# Is 32GB of ram ok for a full orchestral template?



## sdrff

I'm planning to buy the Spitfire Orchestral Bundle and their Orchestral Percussion library. I'd like a template with a track per articulation and every articulation loaded except for advanced techniques (so for example, for violin, legatos, longs, staccatos, tenutos, marcatos, tremolo, maj and min trills, pizzicato) for every instrument. Each track gets a kontakt instance unless that is too much overhead.

Will I manage with 32GB of ram? This is all I can fit on my motherboard and cpu: any more and I'd have to build a new pc, which I cannot afford.


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## Puzzlefactory

Interesting question, I too would be interested. 

Maybe library companies should start putting ram requirements in the "specs" sections of their website (ram for full library load).

I know that my computer with 16gig of ram starts to struggle a bit with my "Albion One template" where I've done a similar thing as you, with all the Albion articulations plus Maschine with a few HZ percussion patches loaded.


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## d.healey

Puzzlefactory said:


> Maybe library companies should start putting ram requirements in the "specs" sections of their website (ram for full library load).


The RAM amount will vary between users based on the buffer sizes they set up, it will also vary between operating systems, Kontakt versions, and DAWs.


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## sdrff

While I understand that, a mere "you're way off" or "you can work with that" would be fine for me. I'd prefer not to spend 2.5k to find myself not being able to use what I bought haha


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## storyteller

sdrff said:


> While I understand that, a mere "you're way off" or "you can work with that" would be fine for me. I'd prefer not to spend 2.5k to find myself not being able to use what I bought haha


Short answer, no. If you set it up properly in the way you are suggesting, you will be able to do about a section at a time using a disabled template. If you are running OS X, you will lose about 8-9GB to the operating system (on 32GB). Windows may look lighter than OS X in TaskManager, but it effectively uses a similar allocation. SF Percussion Redux will take up the least of the libraries, but still takes 9GB fully purged with a single-mic on an articulation-per-track setup (with all instruments loaded). While I don't use SF strings or Brass, as a point of reference, the brass libraries and string libraries I use can eat up 15-20GB+ each with a single mic and an articulation-per-track setup if I load up everything. As another point of reference, Berlin Woodwinds Main + Exp A will take up about 11-12GB on an articulation-per-track, single mic setup. However, something smaller like Spitfire LCO only takes up about 3GB fully loaded in an articulation-per-track setup. These are all fully purged, so you have to assume more will be eaten up once you compose.

So you can see, for example, if you wanted to work on OT's Berlin Woodwinds with a 32GB system, you will have 23GB or working room after the OS, then only about 10GB remaining once you load up all articulations just for the woodwinds. Depending on your DAW, you will lose more RAM. Reaper only uses 170MB of system RAM, but ProTools uses somewhere between 2GB-4.5GB depending on what kind of mood it is in when you launch it. Assuming you used ProTools, then you are down to 7GB roughly. Then you have to account for video resources if you are using the same system to playback video for scoring. Finally, once you actually press a key on your keyboard, more ram will be taken up by each sample played back.


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## sdrff

Thanks. You just saved me 2.5k bucks.


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## toddkedwards

sdrff said:


> I'm planning to buy the Spitfire Orchestral Bundle and their Orchestral Percussion library. I'd like a template with a track per articulation and every articulation loaded except for advanced techniques (so for example, for violin, legatos, longs, staccatos, tenutos, marcatos, tremolo, maj and min trills, pizzicato) for every instrument. Each track gets a kontakt instance unless that is too much overhead.
> 
> Will I manage with 32GB of ram? This is all I can fit on my motherboard and cpu: any more and I'd have to build a new pc, which I cannot afford.


I currently run 32GB's of ram in my 2010 Mac Pro. The only way I can run a full template is because I use Cubase and they have the disable feature. I cannot run all my tracks enable at once. I never seem to have any issues, because I'm only ever really using close to about 25-35 tracks at a time. 

What DAW do you currently use?


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## Puzzlefactory

Doesn't mean you can't get the library. Just means you can't have a template with every articulation.

Could easily do one with the most commonly used articulations and then add the others as when you need them on a per project basis. 

That's what I would do anyway.


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## storyteller

sdrff said:


> Thanks. You just saved me 2.5k bucks.


Before you rule it out, just know you can make 32GB work. I think most people on this board are probably in the 32GB range. I personally use 32GB - though that has been a personal decision due to waiting out the new Mac Pros... A smaller portion are in the 64GB range. An even smaller portion are in 64GB+ and slaves. I use a disabled template though - which is a really great way to manage the workflow for the resources required.


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## sdrff

toddkedwards said:


> I currently run 32GB's of ram in my 2010 Mac Pro. The only way I can run a full template is because I use Cubase and they have the disable feature. I cannot run all my tracks enable at once. I never seem to have any issues, because I'm only ever really using close to about 25-35 tracks at a time.
> 
> What DAW do you currently use?





storyteller said:


> Before you rule it out, just know you can make 32GB work. I think most people on this board are probably in the 32GB range. I personally use 32GB - though that has been a personal decision due to waiting out the new Mac Pros... A smaller portion are in the 64GB range. An even smaller portion are in 64GB+ and slaves. I use a disabled template though - which is a really great way to manage the workflow for the resources required.



I have reaper and could use the disable function with a keybinding, I completely forgot about that! mmm...



Puzzlefactory said:


> Doesn't mean you can't get the library. Just means you can't have a template with every articulation.
> 
> Could easily do one with the most commonly used articulations and then add the others as when you need them on a per project basis.
> 
> That's what I would do anyway.


That makes sense too. I have some thinking to do...


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## penfever

I'm relatively new to this myself, but what I've been doing is using Reaper's Track Templates. I insert the track template for the instrument I'm working with, then freeze it once it's arranged and move on to the next instrument. If I want to work sections at a time, I unfreeze them all. Then I mix with the frozen sections. Reaper's a very lightweight program, and I find this approach to be pretty darn adaptable. YMMV.


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## Phryq

I'm using 32gb ram on my laptop, with 2 SSDs. I run some samples on one SSDs, and some (as well as the OS) on the other SSD. I could get a full template up if I load all samples purged (meaning nothing is loaded until I press a key) and then *only* having the played notes stay in ram, occasionally re-purging, and not really using the entire template at once. Also tweaking the buffer in the Kontakt Settings. And an optimized Windows.

I'm planning to upgrade... I was actually thinking of another computer with 32gb ram, *but* with 2 Samsung 960 Evo NVMe SSDs, which have about 7x the read speeds (random and continuous) of my current SSD (plus my OS on a separate regular SSD) and a better CPU. I'm hoping in that case 32gb would be enough ram, because the motherboard I want only supports 2 ram slots. It would actually have room for a 3rd Samsung 960 however, which should also help (reading from more SSDs means faster read times, so you can keep less buffered in ram. For example, strings on 1 SSD, Horns on another and woods on another, and the OS on a regular SATA SSD).

As mentioned above, use Reaper as your DAW. You'll save RAM and it's literally better in every way.

3x 250gb Samsungs $390.
OS SSD $100
Motherboard + case PSU $130
32gb Ram $170
CPU 7700K $350
Cooling $30

$1170k, and I think it will work well, but better hear what others say about this idea. 

$1530k if you get 3x 500gb samsung SSDs.

Here's a link to the SSD speeds,

http://www.anandtech.com/show/10698/samsung-announces-960-pro-and-960-evo-m2-pcie-ssds


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## Nick Batzdorf

Q: "How many guitars is enough?"

Guitarist: "Just one more."

This is the same thing: how much RAM and how many computers and how many sample libraries and how many synths and how many different controllers and how many effects plug-ins and how many sets of speakers and how many outboard pieces...



But I think you'll be very happy with the 32GB you have. You can always add more computer later.


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## Nick Batzdorf

> 3x 250gb Samsungs $390e



Or six 240GB San Disk SSDs for $390 (okay, not Euros, but still...). 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/SanDisk-240...e-Drive-Plus-Laptops-/201650542778?rmvSB=true


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## Mornats

A question on the back of this. I'm looking to upgrade my 16GB to 32GB in my hybrid gaming/music production desktop Windows PC. The advice I've been given is to only use matched sticks of RAM as there could be instability problems with using RAM that hasn't been tested together. I use Corsair Vengeance Pro RAM so it's geared up for overclocking (and came as part of an overclocked gaming bundle of motherboard CPU and RAM).

So has anyone had issues with mixing RAM? This may be an issue with higher performance RAM and particularly if it's overclocked. I'm currently looking at selling my 16GB and buying 32GB which is a more expensive way to upgrade. (Also, annoyingly the exact same RAM as mine is very rare at the moment and I'm having trouble finding any in stock.)

I thought this might be a consideration for the OP so thought I'd raise this.


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## P.N.

I honestly believe it's possible to achieve great results with less than 32 GB.

Like David said, it depends a lot on the buffer sizes, so if you're running samples off SSD you can set the buffer size very low and save a lot of ram. 
Also purging - not everything needs to be loaded all the time. It just needs to be there, organised and ready to use when/if you need it.
Microphone positions - are they all necessary? If not, don't load them. 

Cheers


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## P.N.

Mornats said:


> So has anyone had issues with mixing RAM? This may be an issue with higher performance RAM and particularly if it's overclocked. I'm currently looking at selling my 16GB and buying 32GB which is a more expensive way to upgrade. (Also, annoyingly the exact same RAM as mine is very rare at the moment and I'm having trouble finding any in stock.)
> .



It can be a problem, depending on the vendor. And in fact, as you said, overclocked/mixed ram is more susceptible.
Ram speed doesn't have much impact on audio, so i'd personally stay away from ram overclocking. By the contrary, underclocking in some systems i've tried seemed to improve stability.

