# For those running things on one machine...



## José Herring (Dec 15, 2021)

Can you post for me your setup. Computer, CPU, Ram, and size of your typical template.

I'm starting to gather data on if realistically I can put everything on one machine with what I have or if I need to upgrade. thx


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## ALittleNightMusic (Dec 15, 2021)

iMac 2019 3.6 GHZ 8 Core, 64GB RAM, 700 tracks disabled template in Cubase


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## clisma (Dec 15, 2021)

MacPro 5,1 - 12-core 3.06 Ghz| 96GB RAM | 5 SSDs.

With all samples loaded on all tracks, Logic just about eats 80GB of RAM or so. I have all of Cinematic Studio Series loaded at all times with custom mic positions as my main palette. But in the same template I have loaded (where included I always use custom mics):

HB shorts and longs (diamond)
HS shorts and longs (diamond)
LASS3
MS Adventure Brass
MS Adventure Strings
MS Soaring Strings
PS Vista
PS Fluid Shorts
PS True Strike
HP
Bunch of Harps, Piano, Celesta, Vibraphone, custom EXS patches for Percussion, and smaller bits I can't remember. 

The only issue I have with this setup, is that in Logic you get the single core spike from time to time, due to the relatively low clock of my Xeons. Other than that, this MacPro is my daily bread since 2011 and with all the upgrades done over the years, it still does everything I need without compromising with freezing or changing buffer sizes.

Once there's an option for an Mx series MacPro I will surely upgrade, but for now, I'd rather just write music!


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## Zanshin (Dec 15, 2021)

Win10, 9900k, 96 gigs of ram, I’m a track preset guy (both Cubase and Live)


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## Soundbed (Dec 15, 2021)

José Herring said:


> Can you post for me your setup. Computer, CPU, Ram, and size of your typical template.
> 
> I'm starting to gather data on if realistically I can put everything on one machine with what I have or if I need to upgrade. thx


My main rig is currently a mobile rig, because we expected to be traveling a lot in 2020 (hahah ... ah...) ...

MBP 2018 i9* 32GB RAM (2400MHz DDR4) — 1TB HD

*2.9GHz 6-core Intel Core i9, Turbo Boost up to 4.8GHz, with 12MB shared L3 cache

Usually sessions are fewer than 80 active MIDI instruments (including samplers and synths), plus some audio tracks and some busses and some master fx. Total channel count rarely exceeds 120 overall channels, in Studio One 5 Pro. Sometimes I move mixing duties to ProTools 12, using audio only.

OWC Dock (one of the 12-14 port versions)

Three 2TB M.2 drives for Samples and video projects, in individual NVMe enclosures
Four 1TB SSDs for Samples in individual external SCSI enclosures
Four 1TB Spinning Drives in OWC Thunderbay for backups

Two external 1080 monitors (plus sometimes the screen on the laptop, for 3 screens)

~

I recently bought the very cheapest Mac M1 Mini from Costco for around $600 USD, and I'll be testing how hard I can "push" those 8GB pretty soon, possibly with another machine as a "slave" using VEP.

~ I also have a PC I built in 2012 but it rarely gets powered up anymore because the Intel MBP handles most of my needs for production music with "only" 32GB RAM


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## José Herring (Dec 15, 2021)

Interesting.

Right now I use two machines. My main machine is i7 10700k with 64 gigs. My samples slave is a Ryzen 3700x with 128gigs. I could swap out the ram and put 128 gigs on my main machine, then budget permitting upgrade the CPU to an i9, but it seems that just the ram alone could be enough of an upgrade. 

I'd have to get clever on sample storage though. Right now my only extermal drive is 2tb. But I use about 4 tb total between all my drives. But, I'm sure I could lean it up a bit because there are so many samples now that I hardly use any more. It could be fun to lean things up a bit. 

This way I could use my second machine to run picture when I'm scoring. This has become a very interesting idea now as machines over the next few years will be more powerful and will be able to handle large templates even better.


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## Soundbed (Dec 15, 2021)

José Herring said:


> Interesting.
> 
> Right now I use two machines. My main machine is i7 10700k with 64 gigs. My samples slave is a Ryzen 3700x with 128gigs. I could swap out the ram and put 128 gigs on my main machine, then budget permitting upgrade the CPU to an i9, but it seems that just the ram alone could be enough of an upgrade.
> 
> ...


How many tracks are you usually putting in a session ("loaded" or "unloaded")?


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## clisma (Dec 15, 2021)

José Herring said:


> Interesting.
> 
> Right now I use two machines. My main machine is i7 10700k with 64 gigs. My samples slave is a Ryzen 3700x with 128gigs. I could swap out the ram and put 128 gigs on my main machine, then budget permitting upgrade the CPU to an i9, but it seems that just the ram alone could be enough of an upgrade.
> 
> ...


This seems like a solid idea to me. Cleaning out unused samples is what today was all about for me, archiving in the process. It can save up quite a bit of space!

And using the second PC for picture is also a good idea. I've gone that route with my laptop, hosting the movie in a synchronized version of Logic and printing the stems directly to that session. Worked like a charm on my last one.


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## José Herring (Dec 15, 2021)

Soundbed said:


> How many tracks are you usually putting in a session ("loaded" or "unloaded")?


My template has about 300 midi tracks. My largest projects use between 40-60 depending on how detailed I want to get. 

So this is doable.


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## NekujaK (Dec 15, 2021)

Win 7, Xeon (4 core) 3.7Ghz, 32GB RAM (it's a 6-year-old machine)

My largest template is 1GB, mostly unloaded. A large composition can push it to about 25GB.

DAWs: Reason 11, and occasionally Reaper

Generally, I haven't encountered any serious performance issues. If I do, I increase latency and/or bounce tracks. When mixing, I push latency to the max. I tend to mix minimally - pretty much just EQ and compression only, and only on tracks or groups that actually need it, plus a handful of reverbs and delays as sends. I try to keep FX plugins to a bare minimum.


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## Laurin Lenschow (Dec 15, 2021)

Win 10, 12 cores @3.8Ghz, 64GB RAM 
I currently don't have a temlpate (I'm working on one) so I always start from scratch. My more complex pieces have 60-80 tracks (with one Kontakt instance per track because I'm too lazy to set things up properly). No issues.


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## José Herring (Dec 15, 2021)

NekujaK said:


> Win 7, Xeon (4 core) 3.7Ghz, 32GB RAM (it's a 6-year-old machine)
> 
> My largest template is 1GB, mostly unloaded. A large composition can push it to about 25GB.
> 
> ...


Would love to know how you get along with Reason as you primary DAW. Been a reason user forever but don't use it as the main DAW.


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## rgames (Dec 15, 2021)

I do template refreshes at the end of every year and I'm working on a single-machine setup right now. 14C/28T with 128 GB RAM and 4 TB of sample SSDs.

Number of tracks is not the limiting factor in my experience. It's number of streaming voices. If you have only 20 tracks but 20 mic positions for each track then you're going have more trouble than a project with 100 tracks and only one mic position for each.

Likewise, if you write static block chords then you're going to have fewer streaming voices than something with a lot of fast movement across a lot of instruments. The former is easy on one machine; the latter might be tough depending on how densely orchestrated it is.

My suspicion is that a single-machine setup will work for 95% of projects these days unless you're tring to run crazy-low latency (say, 64 samples @ 44.1 kHz).

I've just started incorporating some of the Synchron libraries and they seem to be pretty efficient, both in terms of streaming performance and RAM usage. I could never get the Kontakt purge feature to work with all libraries but the Synchron purge feature seems to work pretty well. Plus, purging Kontakt instruments never seemed to save as much RAM as it should. Synchron seems a lot better in that regard. So I think I can easily write/produce on a single machine if a get rid of some older libraries and use Synchron libs as my core orchestra.

My goal is to be able to use the same template on both my 14C/28T/128GB RAM desktop machine and my 6C/12T/64GB RAM laptop. Latency on the laptop will be higher and more instruments will be purged but I think it's do-able. If it works I'll be able to easily transfer projects between them when I'm on the road.

