# Will a slave really help me?



## locash (Aug 20, 2018)

I am running a imac late 2013, 3.5 i7, 32gb ram. Using Logic.
When I pull up my latest project/cue it seems to be the processor (my cores) which craps out, not me running out of ram. I really dont want to add a PC and run VEP. I dont use templates and like the freedom of adding what I need based upon the film/project. 
I realize my imac is a bit dated now but curious if adding a slave will really help me, or should i just jump on a new imac pro. Im open to change but need some convincing/schooling. Thanks


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## Damarus (Aug 20, 2018)

Options: New iMac, iMac Pro, or PC. Comes down to preference and budget. No use talking about an iMac pro if you are not interested in spending 5+ grand. With SSD's being a lot more friendly in price, make sure your next system is running samples off of an SSD and not a traditional HDD. That can help significantly.

Haven't had to use VEP yet, but a personal suggestion would be a newer iMac or waiting for the new Mac Pro if that interests you.


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## fraz (Aug 20, 2018)

If you did get VEP and when you learn how to use it you'll be flying. Your iMac must be the 4 core with this processor? - https://www.cpubenchmark.net/[email protected]+3.50GHz&id=2027

As an example the i7 7820 X is around 10% behind the 6950 X and scores around 18,000 in the CPU benchmark.

You could keep your iMac that is a good machine but just a few years old now and to expect it to perform all tasks is too much to ask

Of course you could get rid of it but not get much payment back to you but you'd still need to buy a new Mac.

The only thing wrong with your iMac is you are out of CPU power and need some more !!!

If you buy new Mac then in a while you could get caught in the same loop.

What if your iMac works 100% for many years to come? - And adding a windows slave adds another 18,000 points to the already existing 9000+

I managed to get a trashcan half price!!! - but plan to use it with a slave or two -

Decisions, decisions - !!!


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## locash (Aug 20, 2018)

[/QUOTE]


Damarus said:


> Options: New iMac, iMac Pro, or PC. Comes down to preference and budget. No use talking about an iMac pro if you are not interested in spending 5+ grand. With SSD's being a lot more friendly in price, make sure your next system is running samples off of an SSD and not a traditional HDD. That can help significantly.
> 
> Haven't had to use VEP yet, but a personal suggestion would be a newer iMac or waiting for the new Mac Pro if that interests you.



Samples running on an SSD will help my processor from maxing out? My samples currently are all on a Pegasus Raid connected via Thunderbolt. So I think its pretty fast, i never get any disk errors in Logic. Just core/processor maxing out and stopping my project.


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## locash (Aug 20, 2018)

fraz said:


> If you did get VEP and when you learn how to use it you'll be flying. Your iMac must be the 4 core with this processor? - https://www.cpubenchmark.net/[email protected]+3.50GHz&id=2027
> 
> As an example the i7 7820 X is around 10% behind the 6950 X and scores around 18,000 in the CPU benchmark.
> 
> ...



Yes its 4 core. It does seem that adding a PC is the best bang for the buck to add on to what I have. The other option is starting from scratch with a new mac. Maybe bridge the gap with a new slave PC until the new mac pro's come out.


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## JohnG (Aug 20, 2018)

Hello @locash 

I think you need more nuanced advice than "yes or no."

*You may need a new Mac if*:

1. You are using tons of processing but relatively few instruments (maybe writing in a pop / contemporary / guitar based style) -- multiple delays, reverbs (_especially _reverbs), multiple compressors, and other stuff like that;

2. You need / want a very small buffer for playback (often, raising your buffer could really help your CPU); and / or

3. You are using very heavily scripted sample libraries and / or a very large number of demanding synth plugins.

*You would most likely benefit from a slave computer if*:

4. You are absorbing a very large percentage of your RAM by loading samples (as might be for someone composing orchestral or hybrid-style music);

5. Your style of writing requires many separate reverbs for groups of samples (woodwinds, brass, strings, hi perc, lo perc., etc.); and / or

6. Even if you are not using orchestral samples, you have lots of demanding synths loaded, each with its own reverbs, delays, and other processing.

*Don't Fear VE Pro*

There is a learning curve with VE Pro but it's not nearly as daunting as, say, learning counterpoint or even how to play an instrument. There are numerous Youtube videos with "how to" instructions, including some short ones from the company, and there is a very useful help board/ chat room. Moreover, Vienna has done an incredible job with VE Pro -- it's a superb piece of software.


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## Jeremy Spencer (Aug 20, 2018)

locash said:


> Samples running on an SSD will help my processor from maxing out?



Hell yes. I just wrapped up a big project on my 2013 MBPro with only 16GB Ram, I'm sure your current iMac is still sufficient. SSD's are you best friend when it comes to sample libraries, especially connected to Thunderbolt.

And the advice from @JohnG he has some great points. Even running VEPro on a single machine works wonders with Logic pro. If you host your VI's inside VEPro, the load gets distributed more efficiently across the cores.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Aug 20, 2018)

Not sure SSDs will reduce the processing load much, but they make an incredible difference to how much you can stream without getting nasty clicks and pops.


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## Jeremy Spencer (Aug 20, 2018)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> Not sure SSDs will reduce the processing load much, but they make an incredible difference to how much you can stream without getting nasty clicks and pops.



Yes, exactly.


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## brandowalk (Aug 20, 2018)

Can someone explain or send me to info on slave computers 101? How does it work? What software do you need? Connections, etc. Can you use cross platforms? 

