# Is it possible a good performance with kontakt v2+Logic7?



## esencia (Jan 26, 2006)

I'm trying to work at 256 buffer. Because on orchestra tracking it?s necesary to have a low latency.. 
with that buffer on my PC it runs without problems.. :cry: 

what's your DFD kontakt setup? any other logic parameter to change?


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## midphase (Jan 27, 2006)

Well, 256 buffer is certainly reasonable. My K2 DFD settings are pretty reasonable...I'll have to get back to you with the details.

Logic can be optimized in various ways, but a biggie is to make sure that in the Environment, you have created only audio objects that you foresee using...so if you don't plan on using more than 40 audio objects...delete the rest from the environment. I would also recommend adjusting your maximum Audio tracks in the preferences window to what you would normally use.

Lastly, I highly recommend running the free maintenance application Onyx (find it on Versiontracker.com) every couple of weeks or so, it will help minimize the possibility of permissions and caches becoming corrupted and causing problems.

One last thing to check is that Logic has an issue where if you run a quicktime movie in Logic with audio (particularly at a different sample rate) it will cause tons of crackling and popping.


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## rJames (Jan 28, 2006)

Esencia,
I have an identical setup to yours. I use K2 with EWQL symphony orch. I can get a lot of stuff going at once.

I spent a lot of time tryng to figure out why K1 worked so much better than K2. It has to do with the way NI changed DFD usage. I found that K1 has a much smaller footprint than K2 but you can optimze the way an individual instrument loads into DFD.

Here is the way I have it set up.

Lower the footprint size of an unloaded K2...OPTIONS on the top of the [email protected] instance. I have "Amount of memory dedicated to DFD" at 63.77M (329 instruments).

Then in each individual instrument you have to lower DFD requirements. Open the "tool" icon on the instrument. Click on "Instrument Options"
Set "DFD Preload Buffer Size" to 24-36kb.

Oh, yeah. The MOST important thing.

YOU MUST BE RUNNING YOUR SAMPLES FROM A SEPARATE (NOT STARTUP) SATA DRIVE.

Firewire will be much slower.


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## esencia (Jan 28, 2006)

rJames said:


> Esencia,
> I have an identical setup to yours. I use K2 with EWQL symphony orch. I can get a lot of stuff going at once.
> 
> I spent a lot of time tryng to figure out why K1 worked so much better than K2. It has to do with the way NI changed DFD usage. I found that K1 has a much smaller footprint than K2 but you can optimze the way an individual instrument loads into DFD.
> ...



Thank you very much for your advice.. I'll check it with my system! :D
Do you obtain a significant performance improvement?


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## rJames (Jan 28, 2006)

yes


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## tgfoo (Jan 29, 2006)

hmmm, interesting settings, I think I'll give them a try too and see if I can't get Kontakt 2 working more efficiently under my system.


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## esencia (Jan 29, 2006)

I've done the these DFD changes.. but.. no improvement :(


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## Waywyn (Jan 29, 2006)

Hey there,

i use simple mode on K2 and put the dfd slider all the way to the left. I never had any problems and i am able to load 3-4 instances of K2 on every PC with out any single glitch.

most important thing, i am working with a latency of 1024 buffers with my soundcard, thats around 40 ms, i could probably try 512 but i want to go for sure. only disadvantage is when i want to play parts in realtime i have little latency, so to get rid of this the only chance is to get a faster CPU ...

this info is just for PC, but maybe it helps if you move the slider in K2 to the left and make the buffer sizes etc as small as possible.


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## esencia (Jan 29, 2006)

Waywyn said:


> Hey there,
> 
> i use simple mode on K2 and put the dfd slider all the way to the left. I never had any problems and i am able to load 3-4 instances of K2 on every PC with out any single glitch.
> 
> ...




But how do you deal tracking with that latency?? I'm unable to play with a 40ms delay :?


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## Waywyn (Jan 29, 2006)

well i play just easy lines with the keyboard.
sometimes it needs some quantizing anyway, so it is not a real problem.

the fast stuff i program anyway because i am no keyboard player.

next month i will upgrade my CPU and then with an athlon 4,8 or so, i can also go down to around 256 or even less.

the reason i don't care much about the latency is the fact that i use a lot of articulations, so i have to program it anyway. also i don't want to play 1min of staccato - this i program, it is much faster and when i use a decent human quantization it sounds cool between all the other instruments.

i am much more interested in a stable and fluent workflow rather than having almost no latency.

if i record audio stuff like guitar, i of course go down to 128 latency, because i start to recognize latency around 7 ms when i play guitar. 3-4ms is fine for me.


