# How much RAM do you have on your DAW?



## JokerOne (Jun 9, 2022)

I bought my machine in 2012. It was state of the art back then 7i 8 core, 32GB RAM. Paid about $2K for the parts and put it together.

It still works fine, but in order to max out the memory (64GB), I would have to replace all the memory sticks (8GB each), which would be about $200+ for DDR3. 

I use the machine professional for my day job, but only hobby work for audio. I have a few Orchestral libraries (BBCSO Core/Hollywood Opus/Komplete 13 Ultimate) that are starting to top out my memory from time to time.

Personally I think its time to move to 64GB of RAM and I can squeeze another 3 or so years of use out of it and let the chip shortage prices settle down before buying another state of the art machine.


I was wondering how much RAM people here have and if its satisfying or do you feel a squeeze?

thanks in advance!


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## AlphaCen (Jun 9, 2022)

64GB on Intel Mac mini 2018. Still enough for my needs (in-the-box production with lots of VIs).


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## AndyP (Jun 9, 2022)

128 GB on iMac i9 (lots of orchestral VIs). 16 GB MBPro.


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## Greyscale (Jun 9, 2022)

I bought my PC End of 2020 with an i9 12Core CPU, 128GB RAM and a lot of SSDs. I use the machine for everything, so I tend to also buy a really big machine that hopefully last for a few years. my last one lasted 8 years and is still working fine but the same problem as yours so I thought well buy a new one


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## RogiervG (Jun 9, 2022)

64GB


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## tmpc (Jun 9, 2022)

. . . and at the other end of the range. I use two 2012 MacBook Pro's with 16GB of RAM in each, and a 2014 HP zBook 15 G2 with 32GB of RAM. I use mostly Kontakt libraries and have found that I can always get away with setting the sample preload to 12k samples. This really cuts down on the memory requirement of many libraries.


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## HCMarkus (Jun 9, 2022)

64 GB in my Mac Studio Ultra. Just moved from a 48 GB Mac Pro 5,1. Running DP, I only enable the tracks in my template that I'm using, so RAM has never been an issue for me.

I used to run a large preload on my Mac Pro, as I was trying to squeeze every bit of performance from it. Now that my VI samples are stored on NVMe SSD, I'm going to look into reducing the preload size as tmpc mentions. Not that RAM has been an issue, but if the machine will work smoothly with small preload, might as well optimize.


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## KJL (Jun 9, 2022)

32GB and almost maxed out with libraries like the Berlin Mains, Arks 1-5, etc. I've set a low DFD buffer in the SINE player options so that it doesn't quickly maxed out the RAM.


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## JokerOne (Jun 9, 2022)

thanks! I just bought the two 32GB sticks (64GB). It should hold me for a while.


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## José Herring (Jun 9, 2022)

128 gigs on my main machine and 64 gigs on the slave (which I'm not using at the moment but is looking likely that I'll put it back in commission again and probably raise it to 128 gigs as well).


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## jbuhler (Jun 9, 2022)

I have 64GB on my 2015 i7 iMac and 128GB in my 2020 i9 iMac. I appreciate having the 128GB, but 64GB was perfectly serviceable up to the point I got the i9 (November 2020). The main difference is that I used fewer mic positions and a higher buffer with the i7 as part of the default set up. But 128GB is still not enough to load my full orchestra template with all the mic positions I might want. In any case, I'm sure 64GB will be a material improvement. Going from 32GB to 64GB was a much bigger improvement for me than moving from 64Gb to 128 GB, and on par with moving from 16GB to 32GB.


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## kgdrum (Jun 9, 2022)

Using 96 gig in a 5,1 MacPro


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## JokerOne (Jun 9, 2022)

José Herring said:


> 128 gigs on my main machine and 64 gigs on the slave (which I'm not using at the moment but is looking likely that I'll put it back in commission again and probably raise it to 128 gigs as well).


Hi, How does the slave work? Is this a PCIe card or something? My Motherboard limit is 64GB. thanks


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## José Herring (Jun 9, 2022)

JokerOne said:


> Hi, How does the slave work? Is this a PCIe card or something? My Motherboard limit is 64GB. thanks


You could go the hardwire route and use a PCIe card with wordclock but the simplest and really effective way is to use VEPro7 and network the second computer. VEPro acts as a VST host and can send and receive audio and midi data over ethernet. 
It also happens to be a brilliant piece of software.