TBD...

rgames


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## river angler (Dec 15, 2021)

MBPro mid 2012 2.3gHz i7 16GB RAM (non retina)
System SSD (High Sierra/Logic): Crucial Maxtor 1TB
Second internal SSD (all instrument libraries): Crucial Maxtor 2TB
External SSD (audio/arrangement scratch): Crucial Maxtor 1TB
Occasional hook up to a second screen via the Thunderbolt/VGA port.

I can run up to 70/80 tracks of large orchestral sample libraries all running live before I need to start freezing any tracks. Most of these instruments invariably have Waves CLA 2A inserted and various other plugin effects. I also have mastering tools like Waves/Newfangled Audio sitting permanently on the 2 buss and often don't even bother making comp tracks from maybe 6 open audio take tracks always with some dynamics inserted on each. This kind of template can also still run Logics movie window at the same time!

Here's a screenshot of the arrangement page of a 50 minute symphony I've just finished...



...I can't actually reduce the window any more to reveal the full 68 track count!

FYI if you don't run another program simultaneously including internet browsers Logic will rarely spit at you! There are also many other tricks one can harness to yield the best ergonomic performance from a single machine. You will be surprised how 16GB RAM needn't be as restrictive as some people bleat about if you do your housework efficiently!

If my 2012 got stolen/died I would still plum for a direct replacement with the same model. IMO the modern equivalents are an absolute con not having space for a second SSD with a ridiculously dear price tag! ...and I'm just talking laptop!

You can pick up a mid 2012 MBP for £300! Yes! it will only support up to Catalina but Logic 10.48 on High Sierra has everything anyone could ever need to score to picture. Even for a pro musician the modern machines are all marketing hype!

I rely on mine for professional work in film and classical composition: if I felt it wasn't up to snuff technically I would change it instantly! However it has yet to let me down in 9 years of flawless use. I adore its compact format and portability with oodles of power under the hood!


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## river angler (Dec 15, 2021)

rgames said:


> My suspicion is that a single-machine setup will work for 95% of projects these days unless you're tring to run crazy-low latency (say, 64 samples @ 44.1 kHz).


This!


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## José Herring (Dec 15, 2021)

rgames said:


> I do template refreshes at the end of every year and I'm working on a single-machine setup right now. 14C/28T with 128 GB RAM and 4 TB of sample SSDs.
> 
> Number of tracks is not the limiting factor in my experience. It's number of streaming voices. If you have only 20 tracks but 20 mic positions for each track then you're going have more trouble than a project with 100 tracks and only one mic position for each.
> 
> ...


Thanks for the great data. 

I find that writing fast notes which I tend to do has more to do with the ability to stream voices rather than any CPU hickup. Do you not find that to be the case as well? Or do you find that it can be a problem cpu performance wise too?


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## Soundbed (Dec 15, 2021)

rgames said:


> Number of tracks is not the limiting factor in my experience. It's number of streaming voices.


Very good point!!



river angler said:


> I also have mastering tools like Waves/Newfangled Audio sitting permanently on the 2 buss


Agreed about Newfangled, that usually sits on my master disabled until I’m mixing. Along with FabFilter EQ and MB.


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## river angler (Dec 15, 2021)

José Herring said:


> Thanks for the great data.
> 
> I find that writing fast notes which I tend to do has more to do with the ability to stream voices rather than any CPU hickup. Do you not find that to be the case as well? Or do you find that it can be a problem cpu performance wise too?


...Can also be a problem stemming from how you have your DAW settings set up. I have found Logic slowing up at times only to find that the cause was something I have inadvertently switched on!


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## river angler (Dec 15, 2021)

I boggle at the rate some people swap out their systems ! What a bloody bore and hassle!
If you persevere with the same system for long enough you soon
discover more power and efficiency is under the hood with practice.
One could also apply this to learning instrument libraries well instead of
continually purchasing new ones as so many seem to do!

If it ain't broke don't fix it!
...and if someone's making fantastic music from it why can't you?


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## marclawsonmusic (Dec 15, 2021)

I'm still running a late 2013 iMac with 32GB RAM. Logic Pro + VEP7 and about 350 tracks in the template. Amazes me that my 8+ year old machine still works for this stuff.


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## José Herring (Dec 15, 2021)

river angler said:


> I boggle at the rate some people swap out their systems ! What a bloody bore and hassle!
> If you persevere with the same system for long enough you soon
> discover more power and efficiency is under the hood with practice.
> One could also apply this to learning instrument libraries well instead of
> ...


I held on to the same machine for 12 years. Finally upgrading and built new ones last year. Much of my work flow is left over from learning to get the most from my old machines. 

Now it is time to change.


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## river angler (Dec 15, 2021)

...another thing!... regarding the modern machines: yes! they run slightly faster but when I hit the save button it actually gives me reassurance to see the slightly slower speed at which it saves at and be able to see the reassuring little window that appears momentarily at the end of the save! With the modern machines the lightening fast speed at which things are saved is again an unnecessary gimmick! 

Yes file transfers are quicker but in the real world how often is it that anyone really needs to do a zillion tasks at once! We are composers not NASA nerds!


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## river angler (Dec 15, 2021)

José Herring said:


> I held on to the same machine for 12 years. Finally upgrading and built new ones last year. Much of my work flow is left over from learning to get the most from my old machines.
> 
> Now it is time to change.


Fair enough! You obviously felt it was a necessary change for your situation.

I see you mention shedding older libraries hogging storage- The only libraries I have wiped are Miroslav and Ivory- I never bought into any dedicated synth or hybrid libraries until more recent times where the choice is now so much bigger and libraries tend to work far more efficiently these days! I'm also someone who's really stretched what few libraries I do own to the max and in doing so have learned how to mould them to my needs to a point where I really never find anything missing- especially when it comes to hybrid/sound design!... golly! what an absolute rabbit hole of marketeering that is!... and also how many orchestral libraries does one really need to make great music??!! So much marketing and ear candy!


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## ALittleNightMusic (Dec 15, 2021)

One thing I’m noticing more and more is with large projects on a single machine, my 6 UAD chips also come in handy for offloading some processing. I know not everybody is a fan of the UAD model, but I’ve found it helps maintain stability with these large templates and orchestral projects. One less thing for the main CPU to deal with.


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## Jonas.Ingebretsen (Dec 15, 2021)

32 core threadripper with 128 GB ram with NVME drives.

My new template uses 400-500 tracks, ~1000 buses, 100 GB ram usage with 50-60% CPU usage across all cores.


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## river angler (Dec 15, 2021)

Jonas.Ingebretsen said:


> 32 core threadripper with 128 GB ram with NVME drives.
> 
> My new template uses 400-500 tracks, ~1000 buses, 100 GB ram usage with 50-60% CPU usage across all cores.


Golly! what 'you scoring?! 10 movies at once?...!!!


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## NekujaK (Dec 15, 2021)

José Herring said:


> Would love to know how you get along with Reason as you primary DAW. Been a reason user forever but don't use it as the main DAW.


I've been using Reason since 2.5, and still find it my preferred DAW. Reason's workflow fits me like a glove, and even though the sequencer has some significant functional shortcomings when compared to just about any other DAW, my ability to work quickly, intuitively, and creatively in Reason, more than makes up for its deficiencies.

That said, I typically don't do heavy orchestral music in Reason. Most of my orchestral work is at the level of orchestra-based epic and trialer music, which is not all that complicated.

Sadly, Reason 12 is a disappointing release for anyone who needs a full-featured composition platform, and in the current development roadmap, sequencer enhancements are conspicuously missing. It seems Reason Studios have no desire to go head-to-head with Steinberg, Ableton, etc., and so, I'm starting to mentally prepare myself for an inevitable switch to a deifferent primary DAW.


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## Jonas.Ingebretsen (Dec 15, 2021)

river angler said:


> Golly! what 'you scoring?! 10 movies at once?...!!!


I heard chicks dig big templates. 




I'm writing albums which is all in one big cubase file, stretched across many thousands of bars, so the template naturally expanded itself to the current size.


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## PaulieDC (Dec 15, 2021)

rgames said:


> I do template refreshes at the end of every year and I'm working on a single-machine setup right now. 14C/28T with 128 GB RAM and 4 TB of sample SSDs.
> 
> Number of tracks is not the limiting factor in my experience. It's number of streaming voices. If you have only 20 tracks but 20 mic positions for each track then you're going have more trouble than a project with 100 tracks and only one mic position for each.


