# Looking for CPU advice to accommodate orchestral libraries



## rmak (Dec 10, 2020)

Hi, I currently have a 2016 MacBook Pro 2.7GHz quad core i7 16gb ram with only 500 gb storage and a 1tb ssd. I am a keyboard player and hobbyist new to hybrid score compositions and learning about orchestral libraries. I am considering purchasing BBCSO core or Audiobro's MSS. I am thinking that I may need to upgrade to a desktop sometime soon as I find myself using the purge samples in Kontakt with just 10 tracks open with a emotional string instruments, some KU, omnisphere, etc (no orchestral libraries yet) in Logic. I recently purchased slate and ash cycles, and that was a bit ambitious of me haha. Cycles works if I am using the loop mode, but with the granular mode, it takes some problem solving.

I know some basics of computer hardware, but I am not very familiar with the market. I read about iMac getting the arm chip soon, and how the price of it will sky rocket. Because of this, I have thought about getting a PC, but I use Logic and would prefer not to have to learn and purchase another DAW. I do have Ableton 10; I guess I can learn that if it comes down to it. Anyone have experience with utilizing virtual box to emulate macOS on PC; is this troublesome or not very convenient on a day to day use? I just watched one of Trevor Morris's video where he runs Kontakt locally, without using VE Pro, by having just an additional PC do some of the legwork for loading templates, I think. I guess the VE Pro is another discussion? With computers getting faster, VE Pro may not have as much utility?

Some of these questions may be looking too far ahead as I do not even own a legitimate orchestral library yet. In a nutshell, I am looking for some beginning suggestions on products to consider or just content to read over. If instructions are good, I guess I can build my own PC? Is it worth sticking with a apple?

Thanks for any input or feedback on the matter. I know there is a lot of questions that I am asking. =)


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## José Herring (Dec 10, 2020)

rmak said:


> Hi, I currently have a 2016 MacBook Pro 2.7GHz quad core i7 16gb ram with only 500 gb storage and a 1tb ssd. I am a keyboard player and hobbyist new to hybrid score compositions and learning about orchestral libraries. I am considering purchasing BBCSO core or Audiobro's MSS. I am thinking that I may need to upgrade to a desktop sometime soon as I find myself using the purge samples in Kontakt with just 10 tracks open with a emotional string instruments, some KU, omnisphere, etc (no orchestral libraries yet) in Logic. I recently purchased slate and ash cycles, and that was a bit ambitious of me haha. Cycles works if I am using the loop mode, but with the granular mode, it takes some problem solving.
> 
> I know some basics of computer hardware, but I am not very familiar with the market. I read about iMac getting the arm chip soon, and how the price of it will sky rocket. Because of this, I have thought about getting a PC, but I use Logic and would prefer not to have to learn and purchase another DAW. Anyone have experience with utilizing virtual box to emulate macOS on PC; is this troublesome or not very convenient on a day to day use? I just watched one of Trevor Morris's video where he runs Kontakt locally, without using VE Pro, by having just an additional PC do some of the legwork for loading templates, I think. I guess the VE Pro is another discussion? With computers getting faster, VE Pro may not have as much utility?
> 
> ...


What makes you think the price of the Mac will soar with Arm? I'm thinking the opposite will happen. 

But, virtual box isn't your answer. I would say a PC Hackintosh would be a better bet if you really needed to run MacOS on a PC. But, with ARM that may have a limited life span. 

If you go PC then you can't go wrong right now with the new AMD chips--Ryzen 9 5700 or better. If you need Thunderbolt though you will need to get Intel I7 10700, i9 108500, or 10900k. AMD still hasn't quite got a grip on Thunderbolt yet but there are some people successfully using it so it's hit or miss. 

If you need to change DAWS then going from Logic to Cubase seems to be the most common though I think that Reaper would be a great choice too as well as Studio One 5. 

If you want to stay on Logic then it's going to cost you no way around that. When I looked into it the Imac Pro was the most economical followed by the Mac Mini 2020's. 

For any modern orchestral sample use you'll need a minimum of 64 gigs, preferably 128 gigs ram. BBCSO and SF Player are kind of Ram hungry but that being said, I run about 3 major libraries and about 20 other libraries on one machine what has 128 gigs ram and it's just about 70% full so 64 gigs should give you enough headroom if all you plan is BBCSO.

For Hybrid scoring I wouldn't necessarily chose BBCSO. It has a real classical sound to it. It's pretty.  but it's not trailer/action track balls to the wall aggressive or loud sounding. It does best in the p-mf range with an occasional F but never a FF as far as I can hear. But BBCSO is nice and getting a major update soon and I really like the way it sounds for more traditional scoring rolls or for the less loud side of hybrid.


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## colony nofi (Dec 10, 2020)

I'd say most of these questions are answered well in a myriad of topics on this board and others.