Cheers


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## Phryq

Nick Batzdorf said:


> Or six 240GB San Disk SSDs for $390 (okay, not Euros, but still...).
> 
> http://www.ebay.com/itm/SanDisk-240...e-Drive-Plus-Laptops-/201650542778?rmvSB=true



Those San Disks have read speeds of 535MB/s. So 7 of them will be as fast as 1 EVO. You will need about 20 to match the speed of 3 EVOs (assuming you can keep your instrument use evenly divided among the 20).


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## trumpoz

You will most probably become CPU limited before reaching the limits of 6 x of the sandisks. The Evos are fast and the high numbers look sexy but in reality a kot of that speed is redundant due to hitting the CPU limit when streaming.


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## Nick Batzdorf

Phryq:



> Those San Disks have read speeds of 535MB/s. So 7 of them will be as fast as 1 EVO. You will need about 20 to match the speed of 3 EVOs (assuming you can keep your instrument use evenly divided among the 20).



Sorry, I don't follow.

One Evo is 3,xxx MB/s?

A SATA 3 bus has a theoretical maximum of 600MB/s. Are you really going to saturate even a 300MB/s SATA 2 bus?

How are you measuring "speed," and how will that translate to actual performance streaming samples?

I'm not saying you're wrong, just that what you're saying goes against all my assumptions about relevant SSD specs.


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## Nick Batzdorf

What I do know is that I've been happy as a clam (are clams happy?) with the SSDs on my machine, and none of them is an expensive Samsung. Only one of them is on a SATA 3 bus - a Mushkin - and it kicks arse.


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## storyteller

Nick Batzdorf said:


> What I do know is that I've been happy as a clam (are clams happy?) with the SSDs on my machine, and none of them is an expensive Samsung. Only one of them is on a SATA 3 bus - a Mushkin - and it kicks arse.


[*EDIT:* After feeling proud about my witty reply, I realized "clam" has another potential meaning that made my post look horribly-not-as-I-intended-it-to-be. So, self-edit. Whoops. ]


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## Living Fossil

sdrff said:


> I'm planning to buy the Spitfire Orchestral Bundle and their Orchestral Percussion library. I'd like a template with a track per articulation and every articulation loaded except for advanced techniques (so for example, for violin, legatos, longs, staccatos, tenutos, marcatos, tremolo, maj and min trills, pizzicato) for every instrument. Each track gets a kontakt instance unless that is too much overhead.
> 
> Will I manage with 32GB of ram? This is all I can fit on my motherboard and cpu: any more and I'd have to build a new pc, which I cannot afford.




I don't understand why one would necessarily need a template where everything is preloaded.
Personally, i have lots of channel settings with lots of different instruments (and their settings) and depending on what i'm doing i load and modify those. 
32 GB is a lot of memory if you use it well. On the other hand, more memory is simply more, and Spitfire libraries are RAM hungry...
If money and power consumption don't count, setting up a slave farm with 1 terabyte RAM is nearly perfect at present times. I'm not sure if it really helps to create better music though.


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## Phillip

Using Living Fossil technique here and very happy with 16 gig RAM. No desire to upgrade, Spitfire and all. Ocassionaly use freezing and rendering, heavy Kontakt instruments are purged.


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## Phryq

The Samsungs are not using SATA, they're PCIe drives, which is why they can surpass the SATA limit.

Trumpoz - In that case, won't RAM speeds also be bottle-necked by CPU?


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## gpax

Living Fossil said:


> I don't understand why one would necessarily need a template where everything is preloaded.
> Personally, i have lots of channel settings with lots of different instruments (and their settings) and depending on what i'm doing i load and modify those.
> 32 GB is a lot of memory if you use it well. On the other hand, more memory is simply more, and Spitfire libraries are RAM hungry...
> If money and power consumption don't count, setting up a slave farm with 1 terabyte RAM is nearly perfect at present times. I'm not sure if it really helps to create better music though.


Exactly. Templates are not sacrosanct for everyone, and workflow preferences are not homogenous. 

To the member posting the question, I'd also recommend culling through things like interviews and the Cribs videos Spitfire produces, as you will see different setups and some who mention perspectives about not using templates at all (and others who do). But to your point, one can do much with an efficiently managed 32 Gb, still.


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## Phryq

Nick Batzdorf said:


> What I do know is that I've been happy as a clam (are clams happy?) with the SSDs on my machine, and none of them is an expensive Samsung. Only one of them is on a SATA 3 bus - a Mushkin - and it kicks arse.



Right, but the thread is asking about Ram limitations for someone who wants to load a large template. My point is that you can do with less ram by using a faster SSD and decreasing the ram preload.



Living Fossil said:


> I don't understand why one would necessarily need a template where everything is preloaded.
> Personally, i have lots of channel settings with lots of different instruments (and their settings) and depending on what i'm doing i load and modify those.



I do the same thing, clearing my buffers (I wrote in detail my method in my first post), but I find the libraries often don't load in time when I go to playback.


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## Nick Batzdorf

SSDs allow you to get by with less RAM. A Samsung SSD won't get more mileage from your RAM than a different brand will.

Now, I don't hold a doctorate in SSD specs, but I do know there's no such thing as a faster SSD. The seek times are instant for all intents and purposes.

It's true that an M.2 drive doesn't use the SATA bus. But whether it's a Samsung or a Frjkjdf SSD, the best read/write specs are "up to" 5XXMB/s - which means they won't saturate the bus.


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## sdrff

welp, I just bought the most expensive thing I ever bought in my life. I really hope music skills are included in the package.


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## Phryq

Nick Batzdorf said:


> SSDs allow you to get by with less RAM. A Samsung SSD won't get more mileage from your RAM than a different brand will.
> 
> Now, I don't hold a doctorate in SSD specs, but I do know there's no such thing as a faster SSD. The seek times are instant for all intents and purposes.
> 
> It's true that an M.2 drive doesn't use the SATA bus. But whether it's a Samsung or a Frjkjdf SSD, the best read/write specs are "up to" 5XXMB/s - which means they won't saturate the bus.



Look up NVMe. 5XXMB/s is no longer the limit. If seek times were instant there would be no use for ram.


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## Nick Batzdorf

But it's the limit of the drives, Phryq.

And given that you know exactly what I mean by "for all intents and purposes," you'll forgive me for questioning whether you're not just having a nah-yo fight. ||: "Nuh-uh." "Ya-huh." "Nuh-uh." "Ya-huh." Nuh-uh." "Ya-huh." :||


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## Phryq

Here are the numbers, http://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/minisite/ssd/product/consumer/ssd960.html

And if "for all intents and purposes" seek times were instant, then we wouldn't need ram, we would just stream from the disk. The fast the disk, the less of the same you need to have buffered in ram, meaning you can do with less ram.


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## Nick Batzdorf

That's right, SSDs mean you can lower the buffer.

But I hadn't seen the specs on the 960 Pro/EVO. You're right, that's impressive.

I was talking about the 850. That's the one I personally couldn't justify the premium for.


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## SBK

might be ok if you "update sample pool" in kontakt?


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## JohnG

I don't see how you could even load all that in 32GB. Even with only one mic position, it would be tough.

But more important, I think you will be disappointed with the performance if you are writing dense stuff with delays, reverbs, and so-on inside the computer. You likely will hit CPU and bus limitations.

You will be able to fit quite a bit of the full template, but not everything you listed.

Mind you, it will still be AWESOME. Great libraries.


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## Puzzlefactory

I wonder how much ram Junkie XL has access to? When i watched some of his youtube videos, it looked like he had every patch from every library he owned, as a separate track in his template!


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## Jetzer

Since Cubase gave us the option of disabled tracks, I rarely need more than 16-20 gb. I have 32gb, everything is in there but disabled, with ssd's everything loads in a sec. And the most used/important tracks are on enabled by default. I never run out of RAM, even with legato strings/multi-mic/drums/synth epic tracks.


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## Mike Connelly

Nick Batzdorf said:


> It's true that an M.2 drive doesn't use the SATA bus. But whether it's a Samsung or a Frjkjdf SSD, the best read/write specs are "up to" 5XXMB/s - which means they won't saturate the bus.



Most of the latest Macs have SSD that's PCIe based and can read faster than the 600 limit of sata III. But the question is whether any of the sample playback plugins like Kontakt can play back data at a rate that high. Or if they would even need to for the sort of work most of us are doing.

No question the PCIe SSD benchmark faster but I'd be curious to see something demonstrating they make much if any difference for real world sample playback.


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## Phryq

Mike ^^ I would also like to see that to be certain, before I spend money banking on that concept, but I don't see how they don't. If you're streaming samples direct from disk, higher random and continues reads should translate into lower ram-buffers with less drop-outs.

Now they're invented 'octane' disks. Too expensive now, but one day they'll be cheaper. They're almost as fast as ram. I'm thinking in 5 years we won't even have ram - it'll just be straight from disk to CPU.


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## storyteller

Phryq said:


> Mike ^^ I would also like to see that to be certain, before I spend money banking on that concept, but I don't see how they don't. If you're streaming samples direct from disk, higher random and continues reads should translate into lower ram-buffers with less drop-outs.
> 
> Now they're invented 'octane' disks. Too expensive now, but one day they'll be cheaper. They're almost as fast as ram. I'm thinking in 5 years we won't even have ram - it'll just be straight from disk to CPU.


