# Is an iMac with a Mac Mini slave powerful enough?



## Jean Paul Valley (Jul 18, 2015)

I'm considering buying a an iMac (4.0GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 4.4GHz, 32GB SDRAM, 3 TBFusion Drive) along with a Mac Mini as a slave computer. As far as sample libraries I have about 500G of Vienna samples. I'm considering adding either Vienna Special Edition or East/West Orchestra. 

Is this computer set up powerful enough or do I need a Mac Pro? If so should I put all of my sample libraries on the Mac Mini or can I run them on the iMac? Would I need to also go with Kontact or will the EXS24 sampler in Logic be enough? If so would I house it on the slave computer or the iMac?

Thanks!


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## samphony (Jul 19, 2015)

Jean it really depends on your workflow.
I think for fast, easy and flexible workflow loading samples, synths inside logic on one machine is the way to go. For more static resources like orchestral samples a slave might be your choice. 

Oh and it will probably take a couple of minutes until al lot of people suggest you to get a PC as slave not an underpowered Mac mini. I personally would stay away from the newer mac minis they are underpowered for a reason and not upgradeable as the 2012 quad core. And yes you might be able to get a slave PC for less than an iMac cost. 

Again it really depends your workflow. Maybe start on the iMac and if resources demand add a slave?


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## Jean Paul Valley (Jul 19, 2015)

Thanks samphony. Will the iMac be powerful enough to load the sample libraries on it? I will be using orchestral samples (either Vienna Special Edition or East/West, along with and additional 500G of Vienna).


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## Maestro1972 (Jul 19, 2015)

I'm certain you have heard this before and I can speak from experience. I have an iMac quad core i5, with 32 GB Ram and it was not enough power to run East West Orchestra. I was in a position where I wanted to set up a full template but couldn't because of the lack of RAM on the iMac. Of course not running SSD drives I was having to bounce midi to audio during composition which sucked. Now I kept the iMac and built a pc slave with i7 six core, 64 GB Ram, (2) 4 TB HD and (4) 500GB SSD. I prefer the mac format, but the pc was just more affordable and made sense. Because I am just hosting my Samples on the PC my work flow is still done on the Mac.

Good Luck


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## Jean Paul Valley (Jul 19, 2015)

Thank you Maestro1972. How has it worked out for you using the pc slave? Do you house all of your samples on the slave and do you now have enough power to run a large orchestral template?

Thanks!


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## Saxer (Jul 19, 2015)

if you work with vsl: it will be enough power for most needs. exept using mir and make big sections with dimension strings. my macmini i7 quad core slave could produce about 1250 voices in vienna instruments pro before crackling.

make sure you get a quad core mac mini. all current models are dual core only. try to get a used or refurbished model. my quad was from 2011.


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## Maestro1972 (Jul 20, 2015)

Jean Paul Valley said:


> Thank you Maestro1972. How has it worked out for you using the pc slave? Do you house all of your samples on the slave and do you now have enough power to run a large orchestral template?




For me, it has been a game changer. I love having ALL my instruments and articulations readily available. And yes, they are all loaded on my slave with the exception of EW Symphonic Choirs due to the Word Builder doesn't function in VE PRO 5. I have the complete East West Hollywood Orchestra Loaded. I prefer to compose for a real orchestra so I have multiple sections set up within my template. For example: For Violin 1 I have the whole section with the articulations that I use (approximately 8). I also have two more tracks set up identically for divisi A and divisi B. The Horn Section has 4 individual solo Horn tracks, plus the 2 and 6 horn sections tracks (again with all the articulations that I use). So what I am saying is that I didn't go bare bone minimum in setting up my template and I am running very smooth. I love it. I also have Sample Modeling Brass, a few Embertone instruments- EastWest Pianos, Ravencroft Piano, Storm Drums,..All loaded and ready to go. The slave exceeded my expectations, and it's nice not having to bounce in the middle of composing. Tutti my slave performance is at about 42% CPU usage. Something I thought was weird: When I loaded just EAST WEST on my Mac I would use almost all of my 32 gigs of Ram. With the Slave I am loading WAY more articulations and using WAY less memory. 

The short of it is simply this works well for me and the libraries that I work with. Just remember that EW is a resource hog.

