# What are my options? 2018 MBP 32GB coming up short for orchestral music.



## DennyB (Aug 15, 2022)

Hi all. My composing has been steadily improving, particularly since I began using staffpad, and the orchestrations have been getting more ‘real’, which in my case means denser orchestrations and therefore more instruments loaded into memory.

Today I exported a 28 track music xml file from staffpad to cubase. When I went to load all the instrument tracks, cubase kept freezing up. My machine seems to be ok up until about 20 gb used by cubase, then it freezes.

It is possible I could massage this specific case - one divisi trumpet track instead of two, for example. But in general, I seem to be hitting a hardware limit, hence my question: what are my options?

I really like my mbp portability, plus I use it for other stuff. But even the new mbp machines max out at 64GB. I could use another networked streaming machine (how do I do this?). I could switch to a desktop, which is both non portable and expensive. I could switch to PC…

This is the first time I’ve hit a hardware limit, so I guess I don’t know my options. Thanks!


----------



## mat1 (Aug 16, 2022)

Sounds like a fully loaded m1 MBP will be a good upgrade. Why not take one for a test drive? Apple have a great returns policy


----------



## DennyB (Aug 16, 2022)

I guess I want to understand the gamut of options. Should I buy a dedicated windows box (cheap-ish) as a render machine? Or a fully loaded Mac ($$$$$$$$ - therefore probably not.). Etc.

But yeah, a loaded mbp may be a good bet.


----------



## rnb_2 (Aug 16, 2022)

If you want to stay mobile, an M1 Max MacBook Pro seems like the best option - I have a 14" 32GB M1 Pro, and it's an outstanding machine. How much internal storage does your current Mac have?


----------



## proxima (Aug 16, 2022)

Which libraries are you using? 32 GB should be enough for some libraries (eg BBC Core). 

Also, the simplest way to free up resources is to freeze tracks.


----------



## DennyB (Aug 16, 2022)

I had 28 tracks, for which I made 26 bbc pro instrument tracks and two choir tracks (strezov). I use some others like css, but I was just going straight-ish bbc for this.

You are right about freezing, I forgot.


----------



## mat1 (Aug 16, 2022)

DennyB said:


> I guess I want to understand the gamut of options. Should I buy a dedicated windows box (cheap-ish) as a render machine? Or a fully loaded Mac ($$$$$$$$ - therefore probably not.). Etc.
> 
> But yeah, a loaded mbp may be a good bet.



It seems many people are moving away from running secondary machines unless absolutely necessary.


----------



## proxima (Aug 16, 2022)

DennyB said:


> I had 28 tracks, for which I made 26 bbc pro instrument tracks and two choir tracks (strezov). I use some others like css, but I was just going straight-ish bbc for this.
> 
> You are right about freezing, I forgot.


Watch your mic count to reduce RAM usage?


----------



## DennyB (Aug 16, 2022)

proxima said:


> Watch your mic count to reduce RAM usage?


I did check that; only one (the default Mix).


----------



## DennyB (Aug 16, 2022)

mat1 said:


> It seems many people are moving away from running secondary machines unless absolutely necessary.


are people just going nuts with hundreds of gigs of Ram?


----------



## proxima (Aug 16, 2022)

DennyB said:


> I did check that; only one (the default Mix).


OK, how about reducing articulations?


----------



## DennyB (Aug 16, 2022)

Seems like the options are (roughly):
$5k for a mbp 64gb
$5k for a windows laptop with 128gb
$6k for an mac studio with 128 gb 
$200,000,000 for a mac pro with infinite ram


----------



## DennyB (Aug 16, 2022)

proxima said:


> OK, how about reducing articulations?


Ooh, again. Good call. I bet that will make a big difference. Thank you!!!


----------



## colony nofi (Aug 16, 2022)

There maybe much better ways for you to use your available RAM.


https://spitfireaudio.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360015032377-Improving-Performance-of-Spitfire-Audio-Dedicated-Plugins


Basically, if your samples are on a fast drive (are they internal? that drive is fast!) then you can lower the preload amount of samples. This can dramatically drop your RAM use depending on the setting you currently use, and how low you are able to push it. Lower RAM use means the drive is read more (no issues up to a point) and also increases CPU usage somewhat (unlikely to be an issue).
You can do the same for all Kontakt instruments you use.

