterle
03-23-2013, 04:03 AM
Komplete 8 and Kontakt here running very well
on PT 10 HD2 , but :

"ProTools reserves 4 Processors out of 16."

i am running 14 of 16 processors for protools

maybe thats the difference?

BTW i had also no Problems with the RTAS Version of Kontakt....

since i didnt have LASS - strings i cannot comment , but the rest

(abbey Drummer etc ) performes well when Memory-Server is on.

krazylain
03-23-2013, 04:09 AM
Check out Vienna Ensemble Pro 5 (http://www.viennaensemblepro.com/#!overview).
It also helps as you can keep templates of your favorite Kontakt 5 multis and other VIs stored independently of Pro Tools projects.

John_Toolbox
03-23-2013, 05:35 AM
How much RAM is used in Kontakt with this setup?(what does the memory display show?) Remember that pro tools 10 is still a 32bit app limited to 4gb of RAM, so it's not going to have VI performance comparable to a 64bit program like Logic.

Kontakt memory server, from my testing, appears to create more 32bit instances of kontakt in the background to be able to exceed a 32-bit host(pro tools)'s memory contraints. It's not effficient at all when compared to using a separate 64bit host like VE Pro, Plogue bidule, reaper, etc.

Emcha_audio
03-23-2013, 07:56 AM
Unfortunatly until pro tools is 64 bit this will remain a problem. I suggest you user either reaper or VEP rewired into pro tools for the time being.

DetroitT
03-23-2013, 08:56 AM
I use Bidule rewired (Free) with Kontakt 5 AU. K5 Works fine for smaller libraries in PT's AAX but larger hungry libs require some other hosting.

joergalfter
03-25-2013, 01:12 AM
Thanks Guys! Will check out some of the rewire suggestions.
@ peterle: The processor change between 4 or up to 14 for PT makes no difference. Large String combinations are not possible.
@John Toolbox: yes, I know about the 32Bit/4GB limitation, and this is and was my first bet. NI is selling Kontakt 5 for PT users, knowing that this will be an issue.
Anyway, Thanks guys. Will try to rewire and see.
Aloha
Joerg

musicman691
03-26-2013, 12:00 PM
Hi Community.
Ok. I'm on of this frustrated Kontakt users, and it is about time that something happens. I waited a year now for updates (toAAX) and bug fixes, but nothing changed....

First, here's my setup:

MacPro 2x2.4 Quad Core Intel Xeon, 32GB RAM,
Boot Drive 256GB SSD
Samples on 1TB HHD intern
OSX 10.7.5
ProTools 10HD Native 10.3.2
Apogee Symphony I/O
Audio: Glyphs GT050Qs via FireWire800

I'm running KONTAKT 5.1 AAX with LASS Strings 2.0 Full, Galaxy Vintage D,
Komplete 8 and Abbey Road Drums.

It is still a joke. There is no f...n way that I can have the workflow I need to work, especially with the LASS Strings.
The CPU usage is ridiculous.

4 Audiotracks (Acou. Guit. & Voc), a few AUX tracks with effect (BreVerb, Alitiverb, act), and with TWO KONTAKT 5 INSTRUMENTS open, (running LASS Strings) a HW Buffer Size of 256 is not possible anymore... but 512 not acceptable for me to play.

Memory Server ON in Kontakt does a little bit, but that's not the holy grale. Multiprocessor in Kontakt is OFF, and ProTools reserves 4 Processors out of 16.

Does anybody here have an idea, since NI does not, and a hand full of Logic users telling me that is runs great .... sure.

Any help is highly appreciated!

Thanks
J.
Any reverb (especially convolution ones like Altiverb) will really eat your cpu resources. Hence having to use high buffers and getting high cpu usage.