-Tom


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## EastWest Lurker (Jul 20, 2015)

Maestro1972 said:


> For me, it has been a game changer. I love having ALL my instruments and articulations readily available. And yes, they are all loaded on my slave with the exception of EW Symphonic Choirs due to the Word Builder doesn't function in VE PRO 5. I have the complete East West Hollywood Orchestra Loaded. I prefer to compose for a real orchestra so I have multiple sections set up within my template. For example: For Violin 1 I have the whole section with the articulations that I use (approximately 8). I also have two more tracks set up identically for divisi A and divisi B. The Horn Section has 4 individual solo Horn tracks, plus the 2 and 6 horn sections tracks (again with all the articulations that I use). So what I am saying is that I didn't go bare bone minimum in setting up my template and I am running very smooth. I love it. I also have Sample Modeling Brass, a few Embertone instruments- EastWest Pianos, Ravencroft Piano, Storm Drums,..All loaded and ready to go. The slave exceeded my expectations, and it's nice not having to bounce in the middle of composing. Tutti my slave performance is at about 42% CPU usage. Something I thought was weird: When I loaded just EAST WEST on my Mac I would use almost all of my 32 gigs of Ram. With the Slave I am loading WAY more articulations and using WAY less memory.
> 
> The short of it is simply this works well for me and the libraries that I work with. Just remember that EW is a resource hog.
> 
> -Tom



Exactly my experience, Tom.


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## samphony (Jul 20, 2015)

Jean Paul Valley said:


> Thanks samphony. Will the iMac be powerful enough to load the sample libraries on it? I will be using orchestral samples (either Vienna Special Edition or East/West, along with and additional 500G of Vienna).



Jay had the best advice in the past as soon as you use the east west libraries get a PC. Otherwise you won't be happy!


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## Living Fossil (Jul 23, 2015)

EastWest Lurker said:


> Exactly my experience, Tom.



Would you say 64 GB Ram on a PC slave is enough for a comfortable work with the EW Hollywood libs, or would this be rather a compromise?


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## EastWest Lurker (Jul 23, 2015)

Absolutely. I am not even close to 64 GB. However, I only use 1 mic position generally, because after trying all kinds of micx combos, I am not convinced that 1 mic with reverb and sometimes UAD OceanWay re-micing doesn't negate the benefits of multiple mic positions. I could use 2 w/ 64 GB but probably not 3 for everything.


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## Living Fossil (Jul 24, 2015)

Thanks for your answer, Jay!
So it remains the old question, Mac or PC...
(the same configuration of a Mac with 64 GB Ram and a Sixcore-CPU still costs about two-times the PC version...)


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## EastWest Lurker (Jul 24, 2015)

Living Fossil said:


> Thanks for your answer, Jay!
> So it remains the old question, Mac or PC...
> (the same configuration of a Mac with 64 GB Ram and a Sixcore-CPU still costs about two-times the PC version...)



64 GB simply loads more patches on the PC.


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## Living Fossil (Jul 24, 2015)

Thanks again, Jay... 
it's going to be a hard decision. Fortunately i'm not in an abolute hurry.


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## EastWest Lurker (Jul 24, 2015)

A lot of Mac guys suffer from PC phobia. I was one of them. But if all you do with it is stream samples from it in VE Pro, stay off the internet by and large and don't play games or do updates, it can function like a powerful Roland JV 5080 and be equally as trouble-free.

For the Hollywood Orchestra (yes, guys blame whoever you like) it isn't a close call. You want the PC.


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## Living Fossil (Jul 24, 2015)

In my case it's not even a PC phobia. It's rather the fact that so long, i tried to keep my setup reduced to one computer (i.e. no slaves). And since I'm a logic veteran, there's unfortunately the need to use apples...  (anyhow, i really like os 10.6.8, i guess i like what i'm used to...)


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## ericboehme (Nov 1, 2015)

EastWest Lurker said:


> A lot of Mac guys suffer from PC phobia. I was one of them. But if all you do with it is stream samples from it in VE Pro, stay off the internet by and large and don't play games or do updates, it can function like a powerful Roland JV 5080 and be equally as trouble-free.
> 
> For the Hollywood Orchestra (yes, guys blame whoever you like) it isn't a close call. You want the PC.


Is there any way to get something like HO Diamond to run on an iMac, i7, 32 GB RAM?


