# The real impact of slaves to your workflow



## peksi (Nov 24, 2015)

I've seen some people here go to using slaves instead of upgrading their existing daw.

Daw tuning brings out the nerd in me and totally kills the productivity. So with slave configurations I'm worried about the extra workload it brings in situations like loading, saving, browsing thru instruments, experimenting, network problems etc etc drowning all inspiration with it.

A question to those using slaves: real and honest, how much and what kind of extra workload did you get after moving on to the slave configuration? Do you feel it bothering you? Besides the obvious did you get any advantages out of it?

Thanks for answering.


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## snattack (Nov 24, 2015)

peksi said:


> I've seen some people here go to using slaves instead of upgrading their existing daw.
> 
> Daw tuning brings out the nerd in me and totally kills the productivity. So with slave configurations I'm worried about the extra workload it brings in situations like loading, saving, browsing thru instruments, experimenting, network problems etc etc drowning all inspiration with it.
> 
> ...



I wouldn't be able to run my setup without 3 slaves. My template uses about 120GB of Ram.

I find it convenient with slaves. I've set up macros for opening/closing the VNC remote windowes. If one of the slaves crash, it just a quarter of the template to reload instead of the entire template if I were to have a monster DAW.

I've assigned my remote surface with 4 faders controlling mic positions in all patches. That's how I do rough mixes before stems.

The only downside would be that you need to start a working day by starting up computers, loading templates (in case some of them are unique to the project you're working with, otherwise you can put the mFrame in Autostart), etc. It takes roughly 15 minutes from entering the studio until I can start composing (including opening the Logic file).


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## milesito (Nov 24, 2015)

my slave PC (6 core processor) w/ 128GB of ram takes about 15 min to load...once loaded I can use all mic positions of my sample libraries controlled by faders too. I dont' do much browsing since my slavePC contains all orchestral samples that need to be loaded up with my base template every time. I have another MBP laptop that I travel with that (while not travelling) I set up as a slave and browse that computer for any additional samples that I want to run as well. I also have an iMac that runs my DAW plus additional samples. I have made it so that each system has it's genre of samples...it has helped increase speed of my work flow...however when I work on projects, I need to save local VEPro templates on each computer for each project when I make changes and it can get a little more complicated that I would want it to be...


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## JohnG (Nov 24, 2015)

I guess it depends on what kind of music you are writing, how demanding you are on the machine(s), and what kind of latency you're willing to tolerate.

I write for full orchestra and full everything else -- choir, guitars, synths, electronic bass etc. I like having a very large number of articulations available; searching for sounds totally stops me cold. Running out of RAM stops me cold. I also don't like latency. Therefore, slaves seem unavoidable.

For sections like strings that have a large number of articulations, mic positions available, and different responsiveness, balancing instruments, and so on, it takes a long time -- maybe a month? -- to really get a slave where one wants it.

I use only PCs as slaves, but others seem to do fine with Macs.


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## tack (Nov 24, 2015)

Does anyone run slaves as virtual machines? I have a pretty beefy box in a closet that I use for various server related tasks but it's just generally idle most of the time. The server right now runs about 5 VMs, and I've been mulling over the idea of throwing up a Windows VM to use as a slave.

At this point I don't have a huge need for it really, but I'm too much of a nerd not to try it.


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## reddognoyz (Nov 24, 2015)

I have a VisionDaw PC slave for my rig and it's really worked out well. I use an application called ShareMouse that treats the pc rig like another monitor in my setup.
When the two computers are networked you arraign the monitors in ShareMouse as you would on a Mac using system preferences. When I scroll the mouse over to the pc monitor, the keyboard and mouse are controlling the pc. When it's on my mac monitors, I'm controlling my mac. It's a pretty transparent process and for me an absolutely painless. setup.


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## D.Salzenberg (Nov 24, 2015)

I thought slavery had been abolished, so I don't use slaves, or condone their use for making music.


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## kdm (Nov 24, 2015)

I've always run slave PCs - usually 2 or 3. I wouldn't want to work any other way. The ability to have a large number of instruments and articulations available instantly is invaluable to working quickly. For me there is no downside, other than the additional cost. You do have to render mixes in real time, but since mixes need to be reviewed in real time anyway, I don't find that a limitation.


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## mc_deli (Nov 24, 2015)

kdm said:


> I've always run slave PCs - usually 2 or 3. I wouldn't want to work any other way. The ability to have a large number of instruments and articulations available instantly is invaluable to working quickly. For me there is no downside, other than the additional cost. You do have to render mixes in real time, but since mixes need to be reviewed in real time anyway, I don't find that a limitation.


