Suggestions on a powerful MacPro setup for composing with VI's

[Marsdy]

Originally Posted by dwaynedelario

+1000. Many people are finding success using Plogue Bidule or even Reaper as a VI host and rewiring the audio back into Pro Tools. This is extremely easy and super efficient. A couple years ago I had to create a freakish environment in Logic to do the same thing, but now I have no idea why anyone would ignore these two options.

-J

For me the problem with Bidule is that Rewire only uses one core of the Mac's CPU (or has that changed recently?) This was a complete bottleneck for me using a reasonable sized orchestral template (5 to 6 GB). I'd be maxing out that one core on quite modest arrangements regardless of high high buffers were set.

When I used Logic and Bidule, I ended up doing a loop back via ADAT which worked OK but not at buffers lower than 512. That's going to be expensive to do in Pro Tools!!

I've been using VE Pro very successfully. I've gone down from 2 macs and 3 pcs to just one MacPro running PTHD and VE Pro.

After 14 years, I've given up on Logic. There's no doubt it is more efficient at running VIs than PT but nowhere near enough for me to want to go back to it! I also have DP and that is nearer to PT in terms of CPU efficiency. I've tried VE Pro with both Logic and PTHD on the same Mac using the same VE Pro template. I'm having to up the buffers earlier in PT than in Logic but not that MUCH earlier. I've been pleasantly surprised.

MIDI editing in Logic and DP is still deeper than PT but, there is some MIDI stuff in PT which is a LOT better like multiple controller lanes in the MIDI editor or copying and moving controller data. All in all, what I've lost from using Logic, I've gained elsewhere in PT.

VI's are handled far more elegantly in PT. In Logic for example, you'll need an Aux track for your audio AND a MIDI track for each channel of your multi-timbral VI apart from the first. Clunky. The same thing applies to DP unless they've changed that in DP7 which I've not got yet. In PT you just need one Instrument track per channel. Far more neat. In my default template, I have half the number of tracks in PT than I did in Logic for the same number of instruments.

Play I've never been happy with in Logic or PT. If I was using it more than I do (which is not much,) I'd want to dedicate a slave to it and pipe audio the old fashioned way to my DAW.

You hear people complaining about PT8 but in my experience, the grass is NOT greener in Logic Land. It's a rather smelly brown colour if you ask me!!!

[ronwasserman]

The play engine is awful ESPECIALLY as a RTAS plug. If you do want to run Hollywood Strings, you should get a separate mac just to run that one program.

Personally I use Reaper via rewire in the box and Kontakt on a sep mac. Perfect setup and I get to avoid using RTAS VIs.

[ronwasserman]

One more thing. VE Pro is a great option but I had no luck using EW Play with it.

[Dism]

Originally Posted by ronwasserman

The play engine is awful ESPECIALLY as a RTAS plug. If you do want to run Hollywood Strings, you should get a separate mac just to run that one program.

Personally I use Reaper via rewire in the box and Kontakt on a sep mac. Perfect setup and I get to avoid using RTAS VIs.

I have a fairly different experience with Play.

I don't know if it's because I'm lucky, or what have you, but it runs GREAT on both my Mac and PC setups. At least since Play 2.0 came out. It already runs on it's own 64-bit memory server outside of PT, so it takes full advantage of all of my extra RAM.

I always have it running alongside BFD2, Xpand among other plugs with almost no hiccups whatsoever. Neither of my setups are anything close to a octo-core in terms of resources, either.

[JMDNYC]

Originally Posted by ronwasserman

One more thing. VE Pro is a great option but I had no luck using EW Play with it.

It's working now, for about the last three weeks or so (only in 32 bit on the Mac Side)

[gsilbers]

jumped to the end here but vienna ensemble pro is great.

the other option is Plogue bidule as a rewire slave which can load VSTs and AU.
plus u can customize its layout howevery u want. so vst instrument plus some cool vst effect, or 20 AU instruments going through the same effect .. its a great program, very flexible.