Your bottleneck will be CPU voice count long before you reach bandwidth limitations of multiple "regular" SSDs. You could test this out for your own DAW configuration by using one SSD and trying to max Kontakt voice count out, then add a second to see what the difference is. Add a third and so on. The multiple disks should help you keep buffers at a minimum. If you are setup with each major orchestral section streaming from different disks, I'd expect that to be somewhere around the peak performance you would ever see with current CPU voice-count limitations. The only thing you might see improvements with your proposed setup is if you use a single library tied to one disk like omnisphere or a Kontakt "all in one" library like Metropolis Ark. I'd be curious how those tests would turn out.


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## Phryq

storyteller said:


> Your bottleneck will be CPU voice count long before you reach bandwidth limitations of multiple "regular" SSDs. You could test this out for your own DAW configuration by using one SSD and trying to max Kontakt voice count out, then add a second to see what the difference is. Add a third and so on. The multiple disks should help you keep buffers at a minimum. If you are setup with each major orchestral section streaming from different disks, I'd expect that to be somewhere around the peak performance you would ever see with current CPU voice-count limitations. The only thing you might see improvements with your proposed setup is if you use a single library tied to one disk like omnisphere or a Kontakt "all in one" library like Metropolis Ark. I'd be curious how those tests would turn out.



So in this case no one needs ram? Regular SSDs are fast enough for regular sampling?


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## storyteller

Phryq said:


> So in this case no one needs ram? Regular SSDs are fast enough for regular sampling?


No. That's not what I'm saying. Of course you need ram. Every instrument loads scripting and a minimal buffer of samples into ram. This is what actually takes up the most memory. When you "purge" instruments in Kontakt, the residual ram taken up is not due to samples. A fully purged orchestral template can easily take up 32gb and more. Given this architecture, using multiple standard SSDs are plenty fast enough and even if they become bottlenecked - say from using a whole template of omnisphere that cannot be spanned on multiple SSDs - increasing the buffers (thus increasing ram usage) can also help. But the ideal movement with samplers will be when the SSDs like the one you showed are able to be used in place of ram (but that will have to be a nifty programming feat until it is a feature set of the chipset). I'm excited for that time to come, though! SSDs like the one you are discussing is a huge leap toward the destination we all want to reach.


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## Lee Blaske

storyteller said:


> Your bottleneck will be CPU voice count long before you reach bandwidth limitations of multiple "regular" SSDs.


I agree with this. In fact, before worrying if 32GB is enough, I'd test loading up, say 20GB of the samples you plan to use and testing to see how the system runs. You might be bringing it to its knees if you're using plug-ins that eat up a lot of CPU. And, you might have to develop a strategy of using lite versions of libraries, and then bouncing/freezing instrument by instrument to get all the mic positions you want active before getting to a final mix. The idea of having all your instruments and plug-ins live at once is a nice fantasy, but it's hard to accomplish. With 32GB, you'll be able to get the end result you want, but you may have to develop a strategy for getting there. Still, it's way better than having to load a pile of floppies to get one instrument at a time up and running on a vintage sampler.


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## Phryq

storyteller said:


> No. That's not what I'm saying. Of course you need ram. Every instrument loads scripting and a minimal buffer of samples into ram. This is what actually takes up the most memory. When you "purge" instruments in Kontakt, the residual ram taken up is not due to samples. A fully purged orchestral template can easily take up 32gb and more. Given this architecture, using multiple standard SSDs are plenty fast enough and even if they become bottlenecked - say from using a whole template of omnisphere that cannot be spanned on multiple SSDs - increasing the buffers (thus increasing ram usage) can also help. But the ideal movement with samplers will be when the SSDs like the one you showed are able to be used in place of ram (but that will have to be a nifty programming feat until it is a feature set of the chipset). I'm excited for that time to come, though! SSDs like the one you are discussing is a huge leap toward the destination we all want to reach.



A fully purged instrument would mean only the Kontakt app is using ram... I think you would need hundreds of instances to fill 32gb of ram with fully purged instances, no? And even then, you can simply have a page-file on your SSD.


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## storyteller

Phryq said:


> A fully purged instrument would mean only the Kontakt app is using ram... I think you would need hundreds of instances to fill 32gb of ram with fully purged instances, no? And even then, you can simply have a page-file on your SSD.


Most of the ram taken up is in the scripting itself. There is another recent thread here in which I outlined some of the sizes of different libraries. For example, having all instruments and articulations setup in Spitfire Percussion Redux IIRC is around 9GB fully purged. Berlin Woodwinds Main +A is somewhere around 12-13GB fully purged. Strings and Brass - depending on the library - can easily take up 20GB or more *each* fully purged. This is all without a single sample loaded into memory... so the disk speed isn't even a variable at this point before the samples are ever played. Smaller libraries like Spitfire LCO may only take up like 3-4 GB purged though. It all depends on what libraries you are using. 

The example I used here, I also used in that other thread to demonstrate how 32GB will hold an entire properly setup orchestral template with modern libraries without a freeze/disable workflow - but that a freezing/disabled workflow is a wonderful solution. I personally use a freeze/disable workflow and generally load an orchestral section at a time when I am working. On a pop/rock/country track, 32GB is generally plenty with everything fully loaded though.


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## Phryq

storyteller said:


> Most of the ram taken up is in the scripting itself. There is another recent thread here in which I outlined some of the sizes of different libraries. For example, having all instruments and articulations setup in Spitfire Percussion Redux IIRC is around 9GB fully purged. Berlin Woodwinds Main +A is somewhere around 12-13GB fully purged. Strings and Brass - depending on the library - can easily take up 20GB or more *each* fully purged. This is all without a single sample loaded into memory... so the disk speed isn't even a variable at this point before the samples are ever played. Smaller libraries like Spitfire LCO may only take up like 3-4 GB purged though. It all depends on what libraries you are using.
> 
> The example I used here, I also used in that other thread to demonstrate how 32GB will hold an entire properly setup orchestral template with modern libraries without a freeze/disable workflow - but that a freezing/disabled workflow is a wonderful solution. I personally use a freeze/disable workflow and generally load an orchestral section at a time when I am working. On a pop/rock/country track, 32GB is generally plenty with everything fully loaded though.



Shoot. I'm planning on building a new computer, however the motherboard I want only allows 2 ram slots... it's possible to buy 32gb cards, so I guess I have to find out if the motherboard will support 32gb ram cards.


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## Daisser

As most have said you can get away with it but you'll be happier with more RAM. Less freezing tracks and better performance overall. With purging and instrument selection you can make it work on many system specs.

Maybe I missed something or a clarifying post but for 2.5k you can easily build a single system with 64GB of RAM. In fact I just priced out a single system with 128 GB of RAM, SSDs and even a 27" 1440 display for between 2500-2600 (I'd have to check some compadibilies but it should work). 

It all depends on your situtatuon, how much you have to spend, and in the interest of cost, how good you are at building your own PC.


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## Phryq

Daisser said:


> As most have said you can get away with it but you'll be happier with more RAM. Less freezing tracks and better performance overall. With purging and instrument selection you can make it work on many system specs.
> 
> Maybe I missed something or a clarifying post but for 2.5k you can easily build a single system with 64GB of RAM. In fact I just priced out a single system with 128 GB of RAM, SSDs and even a 27" 1440 display for between 2500-2600 (I'd have to check some compadibilies but it should work).
> 
> It all depends on your situtatuon, how much you have to spend, and in the interest of cost, how good you are at building your own PC.



For me the issue is that I want to use an STX motherboard, because I want to be portable, and STX is better for cooling (external power brick etc.) but all STX motherboards have only 2 ram slots.

I'm thinking this motherboard specifically, http://www.anandtech.com/show/11052...x-using-microstx-motherboard-with-mxm-support which I'm 99% sure uses SoDimm. There exists single 32gb dimm ram cards, but I've never heard of that for SoDimm, so I think 32gb will be my limitation with this form factor (maybe I should start a new thread as now I'm getting into my own personal problems, which aren't the same as the OP's).

If a fast SSD with ramdisk/pagefile etc. won't work for this, I'll have to re-work my entire build concept.


----------



## Daisser

Phryq said:


> For me the issue is that I want to use an STX motherboard, because I want to be portable, and STX is better for cooling (external power brick etc.) but all STX motherboards have only 2 ram slots.
> 
> I'm thinking this motherboard specifically, http://www.anandtech.com/show/11052...x-using-microstx-motherboard-with-mxm-support which I'm 99% sure uses SoDimm. There exists single 32gb dimm ram cards, but I've never heard of that for SoDimm, so I think 32gb will be my limitation with this form factor (maybe I should start a new thread as now I'm getting into my own personal problems, which aren't the same as the OP's).
> 
> If a fast SSD with ramdisk/pagefile etc. won't work for this, I'll have to re-work my entire build concept.



I thought I was going powerful and slim but yours is a tall order. I built a 64GB system on MicroATX in a media case which is pretty small for its power but your going further. I wouldn't worry as much about cooling because your not building an overlocked gaming rig with a massive video card but if you want that ultra small port you may have to make sacrfices OR will pay a lot of money. I'll look around and see if I can build this, but there is a good chance you'll have to make compromises. If you pull this off I'd love to see the the part list.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf

> So in this case no one needs ram? Regular SSDs are fast enough for regular sampling?



You need a RAM buffer, but never mind SSDs - which are fabulous - just standard spinning drives are enough for regular sample libraries. I used external FireWire as part of the mix for a long time.

It's all a matter of how much you can squeeze out of a system, i.e. "enough" is fluid. I just made a video of a grossly underpowered MacBook Air running lots of voices of a Quantum Leap Piano + other EastWest stuff off a 5200RPM USB drive! (I started up from my Mac Pro backup drive just to see whether it would work.)

And no, I'm not recommending an 11" MacBook Air for studio use, just making a point.