This. ^^

I basically have the same, i9-7940X 14 core/28 thread, 128GB ram, and because I built this in 2018 I went for 4 separate 1TB NVMe drives for libraries due to cost/availability, plus my C drive is a 500TB NVMe Samsung Pro (Pro has faster WRITES, not so important for Library drives). I'm sticking with BBCSO at the moment and going down the road of Expression Maps so track count is only a couple hundred. But I don't hit any issues, not yet anyway. I did have some trouble with audio crackling at first with Studio One v4 so in 2019 I switched to Cubase Pro and ditched the PreSonus interface for an RME Babyface Pro, and that was a HUGE improvement. The interface to me plays a big part. The only library that can still cause me grief is VSL 280VC if I start hammering away om a boogie-woogie tune with 4 mics, the many stacked voices just send the CPU soaring.

As far as what's available today to go with PC-wise, I toyed with doing a new build recently, but no CPU for $1K or less was out there to give me a performance boost that would be worth it, until now. The i9-12900K is right up our alley because it smokes the Ryzen 5950 in Single-Core and FPU performance, which may not be a big deal for gamers but it's a big one for music production. And https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1663644-REG/intel_bx8071512900k_core_i9_12900k_8_core_lga.html/?ap=y&ap=y&smp=y&smp=y&lsft=BI%3A514&gclid=Cj0KCQiAweaNBhDEARIsAJ5hwbfn_WR3ho9osc3VZuaBLhg9n2VeV6EXBmZY-5WsC744r-8gMgMI55EaAvCwEALw_wcB (it's a bit cheaper) (Intel finally gets it, hallelujah). If I wanted to go to DDR5 RAM and a fully PCIe 5.0 buss path (or at least be ready for it), that's the road I'd be on. BUT, after 2021's hardware and software acquisitions, I'm staying with what I have PC-wise, not really an option, lol!


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## cedricm (Dec 15, 2021)

Windows 10 / AMD Ryzen 7 3700X / 128 GB RAM / Lots of SSDs & 2 internal 4 TB HDs / hundreds of tracks.


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## jcrosby (Dec 15, 2021)

river angler said:


> Golly! what 'you scoring?! 10 movies at once?...!!!


The OP is looking for advice for moving forward. If you don't have constructive advice based on their query, (and * *12 years** * *of running a legacy machine --- quite disciplined to put it mildly ...) perhaps you might consider dialing the personal beliefs back a bit, while they appreciate thier 12 glorious years and simultaneously attempt to move forward a decade...


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## José Herring (Dec 16, 2021)

NekujaK said:


> I've been using Reason since 2.5, and still find it my preferred DAW. Reason's workflow fits me like a glove, and even though the sequencer has some significant functional shortcomings when compared to just about any other DAW, my ability to work quickly, intuitively, and creatively in Reason, more than makes up for its deficiencies.
> 
> That said, I typically don't do heavy orchestral music in Reason. Most of my orchestral work is at the level of orchestra-based epic and trialer music, which is not all that complicated.
> 
> Sadly, Reason 12 is a disappointing release for anyone who needs a full-featured composition platform, and in the current development roadmap, sequencer enhancements are conspicuously missing. It seems Reason Studios have no desire to go head-to-head with Steinberg, Ableton, etc., and so, I'm starting to mentally prepare myself for an inevitable switch to a deifferent primary DAW.


I complained so hard about Reason 12 that I ended up buying it just to prove I was right. 

In truth it's a transition period for Reason and I'm really not sure what direction they will eventually head it but I am sure that getting their DAW on the same level of others is way down the line for them if at all. 
Take a look at Studio One. I've been checking it out for a year now and it has similar intuitive workflow as Reason. It kind of reminds me of a cross between Reason and Cubase that's why I was able to pick it up without a learning curve. Studio One + The Reason Rack and you might be really happy.


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## TomislavEP (Dec 16, 2021)

My current DAW: Ryzen 7 (8 core), 64GB DDR4 (Corsair), 3xSSD (OS, libraries, sessions), 2xHDD (storage, backup). I'm working in REAPER.

I have had this particular setup for about two years now and it works great. In most cases, I strive to custom template for each project with as few elements included as possible. But I assume that it could handle a larger template without a hitch, should I venture into those in the near future. In any case, I hope to use this system for many years to come so it's a good thing that I'm greenlighted for Windows 11 as well.

For other tasks that I need, incl. photo and video editing, Internet, website maintenance, occasional gaming, I use a separate PC. This one is getting a bit old, so I assume that I will need to build a new one after Windows 10 loses the official support in late 2025.


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## Henning (Dec 16, 2021)

Hey José, I'm using an I9 10949x with 256 gb ram, 2 4tb ssd sample drives, 1 2tb ssd for projects, 1 tb ssd for Win10. Track count depends. I use expression maps a lot with orchestral sample libs, so where some people have 16 Midi tracks I only have one. In general I would say that I rarely get above 50-60 (I had a project with about 100 but that was ultra-rare) active midi/audio tracks per music track/cue. The rest is disabled. The framework of busses stays the same of course. So the busses and fx channels alone have perhaps about 80 channels. It's setup similarly to the Trevor Morris vids I linked to in the other thread.


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## José Herring (Dec 16, 2021)

Henning said:


> Hey José, I'm using an I9 10949x with 256 gb ram, 2 4tb ssd sample drives, 1 2tb ssd for projects, 1 tb ssd for Win10. Track count depends. I use expression maps a lot with orchestral sample libs, so where some people have 16 Midi tracks I only have one. In general I would say that I rarely get above 50-60 (I had a project with about 100 but that was ultra-rare) active midi/audio tracks per music track/cue. The rest is disabled. The framework of busses stays the same of course. So the busses and fx channels alone have perhaps about 80 channels. It's setup similarly to the Trevor Morris vids I linked to in the other thread.


Yes, I'm headed in that direction. My main machine not quite as beefy as yours but I did some stress testing tonight and it's plenty capable of handling what I need it to do. So I will set it up starting tomorrow. I will also being upgrading the CPU this year. Max ram I can have on this machine is 128 but right now the slave the houses all my samples up and fully loaded with purged samples is around 80gigs. Unpurged I use the full 128. 

So with unarmed tracks the machine can handle it and when I upgrade the CPU even better. 

I guess my surprise is that instrument tracks are way more CPU efficient then I remember. I was on Cubase 9.5 for a while and instrument tracks kind of ate up CPU just sitting there. The more you loaded the more CPU it ate up. Not any more. 380 instrument tracks armed and 86 tracks playing fast 16th notes at 156 bmp and the CPU on hit 50%. Idle it was down to 20% which is the same as VEPro. 

It's going to be interesting how this works out.


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## Henning (Dec 16, 2021)

José Herring said:


> Yes, I'm headed in that direction. My main machine not quite as beefy as yours but I did some stress testing tonight and it's plenty capable of handling what I need it to do. So I will set it up starting tomorrow. I will also being upgrading the CPU this year. Max ram I can have on this machine is 128 but right now the slave the houses all my samples up and fully loaded with purged samples is around 80gigs. Unpurged I use the full 128.
> 
> So with unarmed tracks the machine can handle it and when I upgrade the CPU even better.
> 
> ...


As with everything things are never perfect from the start. As the projects come and go I change this and that little thing in the basic template. 

Yes, instrument tracks is the way I went. But they are far more flexible nowadays than they were back then. It's so nice to have a lean mixer page with just the enabled tracks while my VEPRO stuff cluttered the mixer from end to end. Also you click on the instrument track and have instant access to volume, inserts etc. All the endless routing with VEP is in the past. Again, this is just me and how I like to work now.


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## cloudbuster (Dec 16, 2021)

river angler said:


> You will be surprised how 16GB RAM needn't be as restrictive as some people bleat about if you do your housework efficiently!


Amen to that. Instead of using (a) monster palette(s) I'm using sets of smaller, well organized modular palettes that I can add rapidly to any project I'm working on.


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## ModalRealist (Dec 16, 2021)

AMD Ryzen 3600 6-core 12-threads 3.4Ghz clock.
64GB DDR4 RAM (clocked at 2000mhz).
3 x 1TB Crucial MX500 sample drives.
Win 10

Just added VE Pro and that's been really great for stability of my big template.