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## JokerOne (Jun 9, 2022)

José Herring said:


> You could go the hardwire route and use a PCIe card with wordclock but the simplest and really effective way is to use VEPro7 and network the second computer. VEPro acts as a VST host and can send and receive audio and midi data over ethernet.
> It also happens to be a brilliant piece of software.


I see. thanks. 

I think the upgrade to 64GB will hold me for a while. At some point I'll pull the trigger on a new machine. thanks again!


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## José Herring (Jun 9, 2022)

JokerOne said:


> I see. thanks.
> 
> I think the upgrade to 64GB will hold me for a while. At some point I'll pull the trigger on a new machine. thanks again!


When you get your new one turn your old one into a VEPro slave. I did that for years until I just built two new machines. But, before I'd build one machine and the old machine becomes the slave.


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## JokerOne (Jun 9, 2022)

José Herring said:


> When you get your new one turn your old one into a VEPro slave. I did that for years until I just built two new machines. But, before I'd build one machine and the old machine becomes the slave.


thanks.


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## Henning (Jun 9, 2022)

256 gb ram. It helps 😉


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## Alex Temple (Jun 9, 2022)

Currently 512GB across three systems (256GB on my main rig, 2x 128GB sample machines). Both 128 machines were my masters at one point or another. I built the 256GB machine and used it for a year or so as my only machine, but I brought the others back out to try to alleviate the CPU hit that running a huge VEP template alongside Cubase was causing. I'm currently using around 80% of the total RAM in my template. It's a lot, but it lets me use all the mic positions I want while leaving sufficient headroom for future additions. At this point the CPU is my main bottleneck.


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## HCMarkus (Jun 9, 2022)

That's the nice thing about disabling tracks, at least in DP, as opposed to muting... system resources (RAM and CPU) are not utilized for disabled tracks. Keeps things humming along nicely. 

I can see how some workflows might be negatively impacted, but the Apple Silicon machines are so quick to load, it doesn't bother me.


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## ed buller (Jun 9, 2022)

256gb

best

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## telecode101 (Jun 9, 2022)

32GB


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## AceAudioHQ (Jun 9, 2022)

32gb, I had 16 on my previous computer and it was already enough for everything.


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## EgM (Jun 9, 2022)

32gb on my DAW machine, 64 and 32 on the two other VEP slaves


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## Roger Newton (Jun 9, 2022)

32 GB


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## MusicStudent (Jun 9, 2022)

OMG, 16GB here. I feel so inadequite. And I am literally green with envy.


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## Roger Newton (Jun 9, 2022)

MusicStudent said:


> OMG, 16GB here. I feel so inadequite. And I am literally green with envy.


Why though? When I started with computers I had 4 megabytes of ram on an Atari using Notator. I miss those days.


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## thevisi0nary (Jun 9, 2022)

Even if only a few projects start to top out the 32gb you currently have, IMO it's a lot less stressful knowing that you won't reach a 64gb ceiling while working. I would get the 64gb if you know you will not be upgrading the whole computer within the next year or so.


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## cedricm (Jun 9, 2022)

Built my PC in November 2020. 128 GB RAM Ryzen 3700X.
Since then, upgraded to Thunderbolt 3 and many, many SSDs.


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## telecode101 (Jun 9, 2022)

I think a better question would be, how many posters on here just use that computer as a DAW only, or do they also do graphic design/video editing and/or gaming.


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## nas (Jun 10, 2022)

32gb on main and 64gb on slave.


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## GtrString (Jun 10, 2022)

64 RAM on a 2018 i7 Mac Mini. I max out the processor power before the RAM.


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## Henu (Jun 10, 2022)

64, i9. My old machine (which got replaced last year) had 32 and I could manage with heavy purging, but 64 seems to be the sweet spot for my needs.


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## tressie5 (Jun 10, 2022)

16 GB. The max I can put in is 32 GB, but I'm wondering if it'll make that much of a difference since my CPU is a lowly Ryzen 2500u and I rely more on VSTi's than Kontakt instruments. If I knew for sure I'd see significant improvement with Chromaphone, Massive X and Pigments, I'd spring for a matching set of Kingston sticks.

And also maybe swap out my CD RAM drive for a caddy with a 2T SSD.


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## widescreen (Jun 10, 2022)

128 GB on main machine (i7 11700).
16 GB on mobile (i7 8550) which is really limiting, but this summer/fall replacement planned which will get 64 GB (and an i7 12700H).


