# Is 16gb enough RAM?



## elfman (Jan 1, 2019)

My computer came with 4gb RAM. I put 16 in. It helped drastically, but it still takes a while to render my Spitfire libraries. I've read that because of the way Macs are designed, they get more out of their RAM than PC. Is this true? Would 16gb perform on a professional level using a Mac? Inquiring for future computer purchases.


----------



## jbuhler (Jan 1, 2019)

It depends on what you are going to do. But with 16GB on a Mac you won't be able to load, say, the full template of the Spitfire Symphony Orchestra, and my experience was that Berlin Strings was more or less on usable. You would need an SSD or fusion drive as the main drive in the Mac, and one or more external SSDs for your samples. You can write a piece using SSO with 16GB, but you have to be judicious about which articulations to load. 

If you are going to be working primarily with samples I would recommend at least 32GB and preferably more. You are also going to need a CPU that is fast enough to handle the work. It doesn't matter whether you are on a PC or a Mac, folks do good work on either system, but Macs do tend to be quite a lot more expensive for the specs. I think they have compensating advantages, but others will disagree.


----------



## JT (Jan 1, 2019)

I'm using a Macbook Pro with 16GB. I don't use a template, I just load what I'm using at the time. Last piece I worked on had 60 tracks, it ran as smooth as silk, mostly Spitfire and OT. When I do have problems though, my processor gets maxed out before my RAM does.


----------



## tokatila (Jan 1, 2019)

No.


----------



## dzilizzi (Jan 1, 2019)

I'd say "no" as well. I have a laptop with 16GB RAM and it kept crashing with less than 50 tracks, more than half unused at any one time, using HW strings and brass and mostly Sonokinetic winds. I ended up getting VSL SE and that worked without too much of a problem. 

So if you have low RAM orchestras, you could do it. But Kontakt adds up fast, as does Play. Using keyswitches may help.

And? Sometimes my 32GB RAM desktop struggles. But I don't have SSDs yet. My next big expense as they are coming down in price. Still can't figure out why a 2 TB SSD is more than double the price of a 1TB SSD, but I guess I will have to give in soon.


----------



## MartinH. (Jan 1, 2019)

elfman said:


> I use a mid-line Asus. Came with 4gb RAM. I put 16 in. It helped drastically, but it still takes a while to render my Spitfire libraries. I've read that because of the way Macs are designed, they get more out of their RAM than PC. Is this true? Would 16gb perform on a professional level using a Mac? I need to get a serious machine in the near future so I'm trying to decide whether to get a Mac or a PC. Maybe you can help me with that.



You should also take into account how much cheaper PCs are. I'd say buy a PC with 64 gb Ram, that should get you pretty far. Depending on what libraries you want to load, it'll never be "enough", but I can tell you 16 gb is "too little". 
Most important is having SSD drives to load your samples from.


----------



## Erick - BVA (Jan 1, 2019)

elfman said:


> I use a mid-line Asus. Came with 4gb RAM. I put 16 in. It helped drastically, but it still takes a while to render my Spitfire libraries. I've read that because of the way Macs are designed, they get more out of their RAM than PC. Is this true? Would 16gb perform on a professional level using a Mac? I need to get a serious machine in the near future so I'm trying to decide whether to get a Mac or a PC. Maybe you can help me with that.


It was not enough for me. I had to upgrade from 16gb to 32gb. But I will say that it may be just as important to consider your hard drive. My next plan is to get a new PC with SSD or upgrade my current one to internal SSD


----------



## Geoff Grace (Jan 1, 2019)

16 GB is a luxury compared to the old 32-bit days, but it can still be limiting for orchestral work. You can get more mileage out of a 16 GB system by freezing tracks, purging unused RAM, streaming as much as possible from SSDs, and only loading the sounds you need; but getting more RAM will simplify your work process. 

Best,

Geoff


----------



## jbuhler (Jan 1, 2019)

dzilizzi said:


> And? Sometimes my 32GB RAM desktop struggles. But I don't have SSDs yet. My next big expense as they are coming down in price. Still can't figure out why a 2 TB SSD is more than double the price of a 1TB SSD, but I guess I will have to give in soon.