I have that exact machine (2018MBP fully loaded) and it was my most frustrating / most disappointing apple purchase ever. And by that I mean 30+ machines over the last 10 years in our studios and personal machines. Not that your RAM limitations were the issues I had. I ran extremely complex sessions on it which seemed to run fine once I tuned everything to within an inch of its life.

And of course, freezing tracks is always an option as mentioned, ditto to reducing articulations. I run one articulation per track so its super easy and fast for me to manage that... I just disable tracks not being used (or don't even bring them into my sessions....)
Its also odd you are seeing issues with RAM use at 20GB of 32GB. Where are you seeing that? Is that the BBCSO reported ram use, or looking at the system activity monitor? What else is using ram on your system? Kill chrome! I've seen it eat >16GB ram in the past.

I now have the kitted out 2021 MBP (64GB/8TB internal drive) and its bloody powerful. I'm just now having issues with some very specific Kontakt libraries (new libs) but thats all CPU and normal realtime audio issues...)

My Studio(Ultra-128GB-2TB) runs external samples and seems to work well, although right now I'm working off the laptop and its sitting idle for a number of reasons - mostly just me needing time to rebuild the system. I wish I didn't need two systems, but thats just the way it is for the work I do...


----------



## Mithnaur (Aug 17, 2022)

I can confirm that reducing articulations (when possible) helps a lot!
As I was fed up with spending an incredible amount of time setting keyswitches or expression maps, I changed my template a bit. Template that for the moment is not fixed and that I redo a little bit for each piece, adding only the instruments I need. But I should optimize it.
And to save resources, finally having one track per articulation or almost is not bad!
In the end, with 32 GB of ram too, I'm often in a hurry even if it's not too bad.
But I wouldn't hate to go to 64. Except that the investment makes me hesitate.
Now I also got into the habit of loading all my instruments in a Vienna Ensemble Pro instance, and nothing in Cubase.


----------



## jbuhler (Aug 17, 2022)

colony nofi said:


> Its also odd you are seeing issues with RAM use at 20GB of 32GB. Where are you seeing that? Is that the BBCSO reported ram use, or looking at the system activity monitor? What else is using ram on your system? Kill chrome! I've seen it eat >16GB ram in the past.


Or more than 16GB for chrome depending on how many tabs and windows you have open. It’s a memory terror. 

I also think the peculiar thing for OP is hitting a problem at 20GB (as reported in activity monitor). Back when I was working with 32 GB I didn’t have to worry until I got over about 28 GB, though that was an iMac not a MBP.


----------



## Jeremy Spencer (Aug 17, 2022)

DennyB said:


> I had 28 tracks, for which I made 26 bbc pro instrument tracks and two choir tracks (strezov). I use some others like css, but I was just going straight-ish bbc for this.
> 
> You are right about freezing, I forgot.


32GB should be more than sufficient. In your template, go in to each instance of BBCSO and trash all of the loaded articulations except for the one(s) you are actually using. You can do this in the edit page of the GUI. This will save a TON of Ram. Make sure you hit "save" in the GUI instance after purging. Working this way, I was able to use well over 28 tracks on my former 2013 MacBook 16GB.


----------



## thevisi0nary (Aug 17, 2022)

Whenever you do spring for a new machine (be it now or later) consider if your work flow really warrants 4x the ram overhead (128gb) versus 2x (64gb). If you are really adjusted to the portability of a laptop then giving that up may be more of an inconvenience than freezing tracks, that's if you even end up ever needing to do that with 64gb. 

I would also try to wait for the next round of MBP's if possible.


----------



## jaketanner (Aug 17, 2022)

DennyB said:


> Hi all. My composing has been steadily improving, particularly since I began using staffpad, and the orchestrations have been getting more ‘real’, which in my case means denser orchestrations and therefore more instruments loaded into memory.
> 
> Today I exported a 28 track music xml file from staffpad to cubase. When I went to load all the instrument tracks, cubase kept freezing up. My machine seems to be ok up until about 20 gb used by cubase, then it freezes.
> 
> ...


What kind of template optimization have you done? Have you purged everything you can? 28 tracks doesn't seem like a lot at all, even for 32 gigs. But I will say that I have a 2018 mini at 64 gigs of RAM, and I can easily get well over 80 tracks or more.


----------



## colony nofi (Aug 17, 2022)

thevisi0nary said:


> I would also try to wait for the next round of MBP's if possible.