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## Jrides (Jun 10, 2022)

Just built a computer a couple of weeks ago with 64 GB. instead of maxing out the ram, I decided to go with faster SSDs. If the day comes when I run out of memory, hopefully the disk streaming performance will be good enough to compensate.


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## Øivind (Jun 10, 2022)

64GB. Never used it all tho, but nice with some wiggle room.


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## MusicStudent (Jun 13, 2022)

MusicStudent said:


> OMG, 16GB here. I feel so inadequite. And I am literally green with envy.


Just added 16GB for a total of 32. 60USD, not bad I would say. Seems the more I read the posts in this forum the more $$ I spend.


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## Paj (Jun 13, 2022)

Dual-processor 192GB.

Paj
8^)


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## Jrides (Jun 13, 2022)

MusicStudent said:


> OMG, 16GB here. I feel so inadequite. And I am literally green with envy.


 Don’t. The people on this forum are crazy. At the beginning of the year I did a song commission by a local college, on a machine with 2 GB of RAM. Not sure if I will even use half of the ram in my new machine. However I couldn’t pass up the deal I got on those sticks. whatever works for you is how much ram you need TBH.


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## Pincel (Jun 13, 2022)

32 GB currently, and I haven't maxed out yet at any point, but I don't use massive orchestral templates with everything and the kitchen sink thrown in, so it works for me. For massive orchestral stuff, I'd figure 64 GB is about the minimum required these days if you want to be comfortable.


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## tressie5 (Jun 13, 2022)

I only have 16 GB of RAM, so I suppose I should be glad my bread and butter is ambient as I only have to rely on soft synths and not oodles and oodles of orchestral libraries. Just thinking about lining up 1000 Kontakt tracks in Cubase is giving me a stroke!


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## GeoMax (Jun 15, 2022)

256 = 128 on my DAW + 128 one a VEP Server


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## Loerpert (Jun 15, 2022)

128 in my workstation. 64 in the AudioGridder server.


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## Satjez (Jan 6, 2023)

AndyP said:


> 128 GB on iMac i9 (lots of orchestral VIs). 16 GB MBPro.


Hi, I have an offer to buy similar imac i9. How much is lots of orchestral VI? Does your rig still do the job seamlessly?


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## AndyP (Jan 6, 2023)

Satjez said:


> Hi, I have an offer to buy similar imac i9. How much is lots of orchestral VI? Does your rig still do the job seamlessly?


The iMac was a good computer, in the meantime I have switched to a Mac Studio and no longer use Intel computers.

With the 128 GB Ram I have come very far and have only very rarely used my MacPro VEP slaves. In the meantime I have also sold them, the iMac too.
Today I have a Mac Studio with 64 GB RAM and a M1 MacBook Pro if I need more RAM or CPU.

I use many orchestra libraries that are quite RAM intensive. The iMac has usually been sufficient. 

It depends if you use very CPU intensive plugins or big orchestra templates that need a lot of RAM. 

In short, if the price is right, the iMac is a very good computer.


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## Satjez (Jan 6, 2023)

AndyP said:


> The iMac was a good computer, in the meantime I have switched to a Mac Studio and no longer use Intel computers.
> 
> With the 128 GB Ram I have come very far and have only very rarely used my MacPro VEP slaves. In the meantime I have also sold them, the iMac too.
> Today I have a Mac Studio with 64 GB RAM and a M1 MacBook Pro if I need more RAM or CPU.
> ...


Sorry for my dilettantism but just to be sure - 64 in studio is more than 128 in imac?


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## AndyP (Jan 6, 2023)

Satjez said:


> Hi, I have an offer to buy similar imac i9. How much is lots of orchestral VI? Does your rig still do the job seamlessly?


Almost forgotten:

Hollywood Orchestra PLAY and OPUS, VSL, OT, BBCSO, LSCS and a lot of other libraries. 
It's mostly the exzta mics you activate that require additional RAM if you don't want to work only with MIX or Decca mics.

Then sometimes freezing tracks doesn't help anymore and converting to audio to relieve the computer is not my thing.

It's a question of what the more comfort is worth.


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## AndyP (Jan 6, 2023)

Satjez said:


> Sorry for my dilettantism but just to be sure - 64 in studio is more than 128 in imac?


In my experience so far, the 64GB Mac Studio does everything the 128GB iMac did. Somehow the RAM usage and swapping works very well on the M1 machines. I was skeptical at first too, but I haven't had a problem with the less RAM so far.