I’m currently using protools 11 on a Mac mini 16GB ram, running orchestral samples from ssds.


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## JohnG (Aug 20, 2018)

@brandowalk 

VE Pro allows you to use a combination of Mac and PC. For all I know you might be able to use other OS as well, but I think the smart thing is to head to their website and watch one or two of their videos.

The short answer is you don't need much in the way of hardware. Typically you connect your Master Computer to the Slave Computer using an ethernet cable or, as in my case, with a switch in between because I have multiple Slave Computers. The rest is VE Pro.

Check out some videos on Youtube and you will see it's not nearly as hard as most of what we do.


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## locash (Aug 20, 2018)

JohnG said:


> Hello @locash
> 
> I think you need more nuanced advice than "yes or no."
> 
> ...


Thanks JohnG. Yes I use alot of Kontakt libraries and soft synths. Usually all routed to about 10-12 stems/sub mixes. 
I never thought that running VEPRO on my single computer would help Logic. Ill look into that. That's weird that it would work better.


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## JohnG (Aug 20, 2018)

locash said:


> That's weird that it would work better.



I've read for years that VE Pro does a superior job at spreading the load across your computer's multiple CPUs. I don't know if that's still true or not. Maybe you can download a trial version of VE Pro?


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## Dewdman42 (Aug 20, 2018)

I am running Vepro without a slave on my mac. It does improve many things when working with logic. As john mentioned, Logic is not very good about freeing ram and spreading load across CPU's. Vepro does a much better job, so just putting your instruments into Vepro, will alone, spread the cpu use across your cores a little better. Also Logic is horrible about freeing memory. So when you load samples with kontakt, then if you free the samples in kontakt, Logic doesn't free the memory anyway! But if you have kontakt inside Vepro, Vepro will absolutely free memory as you free it in your plugins or disable plugins, etc.. Also Vepro is really easy to deactivate plugins or channels you aren't using, which frees memory.. Logic on the other hand can have plugins still active, using RAM..even if you have disabled the plugin from the Logic mixer.

So...just those couple of points are great reasons to use Vepro inside Logic, even without an actual slave. There are other reasons which have more to do with work flow productivity, that you can do with Vepro on the same machine as Logic.

I am not using a slave, but I have a 12-core mac pro... I might never get a slave, as so far I haven't found I really need one, tonight I'm playing back a 100+track VSL orch mockup of ET score...sounds great...20-35% cpu with even distribution across all 12 cores....using Vepro and logic with lots of MIRPRO too.


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## Dewdman42 (Aug 20, 2018)

I will also say that Logic does an ok job of spreading the load across CPU's if you have a lot of plugin instances and they are all being used....well...kind of evenly. If you have just a few plugins, let's say one instance of kontakt with a lot of instruments in it...Logic is not very good at using all the cores with that. Vepro is much better about spreading the load across cores no matter what.


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## locash (Aug 20, 2018)

Dewdman42 said:


> I will also say that Logic does an ok job of spreading the load across CPU's if you have a lot of plugin instances and they are all being used....well...kind of evenly. If you have just a few plugins, let's say one instance of kontakt with a lot of instruments in it...Logic is not very good at using all the cores with that. Vepro is much better about spreading the load across cores no matter what.


Very interesting. Ok....I'm gonna grab the VEPRO demo and do some tests and mess around. You also have me looking at some trash cans (12 core macs) and cheese grater (12 core macs) on ebay too.


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## Dewdman42 (Aug 20, 2018)

I'm extremely happy with my 2010 cheesegrater. My buddy just got the 2012 one, which is basically the same machine, they didn't change anything in that year. He got his and I got mine, refurbished with 3.33ghz 12 core and 64gb ram for well under $2000. If you get one, make sure to try to get one with an upgraded video card that will support Mojave, which requires metal support and all the original video cards do not. On ebay there are some refurbished dealers that sell these regularly and if you talk to them directly they can often build a machine to your spec if one of the listings doesn't exactly match what you want. My buddy bought his outside of ebay...

https://ipowerresale.com/product/2012-mac-pro-2-66ghz-12-core-westmere/


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## Bohrium (Aug 21, 2018)

locash said:


> Thanks JohnG. Yes I use alot of Kontakt libraries and soft synths. Usually all routed to about 10-12 stems/sub mixes.
> I never thought that running VEPRO on my single computer would help Logic. Ill look into that. That's weird that it would work better.



It's a tremendous help if you have a BIG template and change projects fast or you have a porject set up for every cue. You don't have to reload anything then.

I haven't used mine in month, but I'm not doing any film stuff at the moment.

Some say it's more stable than hosting the libraries in the DAW. I can't comment on that since I had approximately the same amount of problems in all DAWs as well as VEPro.


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## Bohrium (Aug 21, 2018)

locash said:


> Very interesting. Ok....I'm gonna grab the VEPRO demo and do some tests and mess around. You also have me looking at some trash cans (12 core macs) and cheese grater (12 core macs) on ebay too.



Having a slave computer is really a PITA if you don't need it. Starting with latency to the fact that you would need more monitors or a remote solution to actually see what's going on on your slave, the moment it will do something you were not expecting. (like being silent, due to some routing problem .. etc.)

It's very good if your computer or workflow is limited by the fact that all the sounds are coming from the same computer. (you don't want to wait on the loading of samples ... your computer doesn't have any free resources any more, etc. and you have a very static template)
Any other case ... it's counter productive and will slow you down.

My point:
It solves a real problem of composers very well IF you have that problem. If you don't, it's useless.


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