Using around 50GB of RAM for loaded instruments. Only use one mic position when writing/MIDI wrangling, bounce all mic positions at end to mix.


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## José Herring (Dec 16, 2021)

ModalRealist said:


> AMD Ryzen 3600 6-core 12-threads 3.4Ghz clock.
> 64GB DDR4 RAM (clocked at 2000mhz).
> 3 x 1TB Crucial MX500 sample drives.
> Win 10
> ...


Are you using VEPro on the same machine as your DAW? And what Daw do you use?


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## ModalRealist (Dec 17, 2021)

José Herring said:


> Are you using VEPro on the same machine as your DAW? And what Daw do you use?


Cubase 11. All on one machine.


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## Sample Fuel (Dec 17, 2021)

José Herring said:


> Yes, I'm headed in that direction. My main machine not quite as beefy as yours but I did some stress testing tonight and it's plenty capable of handling what I need it to do. So I will set it up starting tomorrow. I will also being upgrading the CPU this year. Max ram I can have on this machine is 128 but right now the slave the houses all my samples up and fully loaded with purged samples is around 80gigs. Unpurged I use the full 128.
> 
> So with unarmed tracks the machine can handle it and when I upgrade the CPU even better.
> 
> ...


My concern with big templates inside Cubase (not running VE PRO in decoupled mode) is the Cubase save times. How long does it take to save Cubase when you are running 380 instrument tracks?


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## ALittleNightMusic (Dec 17, 2021)

Sample Fuel said:


> My concern with big templates inside Cubase (not running VE PRO in decoupled mode) is the Cubase save times. How long does it take to save Cubase when you are running 380 instrument tracks?


If majority are disabled, save times are extremely quick. I’m also using one track per instrument with articulation maps. So not a concern - unless you plan to have 380 active tracks playing.


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## José Herring (Dec 17, 2021)

Sample Fuel said:


> My concern with big templates inside Cubase (not running VE PRO in decoupled mode) is the Cubase save times. How long does it take to save Cubase when you are running 380 instrument tracks?


I just a preliminary test. But the save time was really quick. But, I can't say that it was a real world type test. I just copied the instrument track with kontakt and a cello patch loaded 400 times then armed about 80 of them and did 8 bars of 16th notes at 155bmp. It was more of a stress test to see the polyphony capabilities, much as I do with VEPro systems.


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## DJN (Dec 17, 2021)

José Herring said:


> I just a preliminary test. But the save time was really quick. But, I can't say that it was a real world type test. I just copied the instrument rack with kontakt and a cello patch loaded 400 times then armed about 80 of them and did 8 bars of 16th notes at 155bmp. It was more of a stress test to see the polyphony capabilities, much as I do with VEPro systems.


I been following this thread with great interest, as I'm about to invest in 2 new vepro machines. Do you think it may be possible if we as a collective community (or someone who really knows) create a stress test we all could use to test our individual systems. Or at least give some guidelines as how to setup a proper test to see exactly what our machines are capable of. I realize everyones experiences, setups and useage are different, but there must be some common ground when testing hardware and polyphony. My experience is only working in Cubase, and I know there are many factors involved, ie buffer setting, asio guard etc. My approach to testing now feels very random, and I can't really trust the results.


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## NYC Composer (Dec 17, 2021)

ALittleNightMusic said:


> iMac 2019 3.6 GHZ 8 Core, 64GB RAM, 700 tracks disabled template in Cubase


Almost the same, but with 128 GB RAM, around 500 tracks, nothing disabled.


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## José Herring (Dec 17, 2021)

DJN said:


> I been following this thread with great interest, as I'm about to invest in 2 new vepro machines. Do you think it may be possible if we as a collective community (or someone who really knows) create a stress test we all could use to test our individual systems. Or at least give some guidelines as how to setup a proper test to see exactly what our machines are capable of. I realize everyones experiences, setups and useage are different, but there must be some common ground when testing hardware and polyphony. My experience is only working in Cubase, and I know there are many factors involved, ie buffer setting, asio guard etc. My approach to testing now feels very random, and I can't really trust the results.


T. Morris covers it fairly well here:


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## DJN (Dec 17, 2021)

José Herring said:


> T. Morris covers it fairly well here:



Thank you!! I will take a look now


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## Mr Greg G (Dec 17, 2021)

CPUAMD RYZEN9 3900XT Socket AM4 (3.8Ghz+64Mb) DDR4-3200 128GB maxMBASUS TUF GAMING B550-PLUSRAM64GB (4x16) 3600Mhz Crucial Ballistix Desktop Gaming Memory Kit, redGCGigabyte GTX N970IX OC-4GD Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 1076 MHz 4096 MB PCI-ExpressSSDSamsung SSD 970 EVO Plus 1TB Nvme M.2SSDSamsung SSD 860 EVO 8 TB (2x4) SATA3Cooling CPUNoctua NHD15Coolingbe quiet! Pure Wings 2 140mm PWM x4CaseBe quiet! ATX Pure Base 500DX

I can't have everything loaded on my machine in my template (about 50 instances of Kontakt with often 16 instruments per instance loaded), I need to unload samples in Kontakt but it's no hassle.


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## José Herring (Dec 17, 2021)

Okay, Ladies and gents. I'm convinced. Rebuilding everything starting now to migrate over to one machine.


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## José Herring (Dec 17, 2021)

One last question. Any problem with multiple player compatabilities? I noticed that T. Morris is using exclusively contact but I'll be using Kontakt, Sine, Syncrhon and Spitfire Player


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## Mr Greg G (Dec 17, 2021)

José Herring said:


> One last question. Any problem with multiple player compatabilities? I noticed that T. Morris is using exclusively contact but I'll be using Kontakt, Sine, Syncrhon and Spitfire Player


I use Play (soon Opus), Kontakt, Spitfire, Spectrasonics and so on without any problem. I actually do have a slave computer but it's kind of the garbage slave filled with the libraries I regretted buying.


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## Mr Greg G (Dec 17, 2021)

Regarding Cubase saving time, it takes about 5-6 seconds to save with my template BUT BUT BUT you can save while playing back your track with no audio dropout or anything. It just freezes the GUI for 5-6s.


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## MA-Simon (Dec 17, 2021)

rgames said:


> say, 64 samples @ 44.1 kHz


I read those low counts all the time. But most of modern sample libraies use like 16 voice counts PER key pressed. So for a 3 chord thats 48 Samples. Because of dynmaics and vibrato and release samples and whatnot.


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## Mr Greg G (Dec 17, 2021)

MA-Simon said:


> I read those low counts all the time. But most of modern sample libraies use like 16 voice counts PER key pressed. So for a 3 chord that 48 Sample. Because of dynmaics and vibrato and release samples and whatnot.


Not sure if you are both talking about the same thing but I think he was referring to the audio latency of his audio interface.


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## José Herring (Dec 17, 2021)

Mr Pringles said:


> I use Play (soon Opus), Kontakt, Spitfire, Spectrasonics and so on without any problem. I actually do have a slave computer but it's kind of the garbage slave filled with the libraries I regretted buying.


Thx. Yes I forgot about Play. I guess back in the old days I use to have compatibility issues with Play and Kontakt in Cubase.


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## José Herring (Dec 17, 2021)

MA-Simon said:


> I read those low counts all the time. But most of modern sample libraies use like 16 voice counts PER key pressed. So for a 3 chord thats 48 Samples. Because of dynmaics and vibrato and release samples and whatnot.


I've been at this for a long time now and peole boast about running their rig at low, low latencies but unless they are doing mostly audio and using outboard gear those latencies aren't realistically possible with VI's and sample libraries. So I never pay attention to that.


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## José Herring (Dec 17, 2021)

Update:

Put the sample drives on my DAW machine, downloaded all players, authorized everything. 

Now I'm going to rebuild my template from the ground up on one machine. Excited!


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## Nando Florestan (Dec 17, 2021)

...and then nobody heard of him for a looooooong time.


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## José Herring (Dec 18, 2021)

If I'm running my template with disabled tracks as I should, then does it also make sense to purge samples as well in OPUS and Kontakt?