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## ZeroZero (Jan 6, 2023)

Have you ever thought about putting your system drive on an NMVE M2 perhaps via a PCI 3 card? This will really empower things. It’s not just RAm that matters. I use 64 go here. I can always use freeze tracks if I need and don’t forget to purge instruments like Kontakt. Unload stuff youdontneed


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## Satjez (Jan 6, 2023)

AndyP said:


> In my experience so far, the 64GB Mac Studio does everything the 128GB iMac did. Somehow the RAM usage and swapping works very well on the M1 machines. I was skeptical at first too, but I haven't had a problem with the less RAM so far.


I know that studio might be using different type of RAM and be better optimized with M1. But the price difference is quite noticeable.


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## zwhita (Jan 6, 2023)

32 GB here, but I've only done sketches and basic stuff. I have a basic template for Appassionata that takes about 15GB and a basic Abbey Road One template that takes about 9.5 GB. All the Kontakt ones are significantly less.

This desktop is only an i5 6th generation running Win7, and I also play games on it, so just a basic hobbyist machine. I use more CPU playing Visual Pinball than anything musical.
😄


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## Saxer (Jan 6, 2023)

I got 128 in my new Mac Studio Ultra but it's mainly because Apple doesn't allow to add RAM later (the new Macs have their RAM integrated on the CPU). I rarely use more than 64. My templates aren't gigantic. I load what I need and that's mostly below 100 tracks.


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## Dave Connor (Jan 6, 2023)

Saxer said:


> I got 128 in my new Mac Studio Ultra but it's mainly because Apple doesn't allow to add RAM later (the new Macs have their RAM integrated on the CPU). I rarely use more than 64. My templates aren't gigantic. I load what I need and that's mostly below 100 tracks.


I have 128 between two computers with the ram pretty much maxed out. I've been thinking that I'm not really future-proofing by upgrading into a single-box scenario that won't allow for the load I have split between the two machines now - even with the more efficient use of ram with ARM. So I'm waiting for 256 in a Mac studio of similar specs to the Ultra. My question is: do you find the use of ram substantially more efficient than Intel machines or just somewhat more efficient?


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## JohnG (Jan 6, 2023)

Hundreds. I am a greedy pig.


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## HCMarkus (Jan 6, 2023)

FYI, I am running the smallest allowable pre-load size for Kontakt without any issue on my Mac Studio. This minimizes RAM usage. VI Samples are on external NVMe SSD, but any SSD, SATA or NVMe, should handle the small pre-load with ease.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Jan 6, 2023)

Dave Connor said:


> My question is: do you find the use of ram substantially more efficient than Intel machines or just somewhat more efficient?


It's not the use of RAM, it's the very fast swapping between RAM and the very fast internal solid-state storage.

But I personally haven't tested that on my 64GB Mac Studio and wouldn't really want to. My guess, based on what other people have said, is that you can get away with using virtual memory with lighter projects.


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## Saxer (Jan 6, 2023)

Dave Connor said:


> My question is: do you find the use of ram substantially more efficient than Intel machines or just somewhat more efficient?


I haven't maxed out my RAM up to now so I can't really say something except: it's enough for my needs. Things like copying big bulks of data or loading apps or rebooting are significant faster than on my previous HackMac (Intel i9 also with 128 Gig using the exact same external SSD's) and so it seems that at least the RAM is faster. That can speed up sample streaming which means less preloaded samples necessary. And loading deactivated tracks will be probably faster too. But in the end RAM is RAM.


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## Saxer (Jan 6, 2023)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> It's not the use of RAM, it's the very fast swapping between RAM and the very fast internal solid-state storage.


I don't use the internal SSD for samples but my external SSD's are faster in transferring data on the new Mac. Copying a library of 30 GB in the background takes only seconds. And I don't use extremely fast SSDs. Actually I use a mix of Thunderbolt-1 and USB and never looked for speed. I still use the same external enclosures that I collected since using my Vader helmet Mac 2013.


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## Dave Connor (Saturday at 12:59 AM)

Thanks Nick and Saxer. It seems there are clear advantages to these new machines such as lowering buffer sizes. It’s still not clear to me just how that translates in terms of how much advantage that is in loading large palettes. With no upgrade possibilities in the amount of ram, I’ll probably hang back and see if they offer more in a newer machine, which we’ve heard is likely in the pipeline. Hopefully sooner than later but who knows. In the coming year anyway.


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## JohnG (Saturday at 8:55 AM)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> It's not the use of RAM, it's the very fast swapping between RAM and the very fast internal solid-state storage.