----------



## Phryq

Daisser said:


> I thought I was going powerful and slim but yours is a tall order. I built a 64GB system on MicroATX in a media case which is pretty small for its power but your going further. I wouldn't worry as much about cooling because your not building an overlooked gaming rig with a massive video card but if you want that ultra small port you may have to make sacrfices OR will pay a lot of money. I'll look around and see if I can build this, but there is a good chance you'll have to make compromises. If you pull this off I'd love to see the the part list.



Here's my concept,







ASRock's new MicroSTX allows for 3x2280 slots, however the extra GPU isn't needed (though maybe I'll put in a small GPU). They have a smaller MiniSTX, however it only allows for 1x2280 drive. I'm hoping to work with someone for a custom case, and we can make a musician's dream computer, then mass produce it (he can get rich from it, I just want a computer for myself).  In theory this computer should be totally silent, even when overclocked / under heavy load. The fan isn't even really needed, it's just a bonus to all the passive cooling.


----------



## Daisser

Phryq said:


> Here's my concept,
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ASRock's new MicroSTX allows for 3x2280 slots, however the extra GPU isn't needed (though maybe I'll put in a small GPU). They have a smaller MiniSTX, however it only allows for 1x2280 drive. I'm hoping to work with someone for a custom case, and we can make a musician's dream computer, then mass produce it (he can get rich from it, I just want a computer for myself).  In theory this computer should be totally silent, even when overclocked / under heavy load. The fan isn't even really needed, it's just a bonus to all the passive cooling.



I love the plan and you could definitely make a solid "orchestra in a box" but it couldn't handle the kitchen sink (but 32gb will get you far). Taking it further EW could work with Cubase and sell these with a Hollywood Orchestra template installed, an audio interface device, midi controller and or maybe a CC subscription. So many beginners could use this to start. I suggest EW because here the ilok would be useful as you could build a more powerful home PC and move the ilok around.


----------



## Phryq

Daisser said:


> I love the plan and you could definitely make a solid "ochestra in a box" but it couldn't handle the kitchen sink (but 32gb will get you far). Taking it further EW could work with Cubase and sell these with a Hollywood Orchestra template installed, an audio interface device, midi controller and or maybe a CC subscription. So many beginners could use this to start. I suggest EW because here the ilok would be useful as you could build a more powerful home PC and move the ilok around.



I'd rather use Reaper (cheaper for beginners, and better IMO), but ya, good idea to create a bundle.

But I'm still not convinced we really need more than 32gb when the SSD reads are almost as fast as ram (3300 x 3. Not as fast as modern ram, but as above, the CPU will be the bottleneck anyhow)... if the purged Kontakt instances really do go over 32gb, they should just get moved to the page file, which is on a very fast SSD so...

Btw, this design would also prevent any possible thermal throttling of the SSDs (not usually an issue, but still a possiblity).


----------



## Daisser

Phryq said:


> I'd rather use Reaper (cheaper for beginners, and better IMO), but ya, good idea to create a bundle.
> 
> But I'm still not convinced we really need more than 32gb when the SSD reads are almost as fast as ram (3300 x 3. Not as fast as modern ram, but as above, the CPU will be the bottleneck anyhow)... if the purged Kontakt instances really do go over 32gb, they should just get moved to the page file, which is on a very fast SSD so...
> 
> Btw, this design would also prevent any possible thermal throttling of the SSDs (not usually an issue, but still a possiblity).



Yes, definitely Reaper in the beginner bundle. Curious to others, what do you think of the 'make music starter bundle idea'? Sweetwater and other places sell the hardware aimed at music production (at what I consider a high mark up), but the software these days is just as complicated.

You can pull it off with 32, I hope you build this I'm curious. Is your intention to travel places with this setup or do you have some serious space containts in your studio?


----------



## Phryq

I travel and I'm homeless (I mean, I'm a live-in teacher, so I live with my students). My biggest concern is getting through the airport with my computer and a guitar. They already sometimes give me heck about the guitar (sometimes they think the pickup is a bomb, and the humidipacks freak them out). Now they're also have this strange home made computer to contest with, but as long as it fits in my backpack, I'm happy, as I don't trust anything being checked-in luggage.

It seems that STX has a maximum of 32gm ram, so even if I get a 32gb single ram card, it won't work. 32gb is my absolute limit, so I'm really hoping Kontakt isn't anti-page-file.


----------



## Phryq

storyteller said:


> No. That's not what I'm saying. Of course you need ram. Every instrument loads scripting and a minimal buffer of samples into ram. This is what actually takes up the most memory. When you "purge" instruments in Kontakt, the residual ram taken up is not due to samples. A fully purged orchestral template can easily take up 32gb and more. Given this architecture, using multiple standard SSDs are plenty fast enough and even if they become bottlenecked - say from using a whole template of omnisphere that cannot be spanned on multiple SSDs - increasing the buffers (thus increasing ram usage) can also help. But the ideal movement with samplers will be when the SSDs like the one you showed are able to be used in place of ram (but that will have to be a nifty programming feat until it is a feature set of the chipset). I'm excited for that time to come, though! SSDs like the one you are discussing is a huge leap toward the destination we all want to reach.



I'm rethinking what you said. Did you mean that the SSDs will saturate the SouthBridge?

If that's what you mean, will this be a real bottleneck? If I have 32gb of ram and purge all samples, will I not be able to load the sample quickly enough because of a South Bridge bottleneck?


----------



## storyteller

Phryq said:


> I'm rethinking what you said. Did you mean that the SSDs will saturate the SouthBridge?
> 
> If that's what you mean, will this be a real bottleneck? If I have 32gb of ram and purge all samples, will I not be able to load the sample quickly enough because of a South Bridge bottleneck?


Each SSD has a read limit. With Kontakt set at the lowest buffer setting possible, a regular SSD will perform admirably. The more times that hard drive is hit, the harder time it will have keeping up with all of the requests. This will cause you to have to increase your buffer in Kontakt across all Kontakt instances, which will increase the amount of ram used and samples held in memory. It basically tells the computer to help the hard drive out a bit more by holding more information. So, to mitigate having to increase buffers, you can use multiple SSDs and spread out the load. Having multiple SSDs won't help if you are only using one single library like omnisphere because it will have to be located on one physical disk. But if you spread out your sections across drives, it will divvy up the requests fairly evenly. For example, keep percussion on one SSD, strings on another, etc. From a technical standpoint, none of this has to do with Southbridge becoming saturated. This purely has to do with the architecture of how a sampler streams samples on disk to RAM to output.


----------



## AdamKmusic

I'm using like 70-99% of 32gb ram in my template, I've got over 100 single instances of kontakt/zebra/massive etc though...I should really re do my template


----------



## robgb

I solved the problem by using libraries that aren't so RAM hungry. And those that are I've put in purge mode in Kontakt so that they only use the amount of RAM they need for the particular line I've played. 

Getting the big RAM hungry libraries is great, but, honestly, the difference between a MEGA woodwind library and the Kontakt VSL Legacy woodwinds is negligible, if you ask me, so I've opted for the one that sounds great but is still a lighter load. Seems to work fine for me.


----------



## Phryq

Ok, so from everything I'd read, the using 3 Samsungs with 32gb of ram should be just as good (or better, because less loading times) as regular SSD with 128gb of ram. Also, you'd be limited more by notes than by tracks (as long as you don't have too many notes at once).


----------



## Desire Inspires

Ways to reduce RAM usage:


----------



## Desire Inspires

Another video on how to reduce RAM usage using Kontakt:


----------



## mwarsell

Phryq said:


> I travel and I'm homeless (I mean, I'm a live-in teacher, so I live with my students). My biggest concern is getting through the airport with my computer and a guitar. They already sometimes give me heck about the guitar (sometimes they think the pickup is a bomb, and the humidipacks freak them out). Now they're also have this strange home made computer to contest with, but as long as it fits in my backpack, I'm happy, as I don't trust anything being checked-in luggage.
> 
> It seems that STX has a maximum of 32gm ram, so even if I get a 32gb single ram card, it won't work. 32gb is my absolute limit, so I'm really hoping Kontakt isn't anti-page-file.


A live-in teacher? Can you write more about that?


----------



## Phryq

mwarsell said:


> A live-in teacher? Can you write more about that?



Right, so I'm a teacher, but I really don't like the school system at all. I've taught in some normal schools, some radical schools, and now I home school a 10 year old (Piano, guitar, composition, French, English, Math, History, Science).

He knows more history than most adults (Fertile Crescent, Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, Greece, evolution of Vedic religions / India, Rome, Byzantine, Mongols, Renaissance, Enlightenment, Russia (from the Mongols/early Slavs/Vikings - Catherine the Great - Russian revolution. We took a field trip to Russia), then modern history, Gandhi, Einstein, WW1-2)... well I could go on. He has half the periodic table memorized, plays classical music but also can read chords, composes etc.

When we started he could barely add or read - the school system (and I mean all systems) are crap.

After I finish with this student, I might work as a governor for a rich Russian family, or maybe travel the world, or maybe move back to Canada and just compose for a while.

So I need to keep my possessions compact. Other than cloths I own a guitar and computer; neither of which I want to let go of while flying. I'm designing a custom heat-sink case at the moment to try and make a tiny powerful computer, but RAM is the big limit, which is why I'm going on about PCIe drives.


----------



## Phryq

4930k has a bigger cache, but it's way hotter... I'm looking for something small (to fit in a backpack) and quiet.


----------



## Living Fossil

anthraxsnax said:


> Not the 4930k specifically, just saying an old enthusiast chip is still way better...