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## cedricm (Dec 18, 2021)

river angler said:


> Fair enough! You obviously felt it was a necessary change for your situation.
> 
> I see you mention shedding older libraries hogging storage- The only libraries I have wiped are Miroslav and Ivory- I never bought into any dedicated synth or hybrid libraries until more recent times where the choice is now so much bigger and libraries tend to work far more efficiently these days! I'm also someone who's really stretched what few libraries I do own to the max and in doing so have learned how to mould them to my needs to a point where I really never find anything missing- especially when it comes to hybrid/sound design!... golly! what an absolute rabbit hole of marketeering that is!... and also how many orchestral libraries does one really need to make great music??!! So much marketing and ear candy!


I had to remove Ivory because it was never updated to the newer iLok and the old pace driver will crash Windows and make it extremely hard to restart the computer. 
An absolute disgrace and Synthogy won't see my money again for a long time, if ever.


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## manuhz (Dec 18, 2021)

Win10 Pro running on a Samsung NVMe drive, samples installed on multiple 500 gb SATA SSDs, i7 6800k, 128 gb of DDR4.

VEP Pro hosting lot of Kontakt, SFA Player and SINE instances.... My "oldie" still working sooooo great and reliable that I don't plan to change nothing for a while.

How that??? Thanks Realtime CPU Optimization


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## cedricm (Dec 18, 2021)

NekujaK said:


> I've been using Reason since 2.5, and still find it my preferred DAW. Reason's workflow fits me like a glove, and even though the sequencer has some significant functional shortcomings when compared to just about any other DAW, my ability to work quickly, intuitively, and creatively in Reason, more than makes up for its deficiencies.
> 
> That said, I typically don't do heavy orchestral music in Reason. Most of my orchestral work is at the level of orchestra-based epic and trialer music, which is not all that complicated.
> 
> Sadly, Reason 12 is a disappointing release for anyone who needs a full-featured composition platform, and in the current development roadmap, sequencer enhancements are conspicuously missing. It seems Reason Studios have no desire to go head-to-head with Steinberg, Ableton, etc., and so, I'm starting to mentally prepare myself for an inevitable switch to a deifferent primary DAW.


IMO Propellerhead entered the milking phase since at least V10.


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## Nando Florestan (Dec 18, 2021)

manuhz said:


> How that??? Thanks Realtime CPU Optimization


Which of their features do you use for pro audio?


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## manuhz (Dec 18, 2021)

Most of them make sense for RT audio processing. There are many crucial parameters in Windows that aren´t "tweaked" for performance. No hokus pokus, Bitsum gets just under the hood and make some of these parameters accesible. The default "hightest performance" power profille is killer and has a high impact in RAM optimization, system stability and overall performance. Running on my system for more than 5 years now! There is also a free version, just try it!


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## Sample Fuel (Dec 18, 2021)

ALittleNightMusic said:


> If majority are disabled, save times are extremely quick. I’m also using one track per instrument with articulation maps. So not a concern - unless you plan to have 380 active tracks playing.


I did a quick test recently with only 6 Hollywood OPUS master patches with all articulations and the save times were already like 6 seconds. I get that many Kontakt instruments with little overhead will not increase it very much but some bigger instruments like possibly Berlin and others I think would make the save times unbearable. I can have an action cue with 60-80 instruments enabled so I would be skeptical of the save times.

A few years ago I had one particular VE PRO machine where I was coupling instances while my other VE PRO machines were decoupled. The coupled version was causing my save times to be 18+ seconds which was awful. I since have changed everything to decoupled and my save times with 3000 track template are under 3 seconds now.


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## José Herring (Dec 19, 2021)

Sample Fuel said:


> I did a quick test recently with only 6 Hollywood OPUS master patches with all articulations and the save times were already like 6 seconds. I get that many Kontakt instruments with little overhead will not increase it very much but some bigger instruments like possibly Berlin and others I think would make the save times unbearable. I can have an action cue with 60-80 instruments enabled so I would be skeptical of the save times.
> 
> A few years ago I had one particular VE PRO machine where I was coupling instances while my other VE PRO machines were decoupled. The coupled version was causing my save times to be 18+ seconds which was awful. I since have changed everything to decoupled and my save times with 3000 track template are under 3 seconds now.


So far I've tested Save times with OPUS Vs. Kontakt. The problem is Opus. Save times increase a lot. For example with 24 Opus instrument armed save time is 15 seconds. With an equal number of Kontakts save time in Cubase is about 1 second. 

I'm off to test Sine and Spitfire next.


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## Rob (Dec 19, 2021)

hi José, i9 10900 - 64GB ram - win10 pro here. Cubase 11 and VE7 pro on same machine, so far no problem... mainly work on like 40/50 orchestral tracks, each of them with different articulations via expressionmaps.


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## Rowy van Hest (Dec 19, 2021)

Lenovo Ideapad 5 Pro (a laptop). CPU AMD Ryzen 5 5600H, GPU NVIDIA RTX 3650, RAM 16 GB, display WQXGA (2K), SSD 512GB, DAW Reaper. Mainly used for string quartets and chamber orchestra. No problems.


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## José Herring (Dec 19, 2021)

Rob said:


> hi José, i9 10900 - 64GB ram - win10 pro here. Cubase 11 and VE7 pro on same machine, so far no problem... mainly work on like 40/50 orchestral tracks, each of them with different articulations via expressionmaps.


So far building the entire template in Cubase. I'm up to the brass now. Trying to decide if I need to put all my brass libraries in the template or if I should leave some to pull up as needed. I like the convenience so far of not having to open up VEPro. But, if the experiment all in Cubase fails, I'll be putting VEPro on my DAW machine as you suggest. 

Either way it is finally great to not have to work with two machines after all these years.


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## M_Helder (Dec 19, 2021)

iMac 27’ 2017, i5 3.8GHz (4 cores), 3TB Fusion Drive, 64GB of Kingston HyperX RAM + external Samsung SSD’s. Cubase Pro 11.

Honestly, if not for the weak processor that really started to struggle lately with big orchestral projects, I wouldn’t even think about upgrading for another couple of years.

But alas, I am in your boots right now, José. Looking into building a custom PC and end my Mac run.


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## Sample Fuel (Dec 19, 2021)

José Herring said:


> So far I've tested Save times with OPUS Vs. Kontakt. The problem is Opus. Save times increase a lot. For example with 24 Opus instrument armed save time is 15 seconds. With an equal number of Kontakts save time in Cubase is about 1 second.
> 
> I'm off to test Sine and Spitfire next.


Yeah.....save times are my issue that is keeping me from just using Cubaase alone.


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## river angler (Dec 19, 2021)

jcrosby said:


> The OP is looking for advice for moving forward. If you don't have constructive advice based on their query, (and * *12 years** * *of running a legacy machine --- quite disciplined to put it mildly ...) perhaps you might consider dialing the personal beliefs back a bit, while they appreciate thier 12 glorious years and simultaneously attempt to move forward a decade...


Aww! come on now! It was just a little humour thrown into the conversation!
and anyway it was simply a spontaneous reaction to the poster with the huge RAM! 

I have already offered my honest response to the OP's question.

More poignantly: my own profession certainly can't afford to be based on "beliefs"! I'm not a luddite but simply a composer who works with the tools he has until they either break or are becoming a hindrance to work flow.
Besides the OP's opening question is concerning the possibility of doing everything on one cpu which as I do work on only on one machine thought my own experience working this way might be useful to him.

I'm not one to comment unless i feel I have something to contribute and in fact even my spontaneous comment here does actually have a veiled message: the fact that the OP needn't necessarily have to acquire an ultra modern machine to achieve his goal.


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## river angler (Dec 19, 2021)

cedricm said:


> I had to remove Ivory because it was never updated to the newer iLok and the old pace driver will crash Windows and make it extremely hard to restart the computer.
> An absolute disgrace and Synthogy won't see my money again for a long time, if ever.


Yes! the dreaded software compatibility with OS's/DAWS etc is usually the main reason one is indeed sometimes forced to change systems- such APITA and usually aggravatingly expensive! Thankfully there's nothing I use that has such conflicts and I happen to be perfectly content working with High Sierra/Logic 10.4.8.



cloudbuster said:


> Amen to that. Instead of using (a) monster palette(s) I'm using sets of smaller, well organized modular palettes that I can add rapidly to any project I'm working on.