Streaming samples off SSDs makes a huge difference, as you can significantly lower the amount of an instrument that is loaded into RAM and so increase the number of instruments you have active. Then, too, the number of instruments you need to have loaded depends greatly on the nature of the project. I definitely think a person can still work effectively with 16GB. It's just that there are some kinds of projects that you won't be able to do, and some of what you can do will be quite inefficient due to freezing, purging, etc. That's true at 32GB as well, and probably at 64GB, and 128GB... It's just that each step up the ladder typically means fewer things you can't do and more efficiency in the things you can do. But the costs also get higher, and at a certain point the complexity of the template starts to introduce its own inefficiency.


----------



## Wall Art Music (Jan 1, 2019)

I've got a mac with only 16 gb. I find myself running into its limitations sometimes. Depends on what I'm trying to do. I like to alternate between orchestral and rock style tracks. I've got SSDs so that does help. 

I use EW orchestra and Kontakt libraries, have to be choosy about how many articulations to load for strings and brass. And load extra mic positions only if absolutely necessary. 

But I get by. I would love to get an old mac pro with 64 gb of ram, for a slave, in the future.


----------



## Akarin (Jan 1, 2019)

Yes and no. Yes if you render each track to audio before loading the next patch.


----------



## Hywel (Jan 1, 2019)

I am a hobbyist with a 4 year old Mac Mini with 16GB RAM mainly using pianos, cinematic studio instruments and assorted others and am quite severely limited at times even with SSDs


----------



## tehreal (Jan 1, 2019)

Akarin said:


> Yes and no. Yes if you render each track to audio before loading the next patch.



I used to do this and found myself running into a new problem: running out of hard drive space from all the rendered tracks (and eventually having to transfer projects back and forth from external backup drives because of it). Adding video files to all of that made things untenable. I ended up adding the RAM (at 48 GB now but 32 GB would have been enough for what I do) and things became so much less tedious.



elfman said:


> I use a mid-line Asus. Came with 4gb RAM. I put 16 in. It helped drastically, but it still takes a while to render my Spitfire libraries. I've read that because of the way Macs are designed, they get more out of their RAM than PC. Is this true? Would 16gb perform on a professional level using a Mac? I need to get a serious machine in the near future so I'm trying to decide whether to get a Mac or a PC. Maybe you can help me with that.



I say get more RAM when you actually start running into a real need for it. Prices drop so don't fork over the dough today when you can save 10 months from now. Regarding OS's I have Windows and Mac. Turns out it doesn't matter. Use what you're comfortable with (of course if you're going to use something like Logic X then the decision is made for you).


----------



## hansandersen (Jan 1, 2019)

Primarily you need 2 things. A desktop computer + a mobile computer.

So here's what you should do:

- Build your studio rig, your own PC, with around 64gb RAM. Be sure to add some SSD's. Get a good processor. Go take a look at AMD, they're cheap and powerful compared to Intel's ridiculous pricing. This will give you some headroom financially.

- For something mobile I would 100% go for a MacBook Pro (this could be for education, traveling, what ever you have in mind on-the-go). You can start with 16gb if that's your thing, but ultimately you will find yourself limited and upgrade to 32gb possibly 64gb (I have 32gb right now, and have not met any limitations as of yet).


----------



## dzilizzi (Jan 1, 2019)

The problem with current Macs is they are not really updatable. Everything is soldered in. And frankly, trying to update RAM on a PC laptop can be an issue. I think a lot of the motherboards either can't handle more than 16GBs, or by the time you decide to do it, finding the right RAM that is compatible is not easy. I've always had issues trying to update the RAM. Hard drives are easy, RAM, not so much. Desktops are much more updatable.


----------



## jbuhler (Jan 1, 2019)

dzilizzi said:


> The problem with current Macs is they are not really updatable. Everything is soldered in. And frankly, trying to update RAM on a PC laptop can be an issue. I think a lot of the motherboards either can't handle more than 16GBs, or by the time you decide to do it, finding the right RAM that is compatible is not easy. I've always had issues trying to update the RAM. Hard drives are easy, RAM, not so much. Desktops are much more updatable.


I think the iMacs still allow you to upgrade the RAM, and the internal drives are generally upgradeable as well, though they are very difficult, since you have to take off the screen. If you get one of the iMacs that allows upgrading the RAM, the upgrade is trivial, as there is a little port on the back. It took me 3 minutes to upgrade from 32GB to 64GB. Most of the laptops have kits to upgrade the drives, but I think all the models now have the memory soldiered in place. But you can now purchase Macbook pros that have 32GB. 