A few comments / thoughts.

You'll have a steep learning curve going from mac to pc. Not impossible by any means. Cubase is the logical direction to go if you are coming from logic. Ableton is very different, and not brilliant for scoring (but an incredible DAW in its own right!). The midi editing tools will make it very frustrating over time.

Cycles *is* a cpu hog - but you can get around some of it by closing the GUI once you have found the sound you want to use. And freeze that track once you've created the midi. What an awesome instrument though.

Don't worry about "future" mac prices. I have no idea where there is info about imac prices sky-rocketing, but that doesn't make any sense to me. Do they mean old intel imacs? If you are on mac, want to stay on mac, it makes sense to go down the path of apple silicon. 

Within the year, logic + kontakt + instruments + plugins will run fine under rosetta 2, and it won't be too long to running everything natively. The tests I've been able to do on a macmini have been incredibly encouraging. There *WILL* be apple silicon macs with more than 16GB ram in the not too distant future. 

If you are just starting out, please don't worry about setting up VEPro or anything like that. You will get bogged down in the technology / spend less time writing. Start out simply - all in a DAW, and once you reach the limits, figure out the right tech path around them. (In cubase, that could mean using disabled tracks, freezing tracks, or offloading via VEP on the same machine or another machine....)

I run massive sessions all in one computer - I used to run 4 slaves. For me, it free's up much mental space for creativity. With slaves, I was constantly battling them to keep them all up to date / working well etc etc. Each to their own.

Grab a starter orchestral library. I use Spitfire BBCO - they have a $50 right? Try that out. There's other similar things from other developers. It will run on your 2016 macbook pro. I just fired up an old 2015 macbook pro and it worked great.


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## colony nofi (Dec 10, 2020)

Agree with @José Herring as well - reaper is a good place to look.

I disagree needing a minimum of 64GB ram though. Start out with a simpler setup. I know one very well known LA composer who flies around with a laptop with 16GB of ram doing very lovely mockups all the time. There are ways to work with less. We can all get carried away with the tech sometimes - me DEFINITELY


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## rmak (Dec 10, 2020)

Thanks guys for the input. I'll stick with the 2016 MacBook and will probably purchase one of the above libraries. I'll see how things go. I'll peruse the forum a bit more on cpu topics and hope I don't go too far down the rabbit hole. 

I was just reading a thread somewhere, and some of the comments said the Macs would get more expensive with ARM. I guess I shouldn't believe everything I read. The iMac Pro is a beast. It looks like, realistically, any decent upgrade will be ballpark around 5k.


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## José Herring (Dec 10, 2020)

colony nofi said:


> Agree with @José Herring as well - reaper is a good place to look.
> 
> I disagree needing a minimum of 64GB ram though. Start out with a simpler setup. I know one very well known LA composer who flies around with a laptop with 16GB of ram doing very lovely mockups all the time. There are ways to work with less. We can all get carried away with the tech sometimes - me DEFINITELY


Oooh, what's he using for a library?


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## Quasar (Dec 10, 2020)

colony nofi said:


> Agree with @José Herring as well - reaper is a good place to look.
> 
> ...I know one very well known LA composer who flies around with a laptop with 16GB of ram doing very lovely mockups all the time...



Yeah, but if he had 64GB on his laptop his mockups would sound four times as good.

More seriously, if I were a Mac person, I would absolutely look into the Hackintosh scene. By all accounts it can, if done right, work really well. Check out kmaster's most fascinating experience/tutorial here:






I9 10900k OpenCore/Catalina Hackintosh Build Journal


Making this computer: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/BgjrZf (Note that not quite all the components are listed. Read the journal for more details!) Build starts on this post: https://vi-control.net/community/threads/i9-10900k-opencore-catalina-hackintosh-build-journal.96309/post-4609982...




vi-control.net


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## marclawsonmusic (Dec 10, 2020)

You might want to consider VEPro and a second machine (PC or Mac) to host samples. I believe that our friend @whinecellar runs a pretty impressive rig using a MacBook as primary DAW... so there is the option to scale outward (e.g. more machines) rather than replacing your current machine with something more powerful.

PS - I am running an orchestral template on a late 2013 iMac... but I do have 32GB of RAM.


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## colony nofi (Dec 10, 2020)

Quasar said:


> Yeah, but if he had 64GB on his laptop his mockups would sound four times as good.
> 
> More seriously, if I were a Mac person, I would absolutely look into the Hackintosh scene. By all accounts it can, if done right, work really well. Check out kmaster's most fascinating experience/tutorial here:
> 
> ...


There are quite a few composers I've spoken to round the traps using hackintosh's these days. It has an end date though - what with Rosetta 2 being a short term stop-gap. You'll get maybe 5 years more before your favourite mac tools just won't be updated for intel anymore. 