Everyone finds there own way of working it: for me I don't actually have ready made pallets up as it's just the way that i spontaneously compose on any job. More often than not I start with a completely trackless arrange page and add instruments as i need them. It's just the way that I prefer to compose. It's difficult to explain but if all the instruments were already there it would goad me into using those instruments rather than loading ones that I have in my minds eye or spontaneously decide to use. Also it means lest tidying up later on in the session getting rid of superfluous tracks. Furthermore it puts far less strain on the cpu chip/RAM which is the last thing one needs at the start of a new session! I know this is contrary to the way a lot of people work but it's just a creative choice on my part.

For those doing more video game work/trailers I can understand they have templates set up for "go to" instruments they need.
Even when I'm composing classical I never use an orchestral template.


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## river angler (Dec 19, 2021)

Jonas.Ingebretsen said:


> I heard chicks dig big templates.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Gotcha! Fair dooes! ...I thought it was a tad unusual! Merry Crimble!


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## river angler (Dec 19, 2021)

José Herring said:


> I held on to the same machine for 12 years. Finally upgrading and built new ones last year. Much of my work flow is left over from learning to get the most from my old machines.
> 
> Now it is time to change.


If you built new machines last year why are you now trying to migrate everything onto one? Is it that you are finding the work load split between two machines too convoluted?


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## José Herring (Dec 19, 2021)

river angler said:


> If you built new machines last year why are you now trying to migrate everything onto one? Is it that you are finding the work load split between two machines too convoluted?


The plain simple truth was that I wasn't diggin' working across two machines with VEPro networked any more. 

I wish I could get you more of a good reason but there isn't. The VEPro system worked flawlessly, never crashed, I got great results by my standards and had room to grow. VEPro is a great program. I'm just tired of working with it.


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## José Herring (Dec 19, 2021)

José Herring said:


> The plain simple truth was that I wasn't diggin' working across two machines with VEPro networked any more.
> 
> I wish I could get you more of a good reason but there isn't. The VEPro system worked flawlessly, never crashed, I got great results by my standards and had room to grow. VEPro is a great program. I'm just tired of working with it.





river angler said:


> If you built new machines last year why are you now trying to migrate everything onto one? Is it that you are finding the work load split between two machines too convoluted?


Also, it became clear to me that what I was trying to do on two machines if I was a bit more organized one machine could handle it fine.


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## José Herring (Dec 21, 2021)

Template 90% done. Now going to see if this actually works.


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## MeloKeyz (Dec 23, 2021)

HP OMEN - i7 9750H @ 2.60 GHz - 6 cores - 32GB RAM - 6 TB SSD

Not using templates anymore! I am enjoying blank projects. Creating everything from scratch is like painting on an empty canvas. And it doesn't affect deadlines. Templates is an unbelievable hype that everyone seems to believe and build monstrous templates when they actually work in small projects. I will consider building one when I get hired in Hollywood and score for 20 movies at once.


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## Tralen (Dec 23, 2021)

MeloKeyz said:


> HP OMEN - i7 9750H @ 2.60 GHz - 6 cores - 32GB RAM - 6 TB SSD
> 
> Not using templates anymore! I am enjoying blank projects. Creating everything from scratch is like painting on an empty canvas. And it doesn't affect deadlines. Templates is an unbelievable hype that everyone seems to believe and build monstrous templates when they actually work in small projects. I will consider building one when I get hired in Hollywood and score for 20 movies at once.


One thing I started doing is having a template just for a particular instrument or section, where I configure those instruments in the way I like, but I don't write using it.

I start on an empty project, like you said, but, if I feel one of my templates could be useful, I copy the already configured track(s) from that template to the new project.

This becomes even more straightforward with Reaper's track templates.


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## MeloKeyz (Dec 23, 2021)

And I am not going to buy any new samples in the near future. Successful composers who work with less resources and small templates to produce quality, not quantity.


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## MeloKeyz (Dec 23, 2021)

Tralen said:


> I start on an empty project, like you said, but, if I feel one of my templates could be useful, I copy the already configured track(s) from that template to the new project.
> 
> This becomes even more straightforward with Reaper's track templates.


Why not! Look! I tried everything you can imagine. From the disabled cubase tracks to VEPro to track presets to quickload and I ended up thinking about the setup more than thinking about composing.

I am just trying to compose, not working in information technology!


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## NYC Composer (Dec 23, 2021)

I’m going to disagree.

My template is like a blank canvas with a LOT of various colors. Being essentially lazy, I don’t want to have to go find colors I need if they’re in the back room. If they’re readily available, it’s more likely I’ll use them if I need them.


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## river angler (Dec 23, 2021)

Unless you really are composing within fairly predictable genres like film trailer templates are superfluous and I expect even many trailer writers don't bother either. I tried setting up an orchestral one a few years back but found myself spending way too much time cleaning up unwanted instances and as I have already mentioned I find it a rather sterile way of approaching a new composition from scratch.
I rarely even use Kontakt multis these days when composing. Playing live of course is a completely different scenario!


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## clisma (Dec 24, 2021)

I will add my voice in favor of templates. I come from not using them and adapting a palette for every cue/song as I go. But there is nothing wrong at all with taking the time to investigate your vast sound library and putting together options for your instrumental sections, especially pertaining to the orchestra. One can have more than just one string option and disable the second, third, and fourth tier choices until needed.

Especially when it comes to working on films, taking the time to choose your palette brings focus and ideas, not to mention a unified starting point that minimizes procedural errors. 

But to me, the single most advantageous aspect of a template is that it puts the focus on the notes. I write better when I focus on the notes.


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## river angler (Dec 24, 2021)

clisma said:


> ... instrumental sections, especially pertaining to the orchestra. One can have more than just one string option and disable the second, third, and fourth tier choices until needed.


Everyone has their own way of working which is great! As one can set up custom articulation slots within any one instance of a Chris Hein orchestral instrument I just tend to have my orchestral instrument options set up within that one instance/track rather than have dedicated tracks for dedicated articulations. Hence for example I can trigger three different versions of say "dynamic expression long" or "pontecello" for instance by simply hitting the appropriate key note to trigger that customed articulation. One of those articulations might have a much slower legato speed and another perhaps responds differently to velocity in some way etc etc... I guess what I'm saying is that I use key note triggering a lot within a single track. Because I write very spontaneously the track count normally increases according to the actual notational structure of the piece as it develops rather than because of the instrument articulations being used to create it -if you see what I mean!?! In a fashion I do have my own "template" patches but not arrange window track "templates".


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## clisma (Dec 24, 2021)

river angler said:


> Everyone has their own way of working which is great! As one can set up custom articulation slots within any one instance of a Chris Hein orchestral instrument I just tend to have my orchestral instrument options set up within that one instance/track rather than have dedicated tracks for dedicated articulations. Hence for example I can trigger three different versions of say "dynamic expression long" or "pontecello" for instance by simply hitting the appropriate key note to trigger that customed articulation. One of those articulations might have a much slower legato speed and another perhaps responds differently to velocity in some way etc etc... I guess what I'm saying is that I use key note triggering a lot within a single track. Because I write very spontaneously the track count normally increases according to the actual notational structure of the piece as it develops rather than because of the instrument articulations being used to create it -if you see what I mean!?! In a fashion I do have my own "template" patches but not arrange window track "templates".


I do the same. Articulation maps within Logic. Would not go back to any other way, works really well for me.


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## rgames (Dec 24, 2021)

Let's say I want to hear how a string line sounds in Spitfire strings vs. VSL strings.