I’ve read that too, Nick but I wonder if that’s going to burn up hard drives? In olden days, you had a finite number of writes, I thought?


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## AR (Saturday at 9:50 AM)

also 256gb here on my main rig. I work in Dolby Atmos. So, min 3 mic positions per instrument. My voice count kills me :/


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## EgM (Saturday at 9:53 AM)

JohnG said:


> I’ve read that too, Nick but I wonder if that’s going to burn up hard drives? In olden days, you had a finite number of writes, I thought?


Samples are only read from drives so no problem there


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## iMovieShout (Saturday at 10:02 AM)

512GB on my main DAW PC, with another 2.2TB on the x12 VEPro7 slaves.


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## storyteller (Saturday at 10:13 AM)

Currently, 414GB (basically maxed out usage) spread across four VEPro servers:

Main/DAW/VEPro - 128GB i9 10 core (Winds/Pianos/Ethnic/Choir/Plucked)
VEPro Server#2 - 128GB i9 10 core (Brass)
VEPro Server#3 - 128GB i7 8 core (Strings)
VEPro Server#4 - 32GB i7 4 core (Percussion)

I could easily use three or four more to have access to all of my libraries at one time. I have only about half of my libraries actively loaded at any given time and max out the ram. So I keep two VEPro configurations per server based on the project scope. I rarely leave my main configuration though.


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## Dave Connor (Saturday at 10:20 AM)

AR said:


> also 256gb here on my main rig. I work in Dolby Atmos. So, min 3 mic positions per instrument. My voice count kills me :/


That’s what I would like in a Mac Studio Ultra. It would end any ram concerns which one really doesn’t want to have with a new machine that ain’t cheap.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Saturday at 12:46 PM)

JohnG said:


> I’ve read that too, Nick but I wonder if that’s going to burn up hard drives? In olden days, you had a finite number of writes, I thought?


Could be, but I can't say that's one of the things that keeps me up at night - especially since I don't do it with sample libraries anyway. 


Saxer said:


> I don't use the internal SSD for samples but my external SSD's are faster in transferring data on the new Mac. Copying a library of 30 GB in the background takes only seconds. And I don't use extremely fast SSDs. Actually I use a mix of Thunderbolt-1 and USB and never looked for speed. I still use the same external enclosures that I collected since using my Vader helmet Mac 2013.


My hunch is that there are multiple factors. I know that my previous machine did everything faster on external spinning drives as soon as I put my system on an SSD a few years ago. Why? Who knows.

^ EDIT: Actually they were all internal drives, but you get the point.

As an aside, I actually did pay attention to the transfer speed of the external SSD I added to my Mac Studio (there was a long thread about it, in fact). Normally I poo-poo backwards-cap specsmanship, but in this case I didn't want to create a bottleneck in my system. The 4TB external drive is just under half as fast as the 4TB of internal storage, but it's still fast, and I figured it was worth an extra $100 for a more manly enclosure.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Saturday at 12:48 PM)

EgM said:


> Samples are only read from drives so no problem there


We're talking about loading more samples than you have RAM for, causing the machine to go to virtual memory (meaning it swaps between the drive and RAM very quickly).


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## dts_marin (Saturday at 1:03 PM)

I built a PC in 2020 with an i9-9900K & 128GBs but DP on Windows has been a nightmare so I'm in the process of migrating to the base model M1 Max Mac Studio for my main rig and make the PC a VEP7 slave.

Hopefully the Studio will be enough to handle MIDI, routing and FX.

Still waiting for VSL to update the damn thing...


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## AR (Monday at 2:21 AM)

Dave Connor said:


> That’s what I would like in a Mac Studio Ultra. It would end any ram concerns which one really doesn’t want to have with a new machine that ain’t cheap.


Yeah, everybody is talking about 13900k and the Mac Ultra. But they are both limited to 128gb. And I just finished a demo piece of my new template that sucked up 140gb RAM (add another 20gb memory for Windows & Nuendo to run stable in the background). Okay, I'm composing in true surround. That sucks up power and RAM that not every person here needs, but it is such a pleasure to listen to your music in a Dolby Atmos environment as if you are live at the recording session. Apple really got my attention when they released the Studio models. But, I thought to myself: My 10980xe is clocked to 4.6ghz and runs without any problems. I can't say that for the Mac Studio, yet. Maybe in the future...


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## stevenson-again (Monday at 2:58 AM)

JohnG said:


> I’ve read that too, Nick but I wonder if that’s going to burn up hard drives? In olden days, you had a finite number of writes, I thought?