Can't you offline bounce slave hosted VIs?
(I do all my mixing at double time. I work much quicker that way)


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## Jimmy Hellfire (Nov 24, 2015)

A friend of mine has a large template and a two-slaves-setup. I understand the point of that approach, but personally, it would drive me absolutely nuts. There's so much more in the way, so many dependencies, so much screwing around with technicalities instead of music, it's so distracting. It just kind of stimulates a completely different part of my brain and seems to distract me from where I actually want to be mentally. I very much prefer a small, basic template on a single machine.


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## kdm (Nov 24, 2015)

mc_deli said:


> Can't you offline bounce slave hosted VIs?
> (I do all my mixing at double time. I work much quicker that way)



Not with hardware connections. Only with VEPro streaming audio. I prefer the stability and reliability of keeping audio on hardware. I'm less likely to be stung by quirks with VEPro on different systems as I upgrade or replace slaves, as I have in the past. I always review my mixes anyway, so it's actually faster than running offline, then importing and listening in real time after the fact.

I rarely have to touch my slaves once setup. Just open a session and go. I've tried both approaches.


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## rgames (Nov 24, 2015)

The question on whether to use a slave is simple to answer: how many voices do you need? You're not going to get more than 1500 or so voices from any machine regardless of processor (the latest PCIe SSDs might bump that number up a bit). For some libraries, the number is less - e.g. PLAY libraries max out at much lower voice counts. So if you need more than that, you need multiple machines because processor power has only a tiny effect on voice count (my i5 2500k and i7 4930k machines provide the same voice counts). If you're running a full orchestra with multiple mic positions then the voice counts add up very quickly and you probably need a slave if you want to avoid bouncing tracks.

If you don't need more than 1500 voices then a slave doesn't really make sense. Latency will be a bit better with a master+slave setup but I don't think it's enough to warrant buying a second machine - pretty much any stock i7 machine can run with decent latency these days.

With current hardware, multiple lower-cost machines almost always give better performance than any single machine of comparable price. For example, two one-thousand-dollar machines will always perform better than a single two-thousand dollar machine.

Also, I've found better performance and stability with VE Pro over network vs. using dedicated audio hardware. Many years ago it was true that dedicated audio hardware gave better performance but I don't think that's the case these days. Plus, VE Pro routing is *so* much more flexible over the network. Streaming hundreds of audio returns in VE Pro is a piece of cake - what would it take to do that on hardware?

rgames


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## chillbot (Nov 24, 2015)

kdm said:


> I rarely have to touch my slaves once setup. Just open a session and go. I've tried both approaches.



This. I think of a slave computer as an external hardware synth loaded with a bunch of killer samples. Put things on them you never want to touch, just to have at your fingertips. Put everything you own on them, load it all up at once, whatever. I have 7 slaves, 6 of them I never touch and they have their own dedicated audio hardware. They are always loaded with the same sounds and always on... I'm working about 90 seconds after I walk in the studio (takes 90 seconds to brew the coffee). Roughly once a year I'll take a week and go through all the slaves and update things and swap out patches then I don't think about them for another year. The last one I run VEPro on with no dedicated audio hardware and it saves with my session. It's handy to have but honestly I don't know that it's necessary I could get by just loading everything I need on my main rig. Anyway that's one way to look at slave computers.


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## chrysshawk (Nov 24, 2015)

I had the same concerns as you Peksi when I got my first slave. The short answer is no: Having two systems up and running has gone far smoother than I expected, and not had any real impact on workflow/distraction.


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## peksi (Dec 4, 2015)

going to slavery would then need two activations and double iLoks. some software companies may not even allow several instances?

very interesting to hear about the 1500 voice max count - regardless of cpu? what is the bottleneck there? is it really so that i can get the same amount of plugins played simultaneously with normal i7 and quad xeon setup?

based on this i am seriously considering of packing my current pc to a rack box on the next update run. thanks a lot for sharing your experiences.


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## Alatar (Dec 4, 2015)

snattack said:


> I wouldn't be able to run my setup without 3 slaves. My template uses about 120GB of Ram.



It is possible to have 128 GB of RAM in one single computer. No need to have slaves just for that....


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## snattack (Dec 4, 2015)

Alatar said:


> It is possible to have 128 GB of RAM in one single computer. No need to have slaves just for that....



Not really correct imo.

1. It wouldn't be possible to fill up 120gb of ram with VEP and still use a sequencer stable on the same machine.

2. It's recommended not to fill up more than 2/3 of the memory to keep leaks, swaping and stability on a decent level.

3. The specs of a machine that would be able to run all this would be more expensive than buying 4 slaves with 32GB/each.