I don't think that this is an evidence based argument. 
From all that i've heard i would suggest to get an i7700k.


----------



## Phryq

Will an enthusiast chip really get more performance per watt? or per 'tdp'?

In that case, yes, I could even use an underclocked chip. However, it's possible to bye 7700k or Ryzen re-lidded with warranty, which means it runs cooler, and also comes 'binned', meaning if you don't want to over-clock, you get get a less hot chip. (the way it was explained to me, certain chips are more 'leaky' than others. Leaky chips draw more power, and therefor can be overclocked further, wheras non-leaky chips cannot be overclocked, but draw less power on a lower clock).


----------



## higgs

storyteller said:


> If you are running OS X, you will lose about 8-9GB to the operating system (on 32GB).


Hm, on my Vader Helmet the Mac OS X takes up < 2GB.


----------



## Living Fossil

@anthraxsnax: 
I know these benchmarks, thanks.
However, in real life priorities can be variable.
128 GB Ram is important if you want to have a slave computer which has tons of sounds loaded.
If you are inside of a heavy session - 200-300 busy tracks with lots of plug ins and lots of automation going on - , i'm not sure if you can exploit all that ram. (try doing lots of fiddling in some spitfire libraries - vibrato control etc.)
And then, you can have chains of intensive plug ins which have to take place on one core.


----------



## storyteller

higgs said:


> Hm, on my Vader Helmet the Mac OS X takes up < 2GB.


If you are talking about "kernel task" then yes, OS X takes up about 1.75GB for the kernel. But with an app like "Memory Cleaner" you will see a truer representation of all of the tasks and what is being consumed at once. I agree that 8.5GB is on the higher side of base OS X usage, but it includes everything that my workflow requires. You may be able to trim a GB or so out of that based on drivers and processes required. Also, the lower amount of ram you have, the less OS X will automatically consume...


----------



## Living Fossil

anthraxsnax said:


> also, when do you have 200-300 busy tracks? I use mostly sample modelling in my template ...



You should take your experiences as the only existing reality.
Are you working on large scores in surround with lots of recorded instruments?

However, there are lots of approaches in building a system, with lots of aspects.
In my opinion the i7700k is excellent if you want to build a compact system at moderate costs.
If it comes to more cores, it's maybe better to wait half a year and look it there is something new coming.


----------



## Jaap

@anthraxsnax - The fact that you don't use that amount of tracks doesn't mean that others don't use this amount (or more) tracks...


----------



## Jaap

anthraxsnax said:


> show me a track with 300 instruments playing. Tell me any audience can pick out 300 instruments. or even 200. that's like recording each and every member of an orchestra.


 
Eh yeah exactly? A full orchestral/hybrid productions with all different articulations, percussion, choir, hybrid instruments can easily take up that amount of tracks. My template sits over 1700 tracks.


----------



## jononotbono

Jaap said:


> Eh yeah exactly? A full orchestral/hybrid productions with all different articulations, percussion, choir, hybrid instruments can easily take up that amount of tracks. My template sits over 1700 tracks.



I'm at 1700 too.


----------



## Jaap

anthraxsnax said:


> keep every single sound you've ever used on tap is a personal choice.
> 
> tabbing through your soundcloud - the music is great, sure, but even in that whole list of songs on your soundcloud - there aren't 1700 different sounds. and if there are, then it's not doing you any favors over 100 tracks.
> 
> not to mock you - but "i keep every massive preset I have on a separate track in my template" might get you to 1700 tracks, but it's useless



Edit: never mind and anyway, not worth the reaction, lets keep this on topic


----------



## Michael K. Bain

anthraxsnax said:


> there you have it OP, apparently EVERYONE runs 1700 track templates, you'll be fine with 32 gigs of ram, G'day.
> 
> I'm the bad guy here.


Then I'm a worse bad guy than you. I don't think I've ever even reached 100 tracks. But then again, I don't do epic music. But in any case, 1700 tracks is unbelievable. Unless you're Enya and doing tons of vocal overdubs.


----------



## ModalRealist

@anthraxsnax: the only ego I'm seeing in this thread is yours.


----------



## Parsifal666

I've hit over a hundred, a massive symphony (probably WAY too massive) with a Star Wars sized orchestra, guitars, percussions, drum sets, synthesizers samples.

1700? Yow.


----------



## Jaap

We all work with different setups. What works for me doesn't mean it has to be the holy grail. Since Cubase added the option to enable/disable tracks I prefered to create a large template with all my instruments at the ready. When I work on projects that gives me personally a big advantage because everything is nicely grouped and routed. Do I use all 1700 at once? No I don't, do I use in large scale projects more then 200, yes I do, most of my orchestral and hybrid productions use these amount of tracks. Creating a big fat boom can take already 10 tracks in some occassions.
I am not having an ego and for sure not fighting a dick measuring contest here and I do not like the way you adress this to me. I don't have to prove myself nor do I have to justify my workflow!

Edit: heck if you take a look at the Junkie Xl videos from his workflow you will see he hits over 6000 I believe.


----------



## Phryq

anthraxsnax said:


> evidence? have you ever seen dawbenches? granted I haven't checked him in a year or two - but the pattern is always the same - you don't need 4 fast cores, you need more cores, bigger caches. that's why people use xeon processors for DAWs. they don't need 5ghz single core performance... and when it comes to multithreaded rendering - an enthusiast chip will smoke it.
> 
> http://www.scanproaudio.info/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/2016-DPC-Results.jpg
> 
> that's from a year before, but the pattern is going to be the same... not rocket science - intel rolls in cycles of consumer chips then enthusiast chips... the enthusiast chips are vasty superior at a billion little processes, the consumer chips are relatively cheap and provide excellent single core performance. And also - the motherboards themselves have a lot more workstation features... I'm using 12 harddrives right now... TWELVE. as well as 128 gigs of ram... wasn't til a few chips ago you could even go past 32 gigs on a consumer board... let alone will they have 12 sata ports.
> 
> a low end 6 core/12 thread will perform these tasks way better than a quad core consumer chip. even the 5820k stock is a huge chunk better than the 6700k(bottom of the line enthusiast versus the newer top of the line consumer)
> 
> and considering the 4930k is roughly the same as a 5820k - yes, I would be right - a 4930k would beat a 7700k.
> so please throw the "evidence based argument" me again, but I'm trying to steer the man in the RIGHT direction.
> 
> http://www.scanproaudio.info/tag/dawbench/
> 
> that explains the exact process used, which is a REAL WORLD - not synthetic bench mark.



Ok. Everyone keeps telling me single core performance is king, but that never made sense to me. My laptop CPU is able to run any synth in isolation, and I've never had a problem with 1 CPU hungry track (except maybe some reverb sends with complex routing) on my laptop 47w cpu.

So maybe I should go with something like a Xeon, e.g. this board,

http://asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.asp?Model=EPC612D4I#Specifications

I don't mind spending a bit more if it's worth it, but I need something small, and ideal not too hot (again, more cores and less clock means tell TDP overall, so that's good for me if true).

Maybe I should wait for Ryzen to mature, or maybe get a mini-ITX Xeon....

I still don't know whether I need more than 32gb of ram (and therefor at least 4 ram slots) or if I can do with 32gb and 3 NVMe drives.


----------



## Living Fossil

anthraxsnax said:


> just a reminder, this is the same thread. maybe you should run for president fossil


If you don't get it: The amount of Ram doesn't define your track count.
You can have 200 tracks on a computer with 16gb Ram.


p.s. I'm out of this thread now.


----------



## Phryq

No, but it's an important question for people like me, who want to run a number of instruments without having to freeze tracks.

I don't need 200 tracks, but I would like about 40, and not have to freeze (or at least not too much).


----------



## Puzzlefactory

Surely it's got nothing to do with how many tracks you use in a project and more to do with load times. 

Browsing through synth patches takes no time at all, but browsing through sample libraries will take a lot of time better suited to creativity.


----------



## Jaap

Phryq said:


> No, but it's an important question for people like me, who want to run a number of instruments without having to freeze tracks.
> 
> I don't need 200 tracks, but I would like about 40, and not have to freeze (or at least not too much).



I read back some of your posts and you mentioned to imagine a full orchestral template with Berlin Strings, wood and brass. Maybe it is good to take a look at this topic if you haven't seen it already: http://vi-control.net/community/thr...-ridiculously-high-in-ram.61703/#post-4083345
Also if you want to use your RAM and CPU power in good way maybe check out Cubase as potential investment? The use of instruments tracks and that you can easily disable/enable them might be interesting to maybe consider? (don't want to change this into a new discussion about what DAW should be used or is the best, just giving some extra food for thoughts  )


----------



## I like music

A close friend of mine, who is a very talented composer, and has done a number of large commercial projects (a few triple A games) with superb compositions, has 16gb of RAM on his machine. His computer is held together by actual GLUE in places.

He uses a combination of EW Gold and some VSL woodwinds. For each instrument he has a legato, a SUS, and a short articulation. Has to freeze tracks etc but the fact is that he has already mapped the whole damn thing out in his immensely musical brain.

And it is that last fact which makes me wish I had more RAM in my head to hold the sound, rather than in my computer.


----------



## Phryq

Right, I'm already using Reaper, and it's easy to enable / disable / freeze tracks, though it takes a bit of time to freeze / reload etc.

Is there something different in Cubase? I've used Cubase, Sonar, Protools, Ableton, Logic etc. in the past and it seems like Reaper just does everything plus more and better than any other DAW, while being faster / more stable. I would be surprised to learn Cubase can do something Reaper can't (sorry to be a fanboy).