Eh - I kinda go the other way. Never wait for tech. Choose from what is available at the time you need it. Especially when the cadence of release isn't known (and it definitely isn't for a possible M2 MBP)

Tech is a tool. If you need a new tool, you buy a new tool. 
If you are just thinking about possibly needing a new tool soon, then sure go research and wait till you need the tool (or buy before you need it if you want a smooth transition between your tools). Etc Etc.


----------



## DennyB (Aug 17, 2022)

Thank you everyone!!! This is awesome.

I think I will try and optimize the situation: purge articulations for a start, and then maybe try to reduce the loading time.

It is weird that it repeatedly hung when cubase was around 20gb per the activity monitor. Not sure why. I had chrome running, but it only reported 1.5gb, so not sure. But that could be an issue for sure.


----------



## DennyB (Aug 17, 2022)

WRT buying a new mbp, I would like to drag my feet. I also do programming and use it for that and some machine learning stuff, so I would like to max out the GPU stack as much as possible if I am going to drop 5k.


----------



## rnb_2 (Aug 17, 2022)

DennyB said:


> WRT buying a new mbp, I would like to drag my feet. I also do programming and use it for that and some machine learning stuff, so I would like to max out the GPU stack as much as possible if I am going to drop 5k.


The M2 neural engine is up to 40% faster, so in addition to the GPU gains, that should help with ML.


----------



## DennyB (Aug 17, 2022)

rnb_2 said:


> The M2 neural engine is up to 40% faster, so in addition to the GPU gains, that should help with ML.


It’s true, although it’s a bummer that macs as a rule don’t use nvidia. Most of the things that I care about for hardware acceleration prefer cuda - molecular dynamics and machine learning. I don’t even play games or care that much about 3D, I just want the compute power. It always shocked me that by and large audio doesn’t use hardware acceleration; it seems like such a no brainer, but I guess they have their reasons.


----------



## thevisi0nary (Aug 18, 2022)

colony nofi said:


> Eh - I kinda go the other way. Never wait for tech. Choose from what is available at the time you need it. Especially when the cadence of release isn't known (and it definitely isn't for a possible M2 MBP)
> 
> Tech is a tool. If you need a new tool, you buy a new tool.
> If you are just thinking about possibly needing a new tool soon, then sure go research and wait till you need the tool (or buy before you need it if you want a smooth transition between your tools). Etc Etc.


Agree this is usually the best approach, though I would have been upset if I bought a MBP 16" a few months before the 2021 16" was announced! Good to have a perspective of what's on the horizon but ultimately if you need a machine now you buy one now.


----------



## rnb_2 (Aug 18, 2022)

DennyB said:


> It’s true, although it’s a bummer that macs as a rule don’t use nvidia. Most of the things that I care about for hardware acceleration prefer cuda - molecular dynamics and machine learning. I don’t even play games or care that much about 3D, I just want the compute power. It always shocked me that by and large audio doesn’t use hardware acceleration; it seems like such a no brainer, but I guess they have their reasons.


There is some work being done on hardware audio acceleration, and stories pop up occasionally, but I get the impression that it's not as straightforward as some other areas - I'm afraid I'm not deep enough into that area to know exactly what the issues are.

I'm not sure what Nvidia did to make Apple so determined not to use them ever again (I don't think it was just the laptop GPU failures from several years back), but whatever it was, it probably wouldn't make a difference now, unless the upcoming Mac Pro brings back the ability to use 3rd party GPUs.


----------



## Vik (Aug 19, 2022)

thevisi0nary said:


> I would also try to wait for the next round of MBP's if possible.





colony nofi said:


> Never wait for tech. Choose from what is available at the time you need it


I agree with thevisi0nary for several reasons (general anti-consumerism being one of them), especially after having seen the many users here who confess that they almost are 'collectors' more than users of the stuff they buy, many have bought loads of libraries but only downloaded some of them – and so on. 

On the Mac side, we're at the very beginning of a new generation Macs, and waiting (_if possible_, as thevisi0nary mentions) has really paid off – especially for thise who didn't buy the 2019 Mac Pro, but waited a little. For most of us, buing a new computer every 10 years or so should be sufficient nowadays.