*With template:*
1. Drag MIDI from VSL strings to Spitfire strings
2. Play and listen

*Without template:*
1. Load Vln I legato patch
2. Wait for samples to load
3. Load Vln I staccato patch
4. Wait for samples to load
5. Load Vln I trill patch
6. Wait for samples to load
7. Load Vln II legato patch
8. Wait for samples to load
9. Load Vln II staccato patch
10. Wait for samples to load
11. Load Vln II trill patch
12. Wait for samples to load
13. Load Vla legato patch
14. Wait for samples to load
15. Load Vla staccato patch
16. Wait for samples to load
17. Load Vla trill patch
18. Wait for samples to load
19. Load Cello legato patch
20. Wait for samples to load
21. Load Cello staccato patch
22. Wait for samples to load
23. Load Cello trill patch
24. Wait for samples to load
25. Load Bass legato patch
26. Wait for samples to load
27. Load Bass staccato patch
28. Wait for samples to load
29. Route reverb sends for Vln I
30. Route reverb sends for Vln II
31. Route reverb sends for Vla
32. Route reverb sends for Cello
33. Route reverb sends for Bass
34. Adjust direct/send for rough balance on Vln I
35. Adjust direct/send for rough balance on Vln II
36. Adjust direct/send for rough balance on Vla
37. Adjust direct/send for rough balance on Cello
38. Adjust direct/send for rough balance on Bass
39. Drag MIDI from VSL strings to Spitfire strings
40. Play and listen


So *not* using a template is the approach that allows you to focus *more* on the music?

Methinks not.

rgames


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## river angler (Dec 24, 2021)

rgames said:


> Let's say I want to hear how a string line sounds in Spitfire strings vs. VSL strings.
> 
> *With template:*
> 1. Drag MIDI from VSL strings to Spitfire strings
> ...


I only use one developer source for my main orchestral library so I never need to do comparisons! It's also why I am extremely happy with Chris Hein orchestral instruments as they are that adaptable in any given project.


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## river angler (Dec 24, 2021)

clisma said:


> I do the same. Articulation maps within Logic. Would not go back to any other way, works really well for me.


I've yet to try the Logic articulation functionality. I was actually referring to the direct articulation slots within Chris Hein's orchestral instruments themselves! Over time I have got used to knowing where every key trigger is.


rgames said:


> Let's say I want to hear how a string line sounds in Spitfire strings vs. VSL strings.
> 
> *With template:*
> 1. Drag MIDI from VSL strings to Spitfire strings
> ...


Another disadvantage of having templates like the one you suggest is that you are instantly putting pressure on the chip if in theory as you suggest you were to have equivalent instruments from different developers hogging up RAM. Yes! I know one can use purge etc but also just from a visual standpoint I find the less busy an arrange window is to start the better. Anyway each to his own! It's all good if the music is good!


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## jbuhler (Dec 24, 2021)

rgames said:


> Let's say I want to hear how a string line sounds in Spitfire strings vs. VSL strings.
> 
> *With template:*
> 1. Drag MIDI from VSL strings to Spitfire strings
> ...


This will depend greatly on individual workflow and whether you are working with VEP, whether you are working with a track per articulation or with a track per instrument, and what sort of presets you have for loading tracks and so forth.


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## aniruddh_immaneni (Dec 24, 2021)

My PC specs are as follows:
Amd ryzen 9 3900x
128gb ddr4 ram
4tb worth of SSDs and a 1tb external hdd for archived / old projects + everything gets backed up on icedrive cloud. Regarding my template & setup, I posted this to Virtual orchestration on Facebook a few days ago -

"
One of my goals this year was to declutter my sample libraries to essentials based on what I really was using 95% of the time. I rebuilt my template with a convenient routing system and all that I need to get the job done. 

The orchestral elements are set in stone with custom built expression maps, but the project specific tracks are just pre routed blank instrument tracks that would vary from project to project. Just 2 reverbs which are in solo defeat mode so I can print wet stems."

Template screenshots attached.


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## MeloKeyz (Dec 24, 2021)

rgames said:


> So *not* using a template is the approach that allows you to focus *more* on the music?
> 
> Methinks not.
> 
> rgames


I am a film trailer guy so I don't have to go the realistic route. Mostly I use ensembles combined with electronic/hybrid elements. If I'll go pure realistic orchestral, I already have a small template of each orchestral section from certain developers as I already compared them so I did put only what I wanted. But because I've been focusing more on trailers a lot, I start blank and macros do the busses routing in seconds.

Believe it or not! I prefer working from scratch and do extra effort rather than maintaining 1000+ tracks template. I am not against templates but my projects are not that big. I promise you I will highly consider templates when I work at The Bleeding Fingers with Hans.


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## nspaas (Dec 24, 2021)

12 core 128gb main + VEP, 10 core 128gb VEP server.
Fairly large template, nothing disabled, with room for project dependent additions.


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## Nando Florestan (Dec 25, 2021)

The only reason musicians need to buy these supercomputers is, audio software is optimized for real time playing. But that's not what composers mostly do. Composers typically record in real time only one or two melodic lines at once, which any laptop can do. If sequencers had an option to cache the output of virtual instruments and effects as soon as the data was entered, anyone could compose on a laptop, the enormous CPU and RAM requirements would simply vanish. Because playing back a few dozens of audio files at the same time is cheap, any CPU can do that easily.

You only need one virtual instrument and effects series to be unfrozen. One at a time -- the one you're inputting. Plugins could be loaded when you click on a certain track, potentially unloading all the other tracks. You work on that track on a bit, then when you switch to another track, the previous one could automatically be converted to audio and plugins frozen. This could be done by MIDI item, too -- not the entire musical piece, just a section. This would be a real workflow enabling anyone to work in an old computer. The focus on real time MIDI is misguided, it is actually rare for composers to want real time instruments.


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## NYC Composer (Dec 25, 2021)

river angler said:


> I've yet to try the Logic articulation functionality. I was actually referring to the direct articulation slots within Chris Hein's orchestral instruments themselves! Over time I have got used to knowing where every key trigger is.
> 
> Another disadvantage of having templates like the one you suggest is that you are instantly putting pressure on the chip if in theory as you suggest you were to have equivalent instruments from different developers hogging up RAM. Yes! I know one can use purge etc but also just from a visual standpoint I find the less busy an arrange window is to start the better. Anyway each to his own! It's all good if the music is good!


I put everything in folders and keep the folders closed if they’re not in use. I use Cubase for Mac which is not particularly efficient CPU wise, but I rarely stress the computer and my samples all stream from SSDs. Myvtempkate uses most of my RAM, but nothing is disabled. Everything is immediately accessible and I use VEP to host things which makes everything a bit more efficient.

95% of the instruments I use are set up and ready to go. It does take me about 3 and a half minutes to load my VEP template and Cubase. That’s the biggest time suck I’ve got. Pretty livable.


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## Breaker (Dec 25, 2021)

I'm bit late to the party, but:
One machine - AMD 3900XT (12-core), 128 GB RAM, 7 TB of SSD's, 8 TB of HDD's
All orchestral stuff in VEP, everything else in Cubase.
Everything disabled and purged (if possible).
VEP template size is ~1000 MB
Cubase template size is ~800 MB

I use VEP mainly due to the Cubase saving times, which have increased again as the Cubase project file size has gone 500 -> 800 MB since the last version. I need to trim some fat.


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## novaburst (Dec 31, 2021)

While CPUs have come a long way in such a short time also ram, esp next gen DDR5, also AMD coursing very fair CPU prices by encouraging Intel to wake, up making this market a great place and full of variety,

The first aim for anyone building a machine is never go with the status quo as later on down the road you will eventually find out you work very different from your fellow musician.

While we have very good efficient library's IE (VSL) we normally have a great mixture of instruments from Omnisphere, kontakt , Play, Sine, some of the most favoured instruments are wrapped up in Kontakt.

One thing is building a template another is building a template with a ton of effects then try squashing it all on one machine.

Weather it be one machine or 5 machines every thing should be aimed at your affordability and also the biggest priority should be how you want your creation to sound and never what you can get away with.

Your build should be centred around you and *YOU ONLY* and what you experience

lastly since CPUs have come such a long way it does appear that it has left software behind to some degree so your not going to get what it says on the box software still have a ways to go to take full advantage of these latest CPUs and ram to genuinely make are machines more efficient as of to day that is not the case, even with the most talented Developers.

So it leaves us to get more creative with our builds to fill in that gap


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## Alex Temple (Dec 31, 2021)

I ran everything off of one monster machine for the past year and a half, and it was out-performing my older i9-5930k-based multi-PC setup by a significant margin. I've recently switched back to multiple machines that use this newer machine as the master, but I was pretty shocked that I was able to get as far as I did on the single machine.