----------



## Jaap

Phryq said:


> Right, I'm already using Reaper, and it's easy to enable / disable / freeze tracks, though it takes a bit of time to freeze / reload etc.
> 
> Is there something different in Cubase? I've used Cubase, Sonar, Protools, Ableton, Logic etc. in the past and it seems like Reaper just does everything plus more and better than any other DAW, while being faster / more stable. I would be surprised to learn Cubase can do something Reaper can't (sorry to be a fanboy).



Yeah saw it later on in some posts as well that you are on Reaper and was just pointing it out for those earlier mentioned features, but sounds like Reaper got you nicely covered so I would not touch that then if! And nothing wrong with being a fanboy about it  I have it with a few products I have as well. It is great to be enthousiastic about a product you use.


----------



## Parsifal666

Phryq said:


> Right, I'm already using Reaper, and it's easy to enable / disable / freeze tracks, though it takes a bit of time to freeze / reload etc.
> 
> Is there something different in Cubase? I've used Cubase, Sonar, Protools, Ableton, Logic etc. in the past and it seems like Reaper just does everything plus more and better than any other DAW, while being faster / more stable. I would be surprised to learn Cubase can do something Reaper can't (sorry to be a fanboy).



You might want to look up ASIO Guard for Cubase. It's a tool that has kept me rocking my projects since release, and I write a lot of huge orchestral music.


----------



## Phryq

I simple have keyswitch note-names loaded into the track-midi. In instruments that need different instances for articulations, I simply have hot-keys to change midi-note channel.

Don't know what expression mapping is, but I'm guessing something similar.


----------



## MarcelM

Phryq said:


> Right, I'm already using Reaper, and it's easy to enable / disable / freeze tracks, though it takes a bit of time to freeze / reload etc.
> 
> Is there something different in Cubase? I've used Cubase, Sonar, Protools, Ableton, Logic etc. in the past and it seems like Reaper just does everything plus more and better than any other DAW, while being faster / more stable. I would be surprised to learn Cubase can do something Reaper can't (sorry to be a fanboy).



-expression maps
-chord track
-chord assist
-best midi editing out of all daws
-better notation
-much much more... 

iam sorry, but i gotta say reaper isnt even close to cubase. besides its cheap shareware look it has a very complicated and limited workflow. there is only one thing good about reaper and that is its cpu usage. the rest is (sorry to say) kinda crap.

guess there is a reason why hz,dj,junkie xl work with cubase or john powell for example with logic... atleast nobody of the big boys is using reaper.


----------



## Parsifal666

Heroix said:


> -expression maps
> 
> I guess there is a reason why hz,dj,junkie xl work with cubase or john powell for example with logic... atleast nobody of the big boys is using reaper.



They do use Cubase. Crappy composers like me love it too  .

However, I have heard a lot of good things over the past few years about Reaper...so much that I might just have to give it a try.


----------



## MarcelM

Parsifal666 said:


> They do use Cubase. Crappy composers like me love it too  . However, I have heard a lot of good things over the past few years about Reaper...so much that I might just have to give it a try.



i heard alot of good things aswell and tried it a few times. actually i tried the past days again and i spend ALOT of time tweaking it. i added ALOT of actions/scripts and also bought a logic theme for it. after all i still gave up on it... the piano roll is simply crap and even with alot of scripts youre not coming even close to cubase.
editing CCs was simply a pain and i dont wanna bother around over and over again with scripting (iam a programmer myself).

truth is... i bought cubase again today (was learning logic past weeks but returned to windows)


----------



## Jaap

Heroix said:


> -expression maps
> -chord track
> -chord assist
> -best midi editing out of all daws
> -better notation
> -much much more...
> 
> iam sorry, but i gotta say reaper isnt even close to cubase. besides its cheap shareware look it has a very complicated and limited workflow. there is only one thing good about reaper and that is its cpu usage. the rest is (sorry to say) kinda crap.
> 
> guess there is a reason why hz,dj,junkie xl work with cubase or john powell for example with logic... atleast nobody of the big boys is using reaper.



Good points and adding project logical editor to that list as well. Very powerfull tool.

Edit: Oh and timewarp! and indeed much more and more as you stated haha


----------



## Nick Batzdorf

I'm reworking my big template since upgrading to a computer with 64GB of RAM, double what my previous one had.

The list continues below, and it's in progress - for example I have LASS loaded off the bottom of the screen, and I'm not done loading instruments. (I also need to incorporate SkiSwitcher on more channels to cut down on the number of tracks.)

But this is only using about 20GB, and most of these are keyswitch programs - meaning a lot of articulations are lurking behind those tracks. Also, for example Ens C Strings is the Cinematic Strings full ensemble.

Can you get by with 32GB? There's a lot of big stuff loaded here.


----------



## MarcelM

anthraxsnax said:


> wow, that was a pretty ignorant post lol - let me clue you in on how things work.
> 
> 1.) big names use it. why? same reason people used protools for years. if you work on big name projects, if you need to send your project to someone to mix/master/contribute/ect - you use what everyone else uses. that's the common language - and when Cubase was king for midi/vsti work - it took roots.
> 
> 2.) notation might "look" better - but that's it. it's functionally no different when it comes to actual midi data, being put through a VSTi. If you want superior notation visually - notation software would be superior to Cubase.
> 
> 3.) Cubase midi isn't any different than Reaper's midi editing. Again - I've edited in both.
> 
> 4.) "besides its cheap shareware look it has a very complicated and limited workflow." this was a dead give away. there are things you can do in reaper you can't do in other daws at all - and if you can, it's not even reasonable to accomplish. It's routing and parameter modulation controls are insanely powerful
> 
> example. i can take a guitar track... put an EQ on, set 2 bands directly over where the kick thump and snare thump , but leave the gain at 0.
> 
> then i can drag the i/o button from my kick drum over to the guitar track, send channels 1/2 to channel 3 on the guitar track, move the gain of the kick drum band in the FX, last touched parameter > modulate, but audio signal from channel 3. change the strength, direction, attack, release of the modulation - and have the actual band move ONLY based on the kick drum and ONLY the band for the kick drum - and changes the AMOUNT based on how LOUD the kick hit is.
> 
> THEN, you guessed it. i can drag the snare drum i/o button to the same track, to channel 4. move the gain for the snare EQ band, modulate again, based on the snare, at its own behaviors completely separate from the kick drum.
> 
> if 2 instruments conflict, i can EQ the one i don't want to stand out when both play at the same time - to fit together nicely, and use this same technique to apply a wet mix to the whole EQ plugin - so that when only 1 is playing - they sound natural... when both play - one is sculpted out of the way.
> 
> PLEASE, tell me what reaper CANT do.



ignorant post? could you explain why? sorry, had to laugh 

reaper canot do alot of a things if you dont add scripts or actions for it. i dont wanna discuss this alot longer since cubase is the leading daw on the market, and has a ton of features that a daw like reaper simply has not.
but okay, short example.

can reaper disable/enable tracks without custom scripts? NO!
can reaper draw smooth CCs like cubase does including bezier curves and such? NO

this list could be very very long since there are alot of things reaper simply cannot do.
even fanboys like you are talking about this ALOT over at the reaper forums, and here you come and tell us reaper can do it all? simply wrong, sorry!


----------



## MarcelM

anthraxsnax said:


> what?
> 
> piano roll?
> 
> LOL okay - you're definitely trolling at this point.



i dont get you here,sorry...


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## catsass

Nick Batzdorf said:


> I'm reworking my big template since upgrading to a computer with 64GB of RAM, double what my previous one had.
> 
> The list continues below, and it's in progress - for example I have LASS loaded off the bottom of the screen, and I'm not done loading instruments. (I also need to incorporate SkiSwitcher on more channels to cut down on the number of tracks.)
> 
> But this is only using about 20GB, and most of these are keyswitch programs - meaning a lot of articulations are lurking behind those tracks. Also, for example Ens C Strings is the Cinematic Strings full ensemble.
> 
> Can you get by with 32GB? There's a lot of big stuff loaded here.


Screaming shite!  I must know more!


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## MarcelM

anthraxsnax said:


> Wrong, it does everything a normal DAW does by downloading the executable on the website. People make scripts to emulate different INTERFACES - and while some people do emulate features of daws when they are new - most of the time those same features end up in the official version of reaper aswell.
> 
> 
> 
> Yes, you can click the "FX" power button. right there on the track. you can also render/freeze by right clicking the track.
> 
> 
> yes, its called an automation lane. you can add points, then change the shape of selected points(including Bezier curves)
> 
> 
> 
> sounds like you made a short list, ALL of which were 100% false.



automation is a different beast. we were talking about the CC editing in the piano roll and not about the automation lanes. even those are worse compared to the ones in cubase. but you can read all this at the reaper forums where people are requesting alot cubase functions 

edit: about enable disable track. yes, you can use the fx button but this doesnt mimic completely the function from cubase. only a script like the one from tack does this.

edit2: it does also not do alot of things without installing sws extension

sorry, you are not correcting anyone here and i made my homework for sure.