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## esencia (Jan 29, 2006)

Then.. I'll need to go for a PowerMac Quad!! 8)
I'd like to see how gigastudio for mac solves sampling performance under osx... or a NI kontakt update.


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## Waywyn (Jan 29, 2006)

well, did you set the slider to the left?
usually people think they need much higher buffers etc. but, well ... you don't


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## rJames (Jan 29, 2006)

esencia said:


> I've done the these DFD changes.. but.. no improvement :(



what library(s) are you using?

What kind of hard drive do you have your samples on ?

Do you have DFD turned on? (I think that the DFD button should be blue)

I can load an entire orchestra, a few storm drums, a piano and various synths in one computer.

G5 dual 2g with 5G ram.

You have a fast CPU, you need a fast hard drive or it will be your bottleneck.
My I/O buffer size is 512. I have 8-12 instances of K2 in my orch template. Usually I have 4 fully loaded and I load the others as I find articulations that I need for a particular song.
My piano K2 has just piano and harp. My Storm Drum usually has only 2-4 instruments.

I can bring in EWQL Choirs as well but that really puts a load on the SATA discs.

My system will bog down with lots of long tailed sounds. Storm Drum can bog it down with too many "big" drums going.

EWQL plat will bog it down. I can only play one section of Platinum at a time (because of the long tails. Logically, what seems to be happening is that the system bogs down at too many long streams coming from disc.

The cpu AND drive are working overtime.

I can also bog down the system when playing back audio streams at the same time as suing the orch. I assume it is for the same reason...Logic is streaming long sounds simultaneously.

Think logically about your system. How much stress are you putting on each component of your system? Which part is (logically) not handling the stress?

If you are trying to stream 8 tracks of audio and then add an orchestra, then your system will bog down.

But when my system bogs down I do not hear clicks and pops. When it bogs down I lose instruments.


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## rJames (Jan 30, 2006)

Right. There are only 4 aux sends (I think). It is meant to be standalone because the bare footprint is fairly heavy. But the footprint overhead goes away when you load it up. Then it becomes efficient.

If you are loading a full orchestra (especially EWQL) there's not much of a reason to go outside. At least for me. I think you might want the same kind of plugs on a section. Same verb etc.

If you need solo instruments or are just using orchestra as a few additional instruments, then you can use one inst. per instance (although EXS or K1 would be the better way to go.)


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Jan 30, 2006)

Good points, thanks! :wink:


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## Nick Batzdorf (Jan 30, 2006)

Hey Frederick, check out the Random Tip on page 51 of our 12-1 issue. It explains G5 memory use once and for all.

The main part of the answer is that Logic can use 4GB minus system libraries and frameworks, plus (as rJ says) the OS is outside that. So 5GB will let you load about 3GB in Logic. But OS X uses RAM for caching as well, so there are advantages to putting as much as 8GB in.

5GB is a good amount, though. That's what I have - the difference between 5 and 8GB isn't worth the extra expense.


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## Frederick Russ (Jan 30, 2006)

Thanks Ron and Mr. Nick - cool now I have permission to upgrade


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## Marsdy (Jan 31, 2006)

Ned Bouhalassa said:


> Ron,
> As far as loading a bunch of similar instruments, though, like let's say a bunch of woodwinds, or strings, in one player, my biggest concern is that, in Logic, it would impossible to use individual compressor, EQs, etc on each of the instruments - I'd be limited to using the ones that are built-into K2, and I'd really miss some of my favourite AU fx. Even drawing simple Volume automation for each becomes a PITA. That's what I find amazing about EXS: I can easily load up as many as I need, without worrying about CPU, and each one (therefore each instrument/articulation) can have it's own set of processing plug-ins. There's no way around this for K2, is there?



Ned
Doesn't Kontakt have a multiple output version in Logic? You can then route them to Auxs tracks and add eq/effect/automate the aux track.


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## esencia (Jan 31, 2006)

On NI forum, Markus from NI is asking our help to test and post all osx problems that come with k2.

There is also a test file for this purpose here: http://www.native-instruments.de/site/forum_us/showpost.php?p=201404&postcount=167 (http://www.native-instruments.de/site/f ... tcount=167)

And this is an extract from the NI thread that is talking about the new kontakt update.



> Hi all,
> 
> NAMM is finally over and hopefully from next week on these halls will be back to normal again  did you see the Kore announcement?
> 
> ...


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## IFM (Apr 17, 2006)

The next update to K2 is supposed to reduce the RAM footprint and CPU usage while idle. This may mean that you could get away with one instance per track. You could then use the Bank feature to create quick and easy switching of articulations.
Chris


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