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## gsilbers (Dec 4, 2015)

snattack said:


> Not really correct imo.
> 
> 1. It wouldn't be possible to fill up 120gb of ram with VEP and still use a sequencer stable on the same machine.
> 
> ...



how would it benefit 4 pcs vs a i7 5820k with 128gb ram?
both having equal components. (ssd/mobo/etc)

i7 shoul be good to procees samples. not all voices would be running at the same time. slave pc are also a way of just having samples preloaded but not to playback ALL samples of course. there lies my query.


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## InLight-Tone (Dec 4, 2015)

Get Cubase and build a 3000+ or whatever track template on one powerfull machine with disabled tracks using all instrument tracks one Kontakt instance per track. Way more straightforward and less to f*ck with...


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## muk (Dec 5, 2015)

Sorry for a somewhat tangent question: can you take some load off of the cpu by adding more ram? As I understood streaming from disk does tax the cpu. So, in case your ram is maxed out your cpu gets taxed instead by streaming from disk. Could you remove this additional load from the cpu by adding ram?


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## Alatar (Dec 5, 2015)

muk said:


> Sorry for a somewhat tangent question: can you take some load off of the cpu by adding more ram? As I understood streaming from disk does tax the cpu. So, in case your ram is maxed out your cpu gets taxed instead by streaming from disk. Could you remove this additional load from the cpu by adding ram?



Well no, not automatically. You would need an option in your sampler, that allows you to switch of stream from disk. Not sure, if Kontakt has such an option?


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## snattack (Dec 5, 2015)

gsilbers said:


> how would it benefit 4 pcs vs a i7 5820k with 128gb ram?
> both having equal components. (ssd/mobo/etc)
> 
> i7 shoul be good to procees samples. not all voices would be running at the same time. slave pc are also a way of just having samples preloaded but not to playback ALL samples of course. there lies my query.



Well, when I run my stuff on a tutti passage, the slaves uses around 60-80% cpu each, and those are two i7 and one i5. On top of that my 8core Mac Pro main daw uses around 20-30% cpu.

So, I don't see any single machine that can handle that.


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## idpattison (Dec 5, 2015)

Just to draw a comparison with another area of computing - the trend for enterprise software is to move away from huge single machines onto lots of smaller servers. So a traditional retailer might run their order management and commerce websites on a big 64-core box with several Tb of RAM, but the new boys are all going for lots of smaller servers - if one dies, they kill it and start a new one, whereas if that big box goes down, so does your business.....

Not saying it's a direct comparison, but just shows an industry trend.


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## rgames (Dec 5, 2015)

peksi said:


> very interesting to hear about the 1500 voice max count - regardless of cpu? what is the bottleneck there? is it really so that i can get the same amount of plugins played simultaneously with normal i7 and quad xeon setup?


The bottleneck is the data transfer and is more dependent on the real-time performance of the system than on processor power.

I don't have a lot of data on Xeons but I have found that they generally give slightly worse performance in terms of voice counts, presumably because of their lower clock speeds. Multiple Xeons (dual/quad) give even worse performance because of the additional overhead associated with coordinating the processors. That additional overhead severely hurts real-time performance. But they're not designed for real-time performance, they're designed for CPU power, which they have a lot of. So dual/quad Xeons are great for tasks like video rendering but not as good for DAW use.

These days DAW performance is mostly tied to real-time performance, not CPU performance. People often confuse the two.

rgames


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## snattack (Dec 5, 2015)

rgames said:


> The bottleneck is the data transfer and is more dependent on the real-time performance of the system than on processor power.
> 
> I don't have a lot of data on Xeons but I have found that they generally give slightly worse performance in terms of voice counts, presumably because of their lower clock speeds. Multiple Xeons (dual/quad) give even worse performance because of the additional overhead associated with coordinating the processors. That additional overhead severely hurts real-time performance. But they're not designed for real-time performance, they're designed for CPU power, which they have a lot of. So dual/quad Xeons are great for tasks like video rendering but not as good for DAW use.
> 
> ...



With the risk of repeating myself (since I haven't gotten any response to this in our previous discussions):

While this seems to be true with your particular setup, several other tests have proven otherwise. It's also dependent on which DAW you're using.

What seem to be consistent, is that multi processor setups have problems with realtime performance, but the SOS-test showed that a single processor with 6 cores outperformed the similar model with 4 cores in RTP.