My Macs have generally had long working lives. I'm still using my MacBook Pro from 2012 as my main work computer. It was the last of the pre-retina screens, so it has been easy to upgrade and I've put in an internal SSD and upgraded it to 16GB. For any task other than running sample libraries it is still more than serviceable. Actually, I can still run sample libraries on it when I absolutely have to, and the limitation is not really the speed of the CPU but the 16GB of RAM.


----------



## dzilizzi (Jan 1, 2019)

Sorry, should have said Macbooks and not Macs in general. I just know when they told me even the drives were soldered in, I walked away. And I was at the point I was going to spring for one with 32 GBs RAM. But this was a couple years ago and the max drive was 1TB and maybe one USB slot? At over $3.5k. It seems like they get more expensive and give you less.


----------



## NathanTiemeyer (Jan 1, 2019)

If you can get more, go for it! But you _can_ still get by with 16, you just have to get creative with system resources. Make sure you batch re-save libraries, purge unused / unneeded samples, run your samples off SSD drives, the little things add up.


----------



## jbuhler (Jan 1, 2019)

dzilizzi said:


> Sorry, should have said Macbooks and not Macs in general. I just know when they told me even the drives were soldered in, I walked away. And I was at the point I was going to spring for one with 32 GBs RAM. But this was a couple years ago and the max drive was 1TB and maybe one USB slot? At over $3.5k. It seems like they get more expensive and give you less.


Yes, the MacBooks of all variety have been dicier since they started soldiering the memory in and glueing the drives in place. It's one reason I haven't even looked at a MacBook since they went retina and when my current one dies I may go for something like an iPad Pro rather than another laptop. In any case, my workflow is now such that I don't really need my laptop to be that powerful, as I don't need to compose on the road or anything. Basically, so long as I can run presentation software with two screens, it will be fine. Otherwise the Apple ecosystem is still much easier for me to navigate as moving to PC would entail learning maintenance and operations for all of that, whereas I could just buy the mac and plug it in since I already know Apples well. I did look into getting a PC when I moved back to a desktop in early 2016, since neither the iMac nor the MacPro was an ideal solution at that point. But there was too much to learn on the PC side. If I ever get a second machine to serve samples, I'll likely get a PC for that however.


----------



## jbuhler (Jan 1, 2019)

NathanTiemeyer said:


> If you can get more, go for it! But you _can_ still get by with 16, you just have to get creative with system resources. Make sure you batch re-save libraries, purge unused / unneeded samples, run your samples off SSD drives, the little things add up.


Agreed. I think you can do more than just get by. There is much to be said for learning how to get by, and the lessons and habits you learn from that mostly transfer up.


----------



## Saxer (Jan 1, 2019)

It all depends on your needs. Looking at Christian Hensons videos he did on his traveling Mac (the older Macbooks were limited to 16GB) you can see him creating great music, especially with ensemble patches. Detailed writing can be done with a notation program and Noteperformer. There are full orchestra libraries for smaller RAM use too (like Amadeus or Cineorchestra Light). VSL SE would work too. So yes, it's possible. But you will have to select your tools. Full OT or Spitfire libraries won't work. Forget fat templates. But you can make all kinds of music if you do it right.


----------



## hansandersen (Jan 1, 2019)

Saxer said:


> (the older Macbooks were limited to 16GB)


You mean the newer Macbook's, right? I'm pretty sure you can upgrade RAM in the Mid 2012 Macbook Pro.


----------



## Saxer (Jan 1, 2019)

hansandersen said:


> You mean the newer Macbook's, right? I'm pretty sure you can upgrade RAM in the Mid 2012 Macbook Pro.


Yepp, but only up to 16GB.


----------



## jbuhler (Jan 1, 2019)

hansandersen said:


> You mean the newer Macbook's, right? I'm pretty sure you can upgrade RAM in the Mid 2012 Macbook Pro.


Only to 16GB. Until the most recent release, you could never go beyond 16GB in a Mac laptop.


----------



## Desire Inspires (Jan 1, 2019)




----------