----------



## DennyB (Aug 19, 2022)

Vik said:


> I agree with thevisi0nary for several reasons (general anti-consumerism being one of them), especially after having seen the many users here who confess that they almost are 'collectors' more than users of the stuff they buy, many have bought loads of libraries but only downloaded some of them – and so on.
> 
> On the Mac side, we're at the very beginning of a new generation Macs, and waiting (_if possible_, as thevisi0nary mentions) has really paid off – especially for thise who didn't buy the 2019 Mac Pro, but waited a little. For most of us, buing a new computer every 10 years or so should be sufficient nowadays.


I will say that I got an M1 iPad Pro to run staffpad and it has revolutionized my writing. Not so much from the tech perspective as such, but just because it is such a lovely transparent interface that requires a ton of processing power to pull off smoothly.


----------



## JohnG (Aug 19, 2022)

mat1 said:


> It seems many people are moving away from running secondary machines unless absolutely necessary.


Every composer I know who’s writing weekly underscore for TV (or with other impossible deadlines) is using multiple computers, even today. Not advocating one way or another, but my (admittedly) anecdotal survey suggests that it’s still hard to manage a ‘super full’ setup with just one machine.

This is for composers needing instant access to full orchestra, vocals / choir, guitars, synths — the whole thing.

If you really want portability it is expensive-ville, as you noted in your other post, because the ultra-laptops are still costly. Also as you noted, by contrast, VE Pro and a single PC to hold samples is not too expensive if you can tolerate being anchored to a desk.

It’s alway a bit of an arms race, with the library makers raising the demands of the VSTs as computers get more powerful.


----------



## JSTube (Aug 19, 2022)

mat1 said:


> Sounds like a fully loaded m1 MBP will be a good upgrade. Why not take one for a test drive? Apple have a great returns policy


You mean the one with only 16GB of ram?? OP's loading over 20GB alone in one project.

Also: it's hard to accelerate the processing of realtime audio by doing it in parallel. Audio signals doesn't lend themselves well to that kind of processing, it's a matter of finding a way to actually justify the implementation.

And as a consumer, would you really want to have to rely on e.g. having Nvidia cards to be able to run certain plugins? Because that's what would happen. It's already true that you have to own certain hardware to run what we run; such as an amd64 CPU, or an apple M1 arm-based computer.

If you ask me, I don't want the list of requirements to become more-specific and less consumer friendly, so I'm happy with my audio processing only requiring an x86 or ARM-cpu, for now, thanks...

re: Nvidia -- Apple's poised to give Nvidia a run for their money with their in-house GPUs. All the major software players in the video field have taken notice and want to be able to run on Apple Silicon. Apple, for one, actually makes it easy for developers to develop for them.


----------



## thevisi0nary (Aug 19, 2022)

JohnG said:


> Every composer I know who’s writing weekly underscore for TV (or with other impossible deadlines) is using multiple computers, even today. Not advocating one way or another, but my (admittedly) anecdotal survey suggests that it’s still hard to manage a ‘super full’ setup with just one machine.
> 
> This is for composers needing instant access to full orchestra, vocals / choir, guitars, synths — the whole thing.
> 
> ...


Legitimately curious as I don't know what goes into this level of work, what advantages does a VEP setup with multiple computers have over an HEDT/Threadripper setup with 256gb+ ram?


----------



## mat1 (Aug 19, 2022)

JSTube said:


> You mean the one with only 16GB of ram?? OP's loading over 20GB alone in one project.
> 
> Also: it's hard to accelerate the processing of realtime audio by doing it in parallel. Audio signals doesn't lend themselves well to that kind of processing, it's a matter of finding a way to actually justify the implementation.
> 
> ...


The Max models take up to 64gb.. same family.


----------



## mat1 (Aug 20, 2022)

JohnG said:


> Every composer I know who’s writing weekly underscore for TV (or with other impossible deadlines) is using multiple computers, even today. Not advocating one way or another, but my (admittedly) anecdotal survey suggests that it’s still hard to manage a ‘super full’ setup with just one machine.
> 
> This is for composers needing instant access to full orchestra, vocals / choir, guitars, synths — the whole thing.
> 
> ...



Fair! On FB and VI I have only ever heard of people moving to disabled track templates (or waiting) in the last 3 years or so. I imagine many people going for an Ultra or waiting for a new Mac Pro will be doing so with the expectation of ditching/avoiding dedicated sample computers entirely.