Here's what I was using:
CPU: AMD 3970x (SMT disabled - so 32 threads rather than 64)
RAM: 256GB @ 3000 MHz (kit was rated for 3200 but I couldn't get it to run at that speed with any stability)
Sample drives: 2 TB Samsung 970 Pro NVME, 2TB Samsung 860 Pro
Interface: Steinberg UR44
DAW: Cubase 11

With this setup, one thing that was very important to have everything running smoothly was to assign CPU core affinity so that Cubase and VE Pro both had their own discrete set of cores. Cubase used cores 1-20 and VE Pro used 21-32. I reached this number through trial-and-error. Cubase actually seemed to perform worse if I gave it more than 20 cores, even without VE pro running. If I allocated less than 20, projects that were red-lining would fail to play back properly. When I didn't set the core affinity and just tried running with default allocation, it performed worse than my aging 5930k system. In the end I was very happy with the performance I got from the AMD, but it did take a lot of tweaking to get there, and it wasn't nearly as easy to get these tweaks dialed in at the BIOS level as I've experienced with my Intel builds. Particularly with the memory settings, which I'd been pretty dismissive about until I realized it was what was bottlenecking the system.

I like to have a lot of mixing baked into the template - corrective EQs, multiband compressors, etc. I found that if I ran these in Cubase as I normally would, that the Cubase CPU cores would get overloaded, so I moved as much of this processing as possible to be within VE pro, so the audio signals received by Cubase were essentially pre-mixed signals. This helped balance the CPU load as otherwise the VE pro threads were often sitting at around 20-30% usage while the Cubase threads were near 100%. 

This powered a template that had about 2500 tracks (including VE pro returns), using many of the usual orchestral library suspects, almost always with multiple mics loaded. Usually it would end up using around 220GB of the RAM to run it all. For plugins, it used several hundred Fabfilter EQs, 20-40 instances each of Altiverb, Seventh Heaven, and Fabfilter Pro-MB, plus other random plugins. The template is set up to be able to batch export a very wide set of stems, so each stem needs its own instance of any reverb I want baked into it, hence the massive amount of reverb instances. 

To have this all running well I had to operate at a buffer of 1536, which is far from ideal (and a setting I've only seen on the Steinberg interface). In porting my template over to a multiple-unit setup, I'm able to get this number back down to a much more reasonable 512. I should also mention, I was only able to achieve this with ASIO guard enabled, Cubase set to "suspend VST processing when no audio signal is present," and VE Pro set to 2x buffers - if I disabled ASIO guard the result was a garbled mess. 

If it hadn't been necessary to set things up for wide stem delivery and I'd been able to use far fewer reverb instances, I'm pretty sure it would have been no issue at all to keep using the single-machine setup and bring the buffer down to about half of what I'd had it set to.


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## José Herring (Dec 31, 2021)

After a week of reinstalling stuff I took the rig for a test run. Everything installed on one machine and everything hosted in Cubase. As far as the template vs. no template debate, it's a moot debate for me. I can't work without one. I don't know any filmcomposer who really is not using a template so it's not a debate for me. Template.

My template shrunk A Lot in the transition. I was following loosely John Powell's 2021 template. Really leaned it out, kept to patches that I know I will use, ect... The upside is that everything was nice and tidy. 

So I will list the pro's cons:

Pros: I started with a lighter track. It's a new way of working and I didn't want to be doing 100 track action packed music, so the final track count I think is around 30 tracks for the test piece. It worked out beautifully really. I really loved the convenience of having everything in Cubase. My buffer was nice a tight without VEPro adding 1 to 2x's on to it. So my workflow was fast. I was able to play in a lot of things in time and only need a little tightening, track offsets ect... Creatively it felt like one cohesive instrument which lead to a lot of me just writing kind of a more personal type piece to start out with.

Having only what I was using up and running made mixing very easy. I didn't have to search for tracks among 300 tracks, then pull up the slave machine to tweak the patch, ect.. It was all right there. That right there was a time saver. I also was able to add additional tracks of the same patch if the time of say the shorts were not in time with longs, just duplicate the track and you have two instances one plays the longs and the other plays the shorts, easy. 

Cons: Only one. Save times creep up exponentially once you arm more tracks. HOOPUS and All things Spitfire Player are the biggest offenders of taking FOREVER to SAVE. That alone may be a deal breaker because at nearly 30 tracks it takes 17 secs to save. I have auto save so every 10 minutes I'd have to wait 17 seconds. Nightmare. But....having everything loaded in VEPro had it's own nightmares. If for some reason I had to tweak the instances on a slave machine I'd have to pull up the slave desktop on my main machine, finding the VEPro instances housing that instrument, find the right mixer track, pull that up, open up the sampler and ect.. That's a lot of steps. 

Main things is that creatively I had felt like I had more control to try different things, routings, ect. Cubase ran snappy and great not hooked up to VEPro and even was able to close all my sessions without Cubase hanging. That was a miracle. 

Next I'm going to try a big action type track and see what happens when the track count really climbs high with lots of instruments, synths, sound design and plugin FX. 

I do notice that Kontakt has no problem saving right away so if I really like this way of working I may be switching to mostly Kontakt libraries. But, they take longer to load so there's that trade off.

I guess the most thing that I noticed is that since it was all contained my first piece came out way more personal than I usually write which is interesting and worth exploring. No excess notes, no stacking and doubling to make things epic, none of that came to me but more of an intimate quiet contemplative kind of music. I found that fascinating.


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## rgames (Dec 31, 2021)

José Herring said:


> Save times creep up exponentially once you arm more tracks.


The way I got around that was by setting up MIDI controls for everything I wanted to change in the VIs. That way you can save everything in the MIDI data and run everything decoupled. For example, attack/release/mic level/pan/legato speed/etc. are all controlled by CC in my template. When you do that your save times aren't noticeable. When I hit save the little wheel thing pops up and is gone in under a second because my project files are 6 - 8 MB or so for a ~600 track template with a bunch of the typical libraries loaded up in a VE Pro template.

Check your project file sizes. Huge project files make for slow saves and higher likelihood of corruption.


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## José Herring (Jan 1, 2022)

rgames said:


> The way I got around that was by setting up MIDI controls for everything I wanted to change in the VIs. That way you can save everything in the MIDI data and run everything decoupled. For example, attack/release/mic level/pan/legato speed/etc. are all controlled by CC in my template. When you do that your save times aren't noticeable. When I hit save the little wheel thing pops up and is gone in under a second because my project files are 6 - 8 MB or so for a ~600 track template with a bunch of the typical libraries loaded up in a VE Pro template.
> 
> Check your project file sizes. Huge project files make for slow saves and higher likelihood of corruption.


I'm not running VEPro. That's the point. Everything is in Cubase. I'm ditching VEPro.


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## Zoot_Rollo (Jan 1, 2022)

I finally went the VEP7 network route, my workflow has never been snappier. Or more organized or flexible.

2 older machines.

I rarely go over 100 tracks though.


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## novaburst (Jan 1, 2022)

José Herring said:


> I have auto save so every 10 minutes


You can turn autosave off and perform manual save when ever you feel too, also before you shut down Cubase will ask you if you want to save


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## 3CPU (Jan 1, 2022)

I have an older custom built computer that lasted for 12 years, motherboard failed! But the four mechanical drives all work fine. Not holding out on luck I have these backed up on newer SSD's.

12 months ago I built a 10th Gen Intel desktop with one NVMe M.2 drive for OS and Programs, and two new SSD's for backups. The backups are easier to access thanks to the Fractal Design Define 7. This fairly new computer will be given to my wife for her photography and video editing. 

This year I might get OWC's external for backups paired with a new Apple computer. I am still considering the options as to which OWC to get for under $500, or get something else. I don't need to go overboard for a personal home studio setup but quality build is still important.


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## Kony (Jan 1, 2022)

novaburst said:


> You can turn autosave off and perform manual save when ever you feel too, also before you shut down Cubase will ask you if you want to save


Or adjust the autosave intervals - I have mine set for 30 minutes. It's not a bad idea to keep autosave running - you never know if you'll get a corrupted file and need to rely on Cubase's bak file. It's also handy to have some autosave bak files in case of Cubase crashing without saving.


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