My 2c on the new Macs:

- WRT sample HDs, they only "wear out" in any meaningful way if you write and re-write. Within the limits of micro electronics which do actually wear out over a long time (micro cracks) you can access already written data indefinitely. It's only when you are constantly re-writing to the disk is there a theoretical "wear out" but I asked a computer engineer about this and they said it would take 100s of years.

- I actually knew personally one of the top engineers at ARM, a bloke called Julian Sinton. He used to tell me that their chips were so low-powered that they could still run on residual power in the circuits for a while after turning them off. When Apple announced that their new chops were based on ARM tech my head exploded.

- The new chips and fast bus speeds change the game with respect to RAM. That's why the new macs don't have very much in the way of RAM, its because it isn't needed. You don't have to hold so much in memory during processing. It's completely different architecture using RISC (reduced instruction set computing). Also, the CPU and GPU are integrated able to share memory (and processing I think). This coupled with optimisations with DAWs means machines with massive amounts of RAM aren't necessary.

- I have an old 6-core mac (2012) 64 Gb RAM, which is completely fine. For my large orch templates, I have 4 Ghz 8-core PC with 128 Gb RAM. So while my above point still stands I have yet to be confident that I could load my samples all in one machine and this why:

It's not just the samples that take memory, its the scripts of the patches. I am not just talking about 1 or 2 sample libs, but I have a template that includes every useful sample from all the sample libs that I own. I blend them very often and often have multiple patches of the same time in very big Kontakt layups. Even with 128 Gb, I find myself economising so I don't run out. But the advantage is I can dial up a sound or combination instantly whenever I fancy, or just develop a new patch depending on my needs.

So even though the samples can be streamed directly from NVME drives no problem with almost nothing in the memory on an M1 chip, I think the scripts that drive them still need to be loaded into the memory. Obvs, that's much less than the samples, but it adds up. I do wonder if my workflow could translate to a smaller machine.

What I DO know is that the M1 Apple/ARM is massive paradigm shift. What we thought we needed from our computers has changed.


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## Dave Connor (Monday at 10:29 AM)

AR said:


> Yeah, everybody is talking about 13900k and the Mac Ultra. But they are both limited to 128gb. And I just finished a demo piece of my new template that sucked up 140gb RAM (add another 20gb memory for Windows & Nuendo to run stable in the background).


I have 128 split between 2 Macs and I already want to load more into both. With new libraries coming out all the time (I'm hoping the full modular Spitifire, Abbey Road is of a quality to add to my template) I'm sure I need double of what I have now even with highly efficient ARM at 128.


AR said:


> ...it is such a pleasure to listen to your music in a Dolby Atmos environment as if you are live at the recording session.


Can you post an example? Would love to hear it. (That's a screaming PC you've got there btw.)


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## handz (Monday at 10:37 AM)

32gb in 2020 i7 iMAC , 64 would be ideal and really all I would ever need


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## Dave Connor (Monday at 10:42 AM)

stevenson-again said:


> - The new chips and fast bus speeds change the game with respect to RAM. That's why the new macs don't have very much in the way of RAM, its because it isn't needed. You don't have to hold so much in memory during processing. It's completely different architecture using RISC (reduced instruction set computing). Also, the CPU and GPU are integrated able to share memory (and processing I think). This coupled with optimizations with DAWs means machines with massive amounts of RAM aren't necessary.


Some of us may be frozen in an earlier way of thinking when it comes to calculating ram needs. Probably because there aren't a lot of examples of templates well over 128 gigs on Intel machines working with no problem in ARM machines. It will be interesting to see what the actual numbers are.


stevenson-again said:


> It's not just the samples that take memory, its the scripts of the patches. I am not just talking about 1 or 2 sample libs, but I have a template that includes every useful sample from all the sample libs that I own. I blend them very often and often have multiple patches of the same time in very big Kontakt layups. Even with 128 Gb, I find myself economizing so I don't run out.


This kind of thing is what fuels the caution concerning current ram limitations. We don't know exactly how the former specs translate to the newer technology. I think it will clear up soon with real world examples.


stevenson-again said:


> What I DO know is that the M1 Apple/ARM is massive paradigm shift. What we thought we needed from our computers has changed.


True - and quite an achievement by Apple.