Also the big Logic benchmark test on Gearsluts (which is probably the best RTP test data for Apple computers because of the amount of testers/setups involved) shows significant performance boosts in realtime performance in correlation with the amount of cores, and not simply in clock frequency.

This is also my experience. I run a Mac Pro 8-core Xeon, which in single core is less powerful than my older i7-mac, but has VASTLY higher RTP.

It depends on how your setup is designed. In heavy-effect hybrid setups that require floating point calculations, and with a DAW that has good core distribution, more cores will matter. Playing back ONLY Kontakt libraries, I can't vouce for.

Still, it is true that some PC setups suffer from different components/drivers that can hog the RTP, no matter how good your CPU is. That is adressed well in your video post in this forum. 

But that doesn't rule out a multi-core CPU's performance compared to a 4 core. It has to be compared on the same motherboard for that to be consistent.


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## rgames (Dec 5, 2015)

I agree that it seems like CPU power should have an effect but I've not seen anything that shows that you can lower the system latency with more CPU power for anything in the i7/Xeon family. Maybe if you move from an i5 to an i7, though there's no difference there in terms of streaming voices. I have, however, seen good correlation between latency and clock speed - that's easy to show because you can just change the clock settings in the BIOS.

At about the same clock speed, my 4-core i7 920 and 6-core i7 4930k both crapped out at the same latency across a bunch of test projects. The i7 920 could run a strenuous project at about 3 ms latency and the i7 4930k did the same. I could not run at lower latency on the i7 4930k. The 4930k did, of course, run at lower CPU usage (though not a lot...).

I'm not familiar with the SOS-test - did they show the ability to run at lower latencies with more cores? I'm not sure what metric you're referring to when you say "outperformed". I'd be curious to see the details of that test.

The good news is that pretty much any mid-range system these days is more than sufficient to work as a DAW. Sure, some perform better, but they're all pretty much "good enough."

rgames


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## tabulius (Dec 5, 2015)

So what CPU, RAM and SSD (Pci-e, m2 or sata3 SSDs) would be optimal for sample streaming slaves? It is a bit confusing when some users and tests recommend i7, some Xeons, some say clock speed is more important than cores, some people think that high read speeds of Pci-e SSDs or m2 would give the best results. Altough slaves may not use that many plugins, I have noticed that some sample libraries like Sample Modeling brass and 8dios 8W Black orchestra uses a lot of cpu, so higher clock speeds and 4+ cores might be needed.

I have been planning to get some new slaves for sample streaming during next year, but I'm still uncertain what options to take.


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## tack (Dec 5, 2015)

idpattison said:


> Just to draw a comparison with another area of computing - the trend for enterprise software is to move away from huge single machines onto lots of smaller servers. So a traditional retailer might run their order management and commerce websites on a big 64-core box with several Tb of RAM, but the new boys are all going for lots of smaller servers - if one dies, they kill it and start a new one, whereas if that big box goes down, so does your business.....


That's true, but there is a significant management overhead in horizontal scale. Don't get me wrong -- speaking as someone who manages cloud-hosted services consisting of hundreds of thousands of cores, I would never want to go back to the world of vertical scalability -- but in this kind of world, great care and effort must be taken in architecture, automation, and monitoring.

Building on the analogy, consider a new service and you don't know if it will take off. Lots of businesses crank out ideas, throwing miscellaneous shit at the wall to see what sticks. Should you build a service for arbitrary horizontal scalability from the beginning -- a significant investment that may not see return -- or keep it simple at first, and instead commit to Doing It Right only if it looks like the idea will be successful? (That's the philosophical question anyway. There are real world obstacles like inertia that make it much grayer.)

Bringing it back on topic, my instinct here is that it's better to keep things simple at first, which means being restricted to vertical scalability (a beefy DAW box) in exchange for simplicity and reduced cost, and only reinvent your processes horizontally once it becomes clear that you will almost certainly bang into the ceiling of your vertical solution.


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## rgames (Dec 5, 2015)

tabulius said:


> So what CPU, RAM and SSD (Pci-e, m2 or sata3 SSDs) would be optimal for sample streaming slaves? It is a bit confusing when some users and tests recommend i7, some Xeons, some say clock speed is more important than cores, some people think that high read speeds of Pci-e SSDs or m2 would give the best results. Altough slaves may not use that many plugins, I have noticed that some sample libraries like Sample Modeling brass and 8dios 8W Black orchestra uses a lot of cpu, so higher clock speeds and 4+ cores might be needed.


It's confusing because there's so much information that's not related to what we care about. If you want to know how well a system streams samples, then measure how well it streams samples! The confusion arises because so many people measure so many other things - CPU power, disk read speeds, etc. Sure, some are related, but if you want to know how fast your car is you put it on the track and time it.