Joe.LoDuca
03-27-2013, 07:02 AM
joergalfter: I had an issue that I believe was identical to yours. I don't have the same plugins you do but about a year ago, I created an extremely simple proTools session with only 2 tracks: the MIDI track was triggering a stereo audio track with 1 VI (Philharmonik by Ik-multimedia). Anyway, just playing a few notes would send the CPU thru the roof. Protools would explode on me, was totally unusable until I did one thing:

Go into your BIOS settings and look for something called "Multithreading" or "Hyperthreading". All motherboards are different but for me (gigabyte motherboard) this feature is ON by default. And from what I have seen it doesn't play nice with protools. Now some on these forums might disagree with me but.... look for it, shut it off if its on and try your same sessions... If your system works like mine, the difference will be EXPLOSIVE! you will suddenly be able to run multiple plugin VI where under the old way, 3 notes going to 1 VI would set it off. -- and I think you are mentioning in your posts about 16 cpus or something like that.. With that going on, your hyperthreading is likely ON.. This all falls under the "Virtual world" of microsoft, where things are not as they seem... 16 CPU's, thats a joke! And so is Microsoft much of the time.. If you shut off hyperthreading, Protools will report the "Actual" real life number of CPU's your system has..

Good luck.. Strongly suggest you look at this before you give up!

Joe

joergalfter
03-27-2013, 07:29 PM
Thanks Joe, but I don't have anything to do with Microsoft, I'm running Mac's - exclusively.

The problem is the 32BIT limitation of Pro Tools at that time. PT is only able to use up to 4GB RAM, so it doesn't matter how much you put in your machine. And I have 32GB.
KONTAKT was not very PT friendly over the years, but finally they put out the AAX version a few month ago. And a lot of Instruments run fine and smooth,.. but only under certain Playback and BufferSize rules.
That all will change with PT being 64Bit and accessing the entire RAM.... when ever that might be.
Most likely this will also be the end of RTAS PlugIns, so we all have to upgrade to AAX version of whatever we are running.... probably.

Well, thanks again for the suggestion. I'm fooling around with REAPER right now and also wanna check BIDULE, since both solutions allow to rewire the KONTAKT into ProTools, while having access to the RAM.

Best
Joerg

groundcontrol
03-27-2013, 10:44 PM
Depending on your needs you could consider Vienna Ensemble Pro. It is the standard professional platform for hosting VSTis and considering all it can do and that it also comes with a mini VSL library, it is not that expensive.

Darryl Ramm
03-27-2013, 10:54 PM
On Mac, Kontact comes with a memory server which is basically equivalent to Vienna Ensemble Pro. You should try without and then try enabling this and seeing how well or badly works. As usual go read the Kontakt documentation. Other folks here may be currently running this and able to offer more advice.

Kontact on Windows does not have the memory server feature.

Darryl

groundcontrol
03-28-2013, 12:02 AM
The server helps (and if you use Kontakt inside PT you should definitely use it) but for any serious use such as working with large orchestral templates VEP is a must.

joergalfter
03-28-2013, 11:54 AM
Of course I use the Memory Server. Without that Kontakt is useless as RTAS/AAX with all third party samples. But that is not solving the problem. Trying REAPER and BIDULE now.

joergalfter
03-28-2013, 02:40 PM
Ok.
REAPER and BIDULE are both not working flawless as ReWire with my setup. That's disappointing since many others have good experiences with it. Well, I'm running OSX 10.7.5 and PT 10.3.2 - everything I read on the web was referring to PT 8....to 9 ... and at least over one year ago.

For now I use Kontakt as AAX, Memeory Server ON, Multi Core Support OFF, and PT on HW 256, 4 Processors...

VEP is too expensive as a ReWre Only solution, so not wanna go for that. LASS Strings was my sound of choice, so I hope there will be some other solution...

Thanks for all your responses, "brothers in 32BIt" !
J.

groundcontrol
03-28-2013, 03:33 PM
You could always setup a 2nd machine as server if you have one lying around.

An older build that was kept as backup...

There are lots of possibilities. You can use a "real" soundcard if you have one, or something like Nerds ipMidi coupled with Audinate Dante "virtual soundcard" for audio over ip to make your own kind of VEP solution.

However, when you research this, you soon realize how much a good value VEP represents.

Best!

joergalfter
03-29-2013, 04:58 PM
Yes, after all checks, VEP seems to be the best solution. I have to order a USB key to test it though, so this will take a while.
I know that many colleagues running VEP instances, so I hope it is as stabile in my configuration.
REAPER and BIDULE both are NOT working flawless with PT 10.3.2 and OSX 10.7.5. and LASS strings.
Happy Easter!
Joerg