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## Gerhard Westphalen (Nov 1, 2015)

Maestro1972 said:


> For me, it has been a game changer. I love having ALL my instruments and articulations readily available. And yes, they are all loaded on my slave with the exception of EW Symphonic Choirs due to the Word Builder doesn't function in VE PRO 5. I have the complete East West Hollywood Orchestra Loaded. I prefer to compose for a real orchestra so I have multiple sections set up within my template. For example: For Violin 1 I have the whole section with the articulations that I use (approximately 8). I also have two more tracks set up identically for divisi A and divisi B. The Horn Section has 4 individual solo Horn tracks, plus the 2 and 6 horn sections tracks (again with all the articulations that I use). So what I am saying is that I didn't go bare bone minimum in setting up my template and I am running very smooth. I love it. I also have Sample Modeling Brass, a few Embertone instruments- EastWest Pianos, Ravencroft Piano, Storm Drums,..All loaded and ready to go. The slave exceeded my expectations, and it's nice not having to bounce in the middle of composing. Tutti my slave performance is at about 42% CPU usage. Something I thought was weird: When I loaded just EAST WEST on my Mac I would use almost all of my 32 gigs of Ram. With the Slave I am loading WAY more articulations and using WAY less memory.
> 
> The short of it is simply this works well for me and the libraries that I work with. Just remember that EW is a resource hog.
> 
> -Tom



You can run wordbuilder patches inside VEP. There's a Wordbuilder midi plugin which you can use in your DAW to control it while the patches are in VEP.


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## EastWest Lurker (Nov 1, 2015)

ericboehme said:


> Is there any way to get something like HO Diamond to run on an iMac, i7, 32 GB RAM?



Yes, you can, but not as much of it. Also, EW has discovered an issue on the Mac where loading times in Play gradually get slower as more and more instruments are loaded. The developers are working on a fix for this but it will not be in the next update as they have not yet nailed down the cause.


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## ericboehme (Nov 1, 2015)

EastWest Lurker said:


> Yes, you can, but not as much of it. Also, EW has discovered an issue on the Mac where loading times in Play gradually get slower as more and more instruments are loaded. The developers are working on a fix for this but it will not be in the next update as they have not yet nailed down the cause.


Really trying to get a sense of what I could load using Logic and my configuration. The iMac will have the i7 with four cores, and I will load the samples on an SSD going through USB 3 or Thunderbolt. If I can't get EW to load on this configuration, then I guess I can't subscribe to the Composer Cloud. I can't upgrade to the 27inch iMac and buy a new PC slave with 64 GB of RAM right now. Too much money.


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## EastWest Lurker (Nov 1, 2015)

Then I would recommend either Gold or Silver.


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## ericboehme (Nov 1, 2015)

EastWest Lurker said:


> Then I would recommend either Gold or Silver.


What is the major difference between Diamond and Gold? Do other instruments, like Stormdrum require less overhead? Thanks.


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## EastWest Lurker (Nov 1, 2015)

ericboehme said:


> What is the major difference between Diamond and Gold? Do other instruments, like Stormdrum require less overhead? Thanks.



Diamond has multiple mic positions, Gold has one. But also, Diamond uses 24 bit samples while Gold uses 16 bit samples, so a lot less RAM is required. And yes, all the other libraries, with the possible exception of ProDrummer, are much less demanding than the Hollywood Orchestra.


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## Maestro1972 (Nov 1, 2015)

Gerhard Westphalen said:


> You can run wordbuilder patches inside VEP. There's a Wordbuilder midi plugin which you can use in your DAW to control it while the patches are in VEP.


I haven't tried to use Wordbuilder in a long while but I am interested in this midi plugin. What is it? where do I get it? Thanks


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## ericboehme (Nov 1, 2015)

EastWest Lurker said:


> Diamond has multiple mic positions, Gold has one. But also, Diamond uses 24 bit samples while Gold uses 16 bit samples, so a lot less RAM is required. And yes, all the other libraries, with the possible exception of ProDrummer, are much less demanding than the Hollywood Orchestra.


Thanks Jay, that is helpful. I liked the demos of the diamond better. Sounds was much richer. So with Composers Cloud, I can try what I want to try and see what works, correct? There will be memory released that will extend the new late 2015 iMac to 64 GB. Do you think that would help with the diamond HO?


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## EastWest Lurker (Nov 1, 2015)

More RAM always helps.


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## Gerhard Westphalen (Nov 1, 2015)

Maestro1972 said:


> I haven't tried to use Wordbuilder in a long while but I am interested in this midi plugin. What is it? where do I get it? Thanks



It looks the same as the wordbuilder in Play but is it's own plugin. I use it in Cubase. I'm not sure if it's available in other DAWs. I believe it's automatically installed with the choirs. In Cubase I just insert it as a midi insert on the midi track.


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