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## musicalweather (Monday at 10:55 AM)

16 GB(!) on my MacBook Pro. But most of the heavy lifting is done by two PC slaves with 32 and 128 GB ram. Still, I would _not_ recommend anyone getting just 16 GB on their DAW machine. I do run into problems, even when my machine is just handling incoming audio from the networked machines. The low memory capability has been a hindrance.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Monday at 11:40 AM)

stevenson-again said:


> - The new chips and fast bus speeds change the game with respect to RAM. That's why the new macs don't have very much in the way of RAM, its because it isn't needed. You don't have to hold so much in memory during processing. It's completely different architecture using RISC (reduced instruction set computing). Also, the CPU and GPU are integrated able to share memory (and processing I think). This coupled with optimisations with DAWs means machines with massive amounts of RAM aren't necessary.


My sense of RAM on the new machines is that "game changer" might be overstating it a little. But that's just anecdotal.




stevenson-again said:


> It's not just the samples that take memory, its the scripts of the patches.


On the scale of people here talking about 128GB being a limitation, I'll go out on a limb and say that scripts probably aren't a very big factor.

What is a factor for me is that I never have only a DAW running, I jump around between activities - some of which (like Affinity Photo) can use a lot of memory when loaded. They're not real-time programs (unless there's video in a Facebook post or something), but still, I don't want to run out of RAM.

64GB is plenty for me, though.


stevenson-again said:


> So even though the samples can be streamed directly from NVME drives no problem with almost nothing in the memory on an M1 chip, I think the scripts that drive them still need to be loaded into the memory. Obvs, that's much less than the samples, but it adds up. I do wonder if my workflow could translate to a smaller machine.


I'd be interested to know the answer.


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## AR (Monday at 11:50 AM)

Dave Connor said:


> I have 128 split between 2 Macs and I already want to load more into both. With new libraries coming out all the time (I'm hoping the full modular Spitifire, Abbey Road is of a quality to add to my template) I'm sure I need double of what I have now even with highly efficient ARM at 128.
> 
> Can you post an example? Would love to hear it. (That's a screaming PC you've got there btw.)


I can upload something somewhere. But it is all uncompressed wav format and your DAW has to support 7.1.2. I think VLC player doesn't playback such a file, but I'm not sure. Can check it in a few hours.


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## Dave Connor (Tuesday at 10:51 AM)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> As an aside, I actually did pay attention to the transfer speed of the external SSD I added to my Mac Studio (there was a long thread about it, in fact). Normally I poo-poo backwards-cap specsmanship, but in this case I didn't want to create a bottleneck in my system. The 4TB external drive is just under half as fast as the 4TB of internal storage, but it's still fast, and I figured it was worth an extra $100 for a more manly enclosure.


Nick, this makes me wonder if folks are going to start partitioning their system drive to take advantage of that type of blazing speed. Also wondering if that well known taboo still applies with the current drive technology. Or, would it be completely unnecessary since externals are still plenty fast (even though it would be a way to add lots of storage without added connectivity.)


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## Nick Batzdorf (Tuesday at 11:53 AM)

Dave Connor said:


> Nick, this makes me wonder if folks are going to start partitioning their system drive to take advantage of that type of blazing speed. Also wondering if that well known taboo still applies with the current drive technology. Or, would it be completely unnecessary since externals are still plenty fast (even though it would be a way to add lots of storage without added connectivity.)



I just put what I want wherever it's convenient and wherever I feel like it without partitioning anything or worrying about it.

There's no taboo if you paid a fortune for 4TB of internal storage.


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## Dave Connor (Tuesday at 12:04 PM)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> I just put what I want wherever it's convenient and wherever I feel like it without partitioning anything or worrying about it.
> 
> There's no taboo if you paid a fortune for 4TB of internal storage.


When I came very close to buying a Mac Studio Ultra with 128 ram, I selected the 4TB internal, so I definitely hear you on that.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Tuesday at 2:52 PM)

Dave Connor said:


> When I came very close to buying a Mac Studio Ultra with 128 ram, I selected the 4TB internal, so I definitely hear you on that.


To be clear, I doubt it makes much difference whether you stream samples off the internal storage (which is very, very, very fast); off a USB 4/Thunderbolt/PCI-E/m.2/whatever external drive in an expensive enclosure (very, very fast); or probably even off standard SSDs connected by USB 3.1 gen 2 (only one very).

I just went for 4TB for the convenience, then spent the extra $100 to put my additional 4TB of external storage in an Acasis Thunderbolt enclosure rather than a $25 USB 3.1 gen 2 one because I didn't want to do anything to slow down this gloriously fast machine.