[kirkgale]

Daring to chime in from the PC (HD3 Accel) side (after abandoning Macs due to the PCIX card debacle) since no one is zooming in on Park's specific question (possibly due to lack of Mac experience w/ the 12 core Gulftowns)...

We all composers have the same dream of maxing out VI use on a single computer....So one year ago I bought the first generation i7 Extreme chip but found it maxxing out on the PT computer when loading/using a mere
6-ish VI's (e.g., the Air set plus Spectrasonics). Max-out meaning getting PT error messages re CPU too slow and/or crackling, usually when the PC's CPU meter reaches or starts jumping past 70% or so.

Since 6-ish VI's (some multichannel) is nowhere near enough for composing, I upgraded to the Gulftown 12 core Extreme (is it 980X...?) recently...

WOW what a difference....! I can't get the CPU meter (again on the PT computer) above 40% usage even tho I'm running about double the VI's and/or VI channels as I did w/ the 8 core Extreme (i.e., the 6-ish Air
VI's plus all Spectrasonics plugs, plus Yellow Tools Independence and Titan plus 3 NI VI's).

I find this is enough for composing (when coupled with the slave PC running G-Player and 4-ish old generation East-West classic VI's).

All told, the gulftown has enabled me to achieve the dream composer's setup template of 80-ish Instrument Tracks all running into PT from VI's on the same host and the slave PC (mostly from VEPro shells, as I was never able to fix the crackling behavior running those same VI's via Bidule).

In short, the Gulftowns are giving double VI power even tho only 50% more chips are indicated.

To the present...!

[park]

Thanks again for all the great info.

So if I’ll try to sum it up:

• I want to get the most powerful Pro Tools system possible on one MacPro for composing using lots of VI's.

• But Pro Tools 8 is 32 bit. So Pro Tools can only access up to 3-4 GB RAM.

• Any VI that doesn't have some kind of "memory server technology" will not be able to access RAM outside Pro Tools and will be limited to share these 3-4 GB.

• VI's that uses some kind of "memory server technology" successfully are Kontakt 4, Omnisphere/Trillian, EWQL PLAY (or not?)

• Some people have recommended a workaround if the VI's don't have a "memory server technology": one can use a "helper" or a "host" via ReWire – like Vienna Ensemble Pro and Plouge Biduel, or another DAW like Logic or Reaper – to get the VI's work in a 64 bit environment outside Pro Tools.

• But, it seems like Vienna Ensemble Pro doesn't support EWQL PLAY very well.

• And on Plouges site it says that Plouge Biduel is only 32 bit in OS X. If so – it's not a real solution.

Have I got it right?

It looks like there are some software and workarounds that can give me what I want.
I guess I’ll will take a chance and buy a 12-core MacPro with lots of RAM and hard drives.
If it doesn’t work as well as I hope, I’ll have to adapt in one way or another.


Thanks,

Pete

[usastra]

PLAY doesn't work in VE PRO afaik, though people are reporting using PLAY succesfully in Reaper rewired to PT.
VE Pro and Reaper two nice addons to PT, both can do 32 bit and 64 bit

[Marsdy]

Pete

Sounds about right except I think Play is working with VE Pro now (but I don't know how well!)

Actually I see VE Pro and Bidule as much more than workarounds to a problem. For most composers, working templates can get pretty big and if you're working on a few cues in one day you don't want to be constantly reloading it into your DAW. Having a core template loaded in VE Pro or Bidule circumnavigates this. Kontakt has it's new background loading thing which helps.

Even though Bidule is currently 32 bit, you can break the RAM limit using the "memory server" VIs like Kontakt. But don't forget the single core limitation of Rewire if you use Bidule. It's a total deal breaker for me because you're only using one core for everything that's loaded in Bidule (unless this has improved very recently.) Also VE Pro has a further advantage of running VIs on slave machines over a network.

I don't know if you know about http://www.vi-control.net/forum/portal.php but it's the internet home of this sort of thing.