However, if you are going to stay mac, apple silicon looks to be very cool. Time will tell on costs, but I would say apple are for the first gen going to stick with VERY close $ to the machines they are replacing, and they will ALL provide significant performance increases. It could be a very good time to be on apple in around 2 years - and we just need to get over this transition bump!


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## colony nofi (Dec 10, 2020)

José Herring said:


> Oooh, what's he using for a library?


BBCSO - but using the cutdown version on the laptop - single mic selection only. Still sounds amazing. His engineer setup a template which gives a better result than me working my butt off with many many more resources.


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## rmak (Dec 10, 2020)

Quasar said:


> Yeah, but if he had 64GB on his laptop his mockups would sound four times as good.
> 
> More seriously, if I were a Mac person, I would absolutely look into the Hackintosh scene. By all accounts it can, if done right, work really well. Check out kmaster's most fascinating experience/tutorial here:
> 
> ...


 By the looks of it, it appears to be quite an undertaking.


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## Quasar (Dec 10, 2020)

colony nofi said:


> ...It has an end date though - what with Rosetta 2 being a short term stop-gap. You'll get maybe 5 years more before your favourite mac tools just won't be updated for intel anymore...



Yeah, there is _that_. I'll be interested in how it all plays out as an uninvolved spectator. But unless Apple decides (or is forced by right to repair laws) to make upgradability a possibility again, I ain't interested.

In the meanwhile, a Hackintosh appears to be a viable option for the next (as you say) several years.


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## whinecellar (Dec 11, 2020)

marclawsonmusic said:


> You might want to consider VEPro and a second machine (PC or Mac) to host samples. I believe that our friend @whinecellar runs a pretty impressive rig using a MacBook as primary DAW... so there is the option to scale outward (e.g. more machines) rather than replacing your current machine with something more powerful.
> 
> PS - I am running an orchestral template on a late 2013 iMac... but I do have 32GB of RAM.



Indeed - been running my studio on a late 2018 MacBook Pro with 32 GB RAM and it's been incredible. In fact for most projects I don't even fire up my slave machines anymore - I've been moving away from the huge template approach lately in favor of a really basic one on the laptop, and just loading go-to channel strips in Logic for any extra specifics. 

However, the big template (around 900 tracks) still works flawlessly when I need it. Just boot up the other 3 machines via VE Pro and I'm good!


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## Jeremy Spencer (Dec 14, 2020)

rmak said:


> I am considering purchasing BBCSO core



For what it's worth, I can load the entire BBCSO Pro orchestra onto my 2013 MB Pro. The Spitfire Player loads every single articulation for an instrument, but if you trash everything else from an instance, it has a low Ram footprint. You have a nice laptop there, I would set up Logic so that it only loads up the tracks you're actually using (dynamic plugin loading), and consider a slave build as others have mentioned.


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## rmak (Dec 14, 2020)

Does using a slave PC almost always imply using VE Pro? According to this video, you need it (it's a bit older) - time stamped


According to Trevor Morris, Kontakt libraries loaded on a local pc works better than utilizing VEP. This VEP topic is a bit confusing to me; are there many alternate ways to facilitate midi and audio communications between slave pc and the Mac? It's not clear how Trevor does it in the video. He does mention $5k is more than enough for a pro writing rig for any new composer.


Should VE Pro affect my decision over what hardware I will purchase? From what I understand, VEP is good if you have a huge template with many tbs of samples and want quicker load times. VEP is also a pain to set up if I am not mistaken. I will probably not have any huge template for a while as I have less than 1.5 tb of sample libraries and plugins, but as with any hardware purchase, I want to plan for the future as I accumulate more libraries. I have a feeling that 16gb of ram is not going to be enough.

maybe I'll just find a refurbished iMac out there to keep things simple and upgrade ram myself? I don't think iMac Pro allows you to upgrade ram on your own.


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## Justin L. Franks (Dec 15, 2020)

rmak said:


> maybe I'll just find a refurbished iMac out there to keep things simple and upgrade ram myself? I don't think iMac Pro allows you to upgrade ram on your own.



A refurbished iMac is a great route. I've been buying refurb iMacs for a long time now, and only bought my current one new as my old one had failed, and there wasn't a suitable configuration immediately available in a refurb.

You have to be quick though, the "good" configurations (an SSD and 8 GB RAM so you can upgrade it yourself without paying the exorbitant Apple RAM prices) tend to go fast. If you see one with the configuration you want, don't hesitate, snatch it up. The 2020 5K's all have SSD's now, but the 2019 models, even the highest-end preconfigured one, had Fusion drives as default.

RAM can be upgraded on an iMac Pro, but you need to disassemble it to gain access. Due to the upgraded cooling system in the iMac Pro, it doesn't have the handy RAM door found in the 5K iMacs.


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