*Measure what you care about.* Everything else is interesting and can provide guidance but, in the end, if you care about number of streaming voices, then measure number of streaming voices.

Having said that, my i5 2500k can stream 1250 - 1500 voices for LASS/VSL. Cinebrass was something like 750 voices and Hollywood Brass was something like 300. My i7 920 and i7 4930k both provide the same number of streaming voices across all those libraries. I have definitely seen CPU clock speed affect number of streaming voices. I have also seen some indication that disk IOPS affects streaming voices.

Do Sample Modeling and 8dio libraries benefit from more processor power? I don't know - I have no data on those libraries. But remember to compare on the basis of what you actually care about. Just because an i5 performs the same passage at higher CPU usage than an i7, does it matter? What matters is whether you can actually get more voices out of the i7 (or whatever you're comparing against).

My i5 streams samples at higher CPU usage than my i7 4930k. But who cares? They both produce crackles/pops at the same voice counts. The i5 crackles at something like 80% CPU usage and the i7 at something like 30%. Again, though, who cares?

The argument is that the i7 *can* provide more voices because it's running at lower CPU usage, therefore it has more headroom to work harder before producing crackles and pops. Well, then that's what needs to be demonstrated - the comparison between the points where the crackles/pops show up. I haven't been able to demonstrate that behavior.

Again, though, it's fun to geek out on this stuff but the truth is that none of it really matters these days. You aren't going to write more or better music by concerning yourself with this kind of crap. So keep that in mind.

rgames


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## InLight-Tone (Dec 5, 2015)

rgames wrote:
"Again, though, it's fun to geek out on this stuff but the truth is that none of it really matters these days. You aren't going to write more or better music by concerning yourself with this kind of crap. So keep that in mind."

And there are the words of wisdom, computers are now sufficiently powerful to create large scale, complex, high quality work and I say within a single modern box mostly in realtime.

I remember back 15 years ago trying to get my Pentium processor to play a few notes (sinewaves) in realtime out of Csound and being overjoyed thinking "this is the future".

Well the future has arrived in spades, yet I think the thing missing rather than I need more "rig" is focusing on writing better music and the skillz thereof...


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## peksi (Dec 6, 2015)

Is Cubase does audio export render faster with multi cpu environment? Rgames when you tell you get a number of voices with certain setup do you mean that your DAW does not produce sounds beyond that limit or that they come with too much of a latency?

My needs are purely for studio composing and rendering with Cubase. I don't mind latency if we're talking about milliseconds or even hundreds of milliseconds in playback if Cubase can compensate it but it comes a problem if I hit play and all voices do not play.


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## rgames (Dec 6, 2015)

peksi said:


> Is Cubase does audio export render faster with multi cpu environment? Rgames when you tell you get a number of voices with certain setup do you mean that your DAW does not produce sounds beyond that limit or that they come with too much of a latency?


More CPU power should provide faster export but I've never looked in to it - I don't really have any issues with time to export.

When I say max number of voices I mean the point at which the crackles/pops start to show up. That point definitely is a function of system latency - the higher you set your sound card buffer, the more voices you can get (in general).

Here's an example of how I do the test:



rgames


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## WorshipMaestro (Dec 6, 2015)

rgames said:


> More CPU power should provide faster export but I've never looked in to it - I don't really have any issues with time to export.
> 
> When I say max number of voices I mean the point at which the crackles/pops start to show up. That point definitely is a function of system latency - the higher you set your sound card buffer, the more voices you can get (in general).
> 
> ...



Loved the video! Answered a lot of questions I have been wondering about.


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## Ethos (Feb 15, 2016)

I used to use slaves (2 slaves) and recently switched to a single computer with much better results and a streamlined workflow. The key is to not buy an off-the-shelf consumer computer, no matter how powerful. You need an enterprise level machine.

I opted for the Dell Precision t9710. It's got 20 cores between 2 Xeon processors, and 128 gb RAM. (Which, being registered RAM, is perfectly fine to use up to 100%). Many TB of disk space. It's also water cooled so it's whisper quiet. But even a consumer level computer with similar specs wouldn't perform as well. I push this thing HARD and it doesn't flinch. My template, like many others here, is a gigantic Orchestra template with several libraries and multiple mic positions.

I now prefer this setup over slaves+host. Granted, the computer was expensive as hell. But I determined it to be a worthwhile investment, as my previous Dell Precision lasted me 10 years before before it could be upgraded no further. That old one still runs fine, though.


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