Optimization for Multiple VI's

[tdblanchard]

Hey gang,
I've been running into some major issues with PT11 sessions that have multiple instances of CPU-heavy Native Instruments VI's.
I've resorted to bouncing to track whenever possible, but would love to get back to my old flow of working with MIDI until we're ready for mix.
I'm wondering if there's a PT11 "white paper" somewhere for cats that are doing heavy scoring or sound design with CPU-hoggin' VI's.
Or is PT just not "there" yet when it comes to running sessions that have multiple VI's alongside audio or am I missing something?
Thanks in advance!
~Tim

[Southsidemusic]

H
We work heavily with VI sessions around 20-25 + VI like NI Kontakt5 / Play / Nexus2 / PhalanX / Structure / XLN AD2 and more at sessions with 80-100 tracks so I know what you are talking about. Undortunately I don't know anything other than having at least 16GB Ram and fast SSD drives aswell as running at 512/1024 buffer setting and as we have HD11 we use Disc cache but other than that I never heard of any "magic trick" for that.

The only thing other than what I wrote is making sure all plugins and drivers etc are up to date aswell as all optimizations of the computers.

We usualy bounce the Instrument tracks and then save them at the botton deactivated until we are 100000% satisfied and if we wanna make any changes we activate the Instrument track and fix what we wanna fix and bounce down one last time and deactivate the tracks again after bounce.

Best Regards
Christopher

[albee1952]

How well-mannered your computer is can make a huge difference in VI performance. With PT10, 2 or 3 Kontact instances put my rig on the ropes. PT11 made a big difference. I found a similar improvement going from my quad core i7/12GB computer, to my newer 6 core/32GB setup. The old rig(with 10 or 11) could only handle 3-4 amp sims. The 6 core ran a session with 9 amp sims, a few VI's, and handled it at a 32 buffer(when the artist decided he needed to add a few more live tracks, halfway thru the mix)

Are you keeping the Kontact libraries on their own drive?(3 drives is a must for "power users')

[Southsidemusic]

Originally Posted by albee1952

How well-mannered your computer is can make a huge difference in VI performance. With PT10, 2 or 3 Kontact instances put my rig on the ropes. PT11 made a big difference. I found a similar improvement going from my quad core i7/12GB computer, to my newer 6 core/32GB setup. The old rig(with 10 or 11) could only handle 3-4 amp sims. The 6 core ran a session with 9 amp sims, a few VI's, and handled it at a 32 buffer(when the artist decided he needed to add a few more live tracks, halfway thru the mix)

Are you keeping the Kontact libraries on their own drive?(3 drives is a must for "power users')

NI libraries aswell as all sample libraries on SSD's aswell as OS SSD's in All Macs here and recording to SSD's on all Macs too so the WDC Blacks we have are all backups and installers back from 2010

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by Southsidemusic

NI libraries aswell as all sample libraries on SSD's aswell as OS SSD's in All Macs here and recording to SSD's on all Macs too so the WDC Blacks we have are all backups and installers back from 2010

All my stuff resides on 7200 rpm spinners with no real problem. Samples on one drive, PT another, and of course the system drive - all separate. FW800 or Thunderbolt as I switch off from one to the other from time to time.

I do use Kontakt's memory server and that seems to help. My other sample engine is EW Play 4 for EWQLSO, Ra and Stormdrum 2. For those I load allf rom disk and don't use disk streaming. That along with 32 gig ram helps a ton. I never have to render to audio with this setup for sessions upwards of 50 tracks.

What does bring things the system to it's knees is not disk access but certain other vi's which are all computational ones like Synthmaster and some of the Arturia synths when using multiples of those. When I start getting to 20 to 24 tracks I'm flirting with disaster (sorry to Molly Hatchet).