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## MarcelM

anthraxsnax said:


> you can't use automation style editing in the piano roll? that's a PREFERENCE, not a lack of "feature". I want to scribble my CC's in more than I want clean unrealistic automation - so explain to me how your idea of a "feature" works for everyone? if you can't be bothered to learn how to automate it, that's fine. But that's not the same as "cant do it" or "doesn't have it".
> 
> We get that you like chocolate cake, and I prefer pizza, but why try to shit on pizza for other people liking pizza?
> 
> so again - be more responsible with distributing false information



ok lets end it here since you dont even know about the difference between automation and CCs. even reaper is handling them differently (just for your info).

and most of us composers edit those CCs inside the piano roll and not by using automation lanes.

its okay if reaper works for you, but its not okay to say it can do all the things cubase does because it simply cannot.
iam sure you read enough about this at the reaper forums didnt you?

have a nice day


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## Phryq

anthraxsnax said:


> its w/e man... I set my libraries up with different articulations on different channels too, and I just right click a note and tell it to go to channel 4 for spiccato. your setup is better because you have all sorts of sweet keybinds - but even my crappier workflow is probably easier than expression mapping
> 
> it works for some people - but expression mapping isn't THAT crazy. in the case of reaper and just using channels - only benefit expression maps have, is a visual representation... with reaper you just have to remember which articulation you sent where... and I only use 8 max at the moment, for string articulations



I have a hotkey which sets the selected notes to a certain channel *and* changes the articulation.

E.G. I press Ctrl-W - Set notes to channel 2, give Staccato articulation. Then I know staccato notes are channel 2 (which is my short notes).

Btw, you can 'disable' an effect by right clicking the effect-disable. There's a hotkey as well (can't remember off the top of my head). You can do smooth CC editing by holding shift, but for curvs etc. you need a script.

I'd rather take fast-stable with a bit more learning curve and needing some 3rd party scripts than... well I don't want to badmouth Cubase. Btw is it possible to input notation with only qwerty yet? That was my big turn-off last time I tried it.

I guess it's a personality thing - do you want out-of-the-box or customizable? 

Anyhow, I'm derailing the thread...


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## MarcelM

anthraxsnax said:


> the "automation" style CC lanes is a preference, and those automations don't actually create a different behavior of CC, it still dithers it down to 127 steps.
> 
> "ok lets end it here since you dont even know about the difference between automation and CCs." you sound pretty learnt'



no, but go and export an midi file and have a look where your CCs are if you import the midi again into another daw.


anthraxsnax said:


> ohh trust me, I said in another thread that I need to steal your scripts... they sound lovely, and for some instruments ive really wanted to get more used to step sequencing instead of live playing
> 
> and yes - I agree that reascript is actually a gigantic feature... we had stuff like elastic(protools) long before most daws did, just because someone was able to emulate them.
> 
> I can also tell you that I couldn't in a million years keep my current workflow in another daw, and while I RESPECT other daws(including Cubase) when someone runs their mouth about a program they don't even use - I'll be quick to point out the things Cubase CANT do, but this isn't a jab at Cubase - merely users who feel the need to lie(or inject misinformed 'facts') about competitors.



dude honestly, whats up with you?

i told you alot of things which reaper cannot do, and those are still the facts. almost everything you said here was wrong in the end.

enjoy your chord track now in reaper and have fun drawing some bezier curves inside the piano roll... oh sorry, forgive me, you cannot do that?


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## Parsifal666

Heroix said:


> you dont even know about the difference between automation and CCs.



I'd be shocked if this were true, those are astoundingly important tools.


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## Parsifal666

I'll admit, anthraxsnax forgot a couple of very cool things about Cubase but hey, heat of the moment.


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## Jaap

anthraxsnax said:


> ohh wait, does Cubase have take FX? or do you need to make an entire 2nd track just to add a distortion for that pre-chorus vocal line? my bad.
> 
> I can literally program 1 track midi, then snip sections, and put different VSTi on each one.
> 
> reaper tracks are stereo or mono, or midi. it doesn't care what you put on the track.



That is no problem in Cubase with instrument tracks. You can put as well midi fx on it as audio fx. So if I want to have a distortion on my flute no problem. Want to sidechain that? No problemo! Heck, I can even sidechain that signal into another instrument (new feature in version 9) if it supports vsti sidechaining (Retroloque2 does atm).
Not gonna contribute more to a DAW fight. I never used Reaper and heard also good things about it and that is great. The more options for us, the better, means that everyone can take out it what he needs. What is a perfect DAW for me (Cubase is for me) can be another mans/womans nightmare


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## Jaap

anthraxsnax said:


> no, I mean like 1 bar of a flute, I can put distortion on, without having to make a distorted flute track, and leaving the rest of the track alone.



Yeah same in Cubase. You can automate the effect if you want. If I want only to use it on 1 bar, I can automate the mix level back to 0 again from the point I want.


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## MarcelM

anthraxsnax said:


> no, I mean like 1 bar of a flute, I can put distortion on, without having to make a distorted flute track, and leaving the rest of the track alone.
> 
> and yeah - it's not a DAW fight, just imagine if I jumped in and told you a bunch of things Cubase can't do, while clearly having no experience using Cubase(and being wrong)



all cool... its okay to discuss things and people dont always agree on each other... welcome to the world 

just dont end up with a reaper tattoo on your neck


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## Jaap

anthraxsnax said:


> yeah but the effect would still be running in the back ground with a mix of 0. this only applies processing to the short instance you need it, Cubase doesn't turn the effect off - it just silences it



True, it doesn't turn it off indeed. If that is a problem though with eating up cpu power for a Cubase user, you can choose to render in place and have it like that way. Multiple ways lead to Rome


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## MarcelM

anthraxsnax said:


> if a better daw came along tomorrow I'd switch - but if it's the best tool I've found - I'm going to keep using it. At the moment it's the best tool I've found. I switched to Cubase 8 pro for 3 months, then decided to swap back to reaper. Unlike you - I made an educated decision, and even now - I'm not about to go on here and tell Cubase users what their daw can't do - unless I've personally searched for how to do it.



well, i told you what it cannot do. and there is more, but whatever.

if there will be a daw rising i believe it will be studio one. it got great improvement already and from what i heard there are really great things to come. out of all daws it has the best/fastest workflow atleast for me. still its midi abilities are not close to cubase and its a big cpu hog... but... this will change 

reaper is coded by justin alone... maybe a bit unfair even to compare it vs something like cubase which has a pretty big developer team and years of experience. actually its comparing apples and oranges.


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## Jaap

anthraxsnax said:


> but this is a case of reaper's efficiency coming into play - which is one of the things we've been touting



Well yeah I guess at that particular point Reaper wins I guess. The fact that I can do much more atm with an instrument track (routing it in all kinds of way, group channels, insert and send fx, vca faders, chord tracks, you name it) makes me sticking to Cubase for the moment, but I am glad Reaper works out so well and I hope it keeps doing that and that it will evolve a long and good way  (btw, no sarcasm here, I mean that)


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## Mornats

I found a decent (for me) quick 'n' dirty substitute for a chord track in Reaper. Insert an empty item on a track, click the text bubble, enter the chord name and click the stretch to fit. See the screenshot below.






I've not used Cubase so I've no idea how much extra functionality Cubase's has over this but for me, just having the list of chords on show is very helpful. I drag that track up or down to sit close to whatever VST I'm using when I play so that's it's always in shot. For a noob like me, it works and helps.


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## MarcelM

Mornats said:


> I found a decent (for me) quick 'n' dirty substitute for a chord track in Reaper. Insert an empty item on a track, click the text bubble, enter the chord name and click the stretch to fit. See the screenshot below.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I've not used Cubase so I've no idea how much extra functionality Cubase's has over this but for me, just having the list of chords on show is very helpful. I drag that track up or down to sit close to whatever VST I'm using when I play so that's it's always in shot. For a noob like me, it works and helps.



quite alot extras...


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## Mornats

Wow yeah, that's pretty cool.


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## Jaap

Mornats said:


> Wow yeah, that's pretty cool.



It is a pretty handy feature and though I don't use it that often, it can be a great sketching tool now and then when you are on a tight deadline and need to work out quickly some ideas and just put the basic harmony in there without too much hassle. It can also be nice to fiddle and click around in some chord suggestions to work out some first thoughts.


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## jononotbono

Jaap said:


> We all work with different setups. What works for me doesn't mean it has to be the holy grail. Since Cubase added the option to enable/disable tracks I prefered to create a large template with all my instruments at the ready. When I work on projects that gives me personally a big advantage because everything is nicely grouped and routed. Do I use all 1700 at once? No I don't, do I use in large scale projects more then 200, yes I do, most of my orchestral and hybrid productions use these amount of tracks. Creating a big fat boom can take already 10 tracks in some occassions.
> I am not having an ego and for sure not fighting a dick measuring contest here and I do not like the way you adress this to me. I don't have to prove myself nor do I have to justify my workflow!
> 
> Edit: heck if you take a look at the Junkie Xl videos from his workflow you will see he hits over 6000 I believe.




After this whole thread I felt like upping my game. Ok not really but since I have upped my Track count from 1700 to 2006. Shame Anthrax isn't here. I know he would appreciate it. Haha!


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## Parsifal666

jononotbono said:


> After this whole thread I felt like upping my game. Ok not really but since I have upped my Track count from 1700 to 2006. Shame Anthrax isn't here. I know he would appreciate it. Haha!



I'm surprised he's _not _here...?


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## MarcelM

Parsifal666 said:


> I'm surprised he's _not _here...?



he got banned. read the offtopic forum about it.


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## micrologus

I think I will buy the new iMac27. So 32 Gb RAM could be a good choice?


----------



## Puzzlefactory

I've just bought a refurbished cheese grater with 64gig ram. Looking forward to seeing what kind of templates I can make with it.


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## jamwerks

FWIW A full Berlin Brass template (main library + mutes), 2 mic's open, 6mb preload buffer in Kontakt (the lowest possible) runs about 40gb of ram here.


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## Phryq

jamwerks said:


> FWIW A full Berlin Brass template (main library + mutes), 2 mic's open, 6mb preload buffer in Kontakt (the lowest possible) runs about 40gb of ram here.



And what about 1 mic?


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## Puzzlefactory

Puzzlefactory said:


> I've just bought a refurbished cheese grater with 64gig ram. Looking forward to seeing what kind of templates I can make with it.