----------



## JohnG (Aug 20, 2022)

thevisi0nary said:


> Legitimately curious as I don't know what goes into this level of work, what advantages does a VEP setup with multiple computers have over an HEDT/Threadripper setup with 256gb+ ram?


Well, for starters, 256 GB of RAM is less than I have on my main DAW computer. The salesman at the music store who sold me mine said his customers are purchasing well over 300 GB for their main computers and still using satellite PCs to hold samples.

It’s also true that people working those kinds of jobs — network TV for instance — didn’t just buy their setups yesterday. They are veterans. On account of that, possibly they are encumbered by some older computers. If you’re working non-stop you don’t run out and replace computers unless there’s a compelling reason.

While computers certainly are far more powerful than they were five or ten years ago, the deadlines for TV (and plenty of other projects) are beyond insane. You simply cannot tolerate running out of muscle at two or four AM. Saving a few thousand dollars on a couple of extra PCs is just not worth the potential catastrophe of delivering late.

Maybe it’s a new day and computers will be fast enough to run ‘yesterday’s’ setup, but possibly not next month’s? The issue is that, inevitably, the demands of new libraries just keep pushing for more power. Example: EWQLSO of long ago was recommended for eight computers to run flat out. Today, you could probably run it on a single computer with no problem.


----------



## nas (Aug 26, 2022)

JohnG said:


> Maybe it’s a new day and computers will be fast enough to run ‘yesterday’s’ setup, but possibly not next month’s? The issue is that, inevitably, the demands of new libraries just keep pushing for more power. Example: EWQLSO of long ago was recommended for eight computers to run flat out. Today, you could probably run it on a single computer with no problem.



This has generally been my biggest reason for upgrading in the past. Moving to SSD, more RAM, more CPU, more storage have all been absolutely crucial in being able to work efficiently with more deeply sampled and demanding libraries or VI's. Because of this I have also been in need of a multi machine setup.

However, with today's much more powerful computers and very helpful features like being able to switch off channels in VEP or " only load plug-ins needed for project playback", The one computer system for larger templates and projects is much more viable these days.

If I were in a situation where I could absolutely not afford any downtime, I would most definitely have a second machine - not so much for additional horsepower, but more for redundancy that would exactly mirror my main machine.


----------



## colony nofi (Aug 28, 2022)

JohnG said:


> Well, for starters, 256 GB of RAM is less than I have on my main DAW computer. The salesman at the music store who sold me mine said his customers are purchasing well over 300 GB for their main computers and still using satellite PCs to hold samples.
> 
> It’s also true that people working those kinds of jobs — network TV for instance — didn’t just buy their setups yesterday. They are veterans. On account of that, possibly they are encumbered by some older computers. If you’re working non-stop you don’t run out and replace computers unless there’s a compelling reason.
> 
> ...


Yeah - there's a good 3 composers here locally, and a few others I know in London/LA who run monster machines. And for most of them, they *could* switch to all in one 128GB machines, but only if they wanted to change their workflow dramatically.

And why would they? What they are doing with VEP servers works for them, and they have deadlines and pressures than many folk here just wouldn't usually experience.

For instance, one I know uses 3 SETS of 4 computers. One for the composer, one for the assistant (identical) and one as a live backup (identical!) each with more than 128GB ram in them.
And for them that is peace of mind. And flexibility. And works for their creative work flow.

Personally, I have moved away from running VEP simply because I find the world of disabled templates (and importing huge sets of pre-defined tracks) SO much more creatively inspiring. And luckily for me, I can do this within 128GB ram footprint, and have never had an issue. Having to have a second backup just in case machine hurts - but is necessary these days due to the inability to just go down to the apple store and buy a direct replacement and have it working within 12 hours.

The massive bonus? I run session backups every 3 min, and nuendo doesn't blink when it saves. Its also an easier workflow to explain to someone when you need help/assistance on a project.

The cost of running systems with 4 computers is high, and would be too high for some of the projects I want to work on. While TV here pays relatively well, it is not in the same ballpark as mates get in LA for a big show - which CAN afford the massive tech.

But as well, if you want to compose for different things... like theatre, or dance, or interactive experiments / art / museum work as well, then you have to have a different mindset when it comes to tech overheads and $ all around. Yes, you can still earn a good living, but it is a different realm to the so called "A" list composers. 

I guess it is a "horses for courses" type thing.


----------