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## Dave Connor (Tuesday at 3:54 PM)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> To be clear, I doubt it makes much difference whether you stream samples off the internal storage (which is very, very, very fast); off a USB 4/Thunderbolt/PCI-E/m.2/whatever external drive in an expensive enclosure (very, very fast); or probably even off standard SSDs connected by USB 3.1 gen 2 (only one very).
> 
> I just went for 4TB for the convenience, then spent the extra $100 to put my additional 4TB of external storage in an Acasis Thunderbolt enclosure rather than a $25 USB 3.1 gen 2 one because I didn't want to do anything to slow down this gloriously fast machine.


I get it. I have a 2018 i7 Mini with 1TB System drive which I never thought would be a problem. Then I found myself having to delete things and make room for downloads on that drive. Don't want to have to go through that again. I also have a 4TB nvme external from OWC. I should probably do the same with my 1TB USB 3.1 that you did but I'm out of Thunderbolt ports.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Tuesday at 5:28 PM)

Dave Connor said:


> Then I found myself having to delete things and make room for downloads on that drive.


Yes. That is a bee in my bonnet.

I could go on a big rant about how it's ridiculous that every downloader doesn't a) allow you to put things wherever you tell it to put them, b) make it screamingly obvious whether it's just installing a player or other stuff in the default location or whether it's about to dump terrabytes of samples on your system drive, or c) whether it's going to drop compressed files on your system drive that need deleting, or d) I can only count to three so d will have to wait.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Tuesday at 5:29 PM)

But if I could count to four, d) would be about making it equally clear what happens if you want to move libraries once they've been installed.


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## Dave Connor (Tuesday at 7:30 PM)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> Yes. That is a bee in my bonnet.
> 
> I could go on a big rant about how it's ridiculous that every downloader doesn't a) allow you to put things wherever you tell it to put them, b) make it screamingly obvious whether it's just installing a player or other stuff in the default location or whether it's about to dump terrabytes of samples on your system drive, or c) whether it's going to drop compressed files on your system drive that need deleting, or d) I can only count to three so d will have to wait.


Exactly. I‘ve found all that regressive, since we’ve come such a long way since the time when those types of issues came up. _What? I have to make room on my system drive? But I’ve got a ton of room over here_. And, _Hmm… I sure hope it’s OK if I delete this. _

No such luck. It never ends.


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## HitEmTrue (Wednesday at 1:44 PM)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> I could go on a big rant about how it's ridiculous that every downloader doesn't a) allow you to put things wherever you tell it to put them,


Oh, I've been thinking about getting ComposerCloud+ to try EW Hollywood Opus on an external drive. But downloading the library itself (1 gb!) would be a problem if it will only download to the system drive.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Wednesday at 2:22 PM)

HitEmTrue said:


> Oh, I've been thinking about getting ComposerCloud+ to try EW Hollywood Opus on an external drive. But downloading the library itself (1 gb!) would be a problem if it will only download to the system drive.


I don't remember whether that's true of the EW one. It probably isn't, so please check rather than listening to my blind rage rants.


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## HitEmTrue (Wednesday at 4:07 PM)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> I don't remember whether that's true of the EW one. It probably isn't, so please check rather than listening to my blind rage rants.


Took a peek at the manual, and the "Installation Center" app allows setting the installation path "where you’d like to download the libraries to." Should be fine then.

I'd probably start off with one of the "lighter" weight Gold libraries (138 or 242gb)


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## tc9000 (Wednesday at 4:22 PM)

48 GB. It's _complicated, _OK?


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## ptram (Wednesday at 5:50 PM)

I have 64GB in my Trashcan Mac, and it is perfectly fine for a full VSL dry orchestra hosted on Vienna Ensemble. I've never tried a full multimic orchestra, though. A mix of multimic strings and brass, plus dry woodwinds worked fine.

Paolo


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## HitEmTrue (Wednesday at 7:07 PM)

I ended up in this thread googling for external drive ideas. 

16gb in a MBP M1 machine. Bought the laptop before I knew I was going to be getting into large sample libraries. 🤣


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## David Kudell (Wednesday at 7:42 PM)

128GB in my DAW computer - iMac Pro with VEPro which holds the Perc, Ensembles, Pianos, and Choir libraries.

128GB in my Trashcan Mac pro VEPro that runs strings, brass, and woodwinds.

Planning on upgrading this year to something that allows me to load a lot more RAM, probably a Mac Pro.


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