To be honest, it does don't take long to fill the ram. And that's not even using all the articulations that a lot of composers would consider standard.


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## robgb

Load everything in purge mode. That saves a lot of RAM.


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## jamwerks

Phryq said:


> And what about 1 mic?


Normally that would be just half that (20gb).


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## Mike Fox

storyteller said:


> If you are running OS X, you will lose about 8-9GB to the operating system (on 32GB).



Wait, what? 8-9GB? How so? Are you referring to storage space?


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## storyteller

mikefox789 said:


> Wait, what? 8-9GB? How so? Are you referring to storage space?


Nope. I'm referring to RAM utilization for just booting up OS X. Granted, you may be able to shave a bit off of that (probably down to around 6-7GB on a 32GB system) based on how you streamline the apps that run in the background. There are several apps I consider to be in my "baseline" boot up that others may not use (such as midi software, raid software, etc). I do think most every OS dynamically scales its RAM usage based on the amount you have available. With OS X you have *file cache* and *wired memory *which is a different category to *app memory. *But the sum total is what I am speaking about above. On a Windows system, it handles the ram categories a bit differently (and doesn't calculate some of the same concepts in a task monitor). So comparing windows vs OS X _total memory management_ is really apples and oranges. Realistically, each OS handles RAM a bit differently, but they are going to perform relatively the same overall.

If you have an app like Memory Cleaner (it's free), it will give you a great overview of whats going on and let you dump some of the memory that isn't required while working on a project.


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## Mike Fox

storyteller said:


> Nope. I'm referring to RAM utilization for just booting up OS X. Granted, you may be able to shave a bit off of that (probably down to around 6-7GB on a 32GB system) based on how you streamline the apps that run in the background. There are several apps I consider to be in my "baseline" boot up that others may not use (such as midi software, raid software, etc). I do think most every OS dynamically scales its RAM usage based on the amount you have available. With OS X you have *file cache* and *wired memory *which is a different category to *app memory. *But the sum total is what I am speaking about above. On a Windows system, it handles the ram categories a bit differently (and doesn't calculate some of the same concepts in a task monitor). So comparing windows vs OS X _total memory management_ is really apples and oranges. Realistically, each OS handles RAM a bit differently, but they are going to perform relatively the same overall.
> 
> If you have an app like Memory Cleaner (it's free), it will give you a great overview of whats going on and let you dump some of the memory that isn't required while working on a project.



I guess I just don't understand this when Apple states the minimum required specs are 2GB? Seems like I could buy a macbook with only 2GB of RAM and Sierra would boot up, no? Unless I am misunderstanding your post somehow.


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## storyteller

mikefox789 said:


> I guess I just don't understand this when Apple states the minimum required specs are 2GB? Seems like I could buy a macbook with only 2GB of RAM and Sierra would boot up, no? Unless I am misunderstanding your post somehow.


I can see how it can be confusing for sure. Nothing is more of a head scratcher than to see your OS consume more RAM than it explicitly requires. But maybe it is best to first understand that every OS is designed to operate minimally first, then efficiently second. There is also the concept of App memory versus what the OS does in the background to make things seem snappy. At minimum, each app (and the OS) will require a certain minimum amount of RAM that it will consume immediately. It is guaranteed it will immediately use that much ram when it launches. Then, the OS decides how to keep things like background tasks in memory (when possible) so it doesn't have to relaunch it from your HD when it is required. Following that, there is also a certain amount of memory that can be compressed in realtime and some memory that cannot be compressed and is needed as quickly as possible. And in the case of something like Kontakt, it reserves a certain portion of ram for streaming. This is called Wired memory. So the OS is constantly managing all of these types resources to make your experience sitting in front of a computer as snappy as possible. Minimum ram means that the OS will run, but not efficiently. The efficient part happens when the OS sees more ram is available for use. Both Windows and OS X do this, but it is all behind the scenes. Every thing that makes your DAW experience nice is usually eating up some ram. Hope that clarifies it a bit. I tried to keep the analogies as simple as I could. Someone else may have a better way of explaining it though.


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## chillbot

storyteller said:


> But maybe it is best to first understand that every OS is designed to operate minimally first, then efficiently second.


Does this apply to Win10 also or only Mac? Just curious.

Looks like my Win10 system with nothing open (except graphics, mouse, audio, midi drivers, etc) shows 3.5GB out of 128GB used. 8/128GB when I load Sonar template with barebones Kontakt, Omni, Stylus, etc, no samples loaded.


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## storyteller

chillbot said:


> Does this apply to Win10 also or only Mac? Just curious.
> 
> Looks like my Win10 system with nothing open (except graphics, mouse, audio, midi drivers, etc) shows 3.5GB out of 128GB used. 8/128GB when I load Sonar template with barebones Kontakt, Omni, Stylus, etc, no samples loaded.


I've not jumped too far into the windows side of memory management recently, so I can't speak for certain, but the general idea an OS takes is "free ram is wasted ram." So, with OSX, it will cache whatever it can, and use the full bank as best as possible. When you need to use more than what is technically free, OSX reorganizes what is optional and moves it around to temp files on the hard drive, etc. So, all-in-all, there is a constant flow of information into RAM until there are too many mandatory RAM requirements. At this point, it would be the equivalent to "running out of memory" even though you could run out much earlier when you are looking at activity monitor and such.

Windows has historically used page files and temp files to cache information. This keeps data organized in a way that is quick to access without having to load it all from scratch. I would assume, this is at least partially similar to what I am speaking about in OSX, but I don't think Task Manager will accurately show what is temporarily being used in the background by the OS (I could be wrong here, though). It is my understanding that Windows shows the user what is relevant and handles all of the nuances in the background (as opposed to what OSX would actually inform the user was occurring). But every OS should seek out free ram and do what it wants with it to make the operating system snappy until more mandatory requests are made on the RAM resources.


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## chillbot

Thanks for the response. Dumb question then, but does this imply that computers generally run better or more efficient with more memory? If so, why isn't this discussed more with builds? Why doesn't everyone go 128GB if you can afford it? I don't even use a fraction of my 128GB regularly because most of the samples are on slaves so I often get asked why I went in that direction. (The answer is future-proofing and flexibility.) But it would be nice to know that it's actually doing something behind the scenes...


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## storyteller

chillbot said:


> Thanks for the response. Dumb question then, but does this imply that computers generally run better or more efficient with more memory? If so, why isn't this discussed more with builds? Why doesn't everyone go 128GB if you can afford it? I don't even use a fraction of my 128GB regularly because most of the samples are on slaves so I often get asked why I went in that direction. (The answer is future-proofing and flexibility.) But it would be nice to know that it's actually doing something behind the scenes...


Not a dumb question!  To a certain extent, a system with more RAM will certainly have the potential to perform better but there is also going to be a point of diminishing returns as well. If you multi-task a lot on your computer, then excessive ram could be very effective in helping maintain a snappy OS. Much of the juggling of RAM happens when apps are loaded, closed, idling in the background, items are caching (e.g. Spotify, Web browsers, etc.). I have a theory that the "slow-down" that Windows experiences over its installation life is related to mismanagement of this type of RAM utilization which creates a bungling pile of page files, pointer files, and temp files. It would be like an air traffic controller deciding to keep all of the aircrafts in the air, creating a spaghetti flight path instead of landing them efficiently. But that's just a theory...

But in the real world, I'm unsure how a slave machine might perform over time with "excessive" ram as I haven't done any deep testing on it. I generally abide by the "max-out-the-ram-philosophy" regardless of whether it will all be used or would be overkill. Rather than think about it too much, maxing out the ram serves more as a peace-of-mind for me. Metrics would be interesting though! I would expect OS X would probably use a greater amount of RAM more efficiently than Windows based on their general practices toward memory management.


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## chillbot

Right... I do do a lot of multi-tasking. What I meant was I put 128 on my main computer but in reality I hardly ever use beyond 24GB because all the samples are loaded onto 3 slaves. I wanted to have the potential to load as much as I wanted, but it turns out I never do.


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## storyteller

chillbot said:


> Right... I do do a lot of multi-tasking. What I meant was I put 128 on my main computer but in reality I hardly ever use beyond 24GB because all the samples are loaded onto 3 slaves. I wanted to have the potential to load as much as I wanted, but it turns out I never do.


Ha. I probably went off too much on a tangent there.  If it were me, I'd have the max ram in there too.


----------



## Publius

Just curious where folks are getting motherboards that hold 128 gig of ram--or what kind they are. I think I have seen more just in the past year, but otherwise only aware of server motherboards that take a special kind of ram. Now I see mainstream retail motherboards that can go to 64 gig, but maybe need to go mail order to get 128 gig ones.


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## Phryq

Would love a mini STX supporting 128gb ram and 7700k (or the next10nm version when it arrives)


----------



## thereus

Publius said:


> Just curious where folks are getting motherboards that hold 128 gig of ram--or what kind they are. I think I have seen more just in the past year, but otherwise only aware of server motherboards that take a special kind of ram. Now I see mainstream retail motherboards that can go to 64 gig, but maybe need to go mail order to get 128 gig ones.



All the main x299 and x399 motherboards can take 128gb.


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## J-M

Publius said:


> Just curious where folks are getting motherboards that hold 128 gig of ram--or what kind they are. I think I have seen more just in the past year, but otherwise only aware of server motherboards that take a special kind of ram. Now I see mainstream retail motherboards that can go to 64 gig, but maybe need to go mail order to get 128 gig ones.



My MSI x99a sli plus can take 128gb...not that I probably need that much, but it's a nice thing to have.


----------

