# EWQL Play purging question



## tmpc (May 11, 2020)

I own one EWQL library; Symphonic Choirs. For the first time in all of the years I've owned it, I need to purge unused samples to reduce its RAM footprint. So, I do it and it makes it a lot smaller, so I save the whole setup thinking it will reload with the files purged. Apparently, it doesn't work that way. To me, the whole point of this is to be able to load SC into a larger saved setup that it wouldn't fit into before purging. Am I missing something here? Other than rendering it to audio tracks, is there any way around this?


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## MauroPantin (May 12, 2020)

Unfortunately, no. The way Play purges is not the same as in Kontakt, so you don't get the samples recalled on the fly. When you purge, the samples get purged until you manually reload them. 

I think this feature has been requested by several people over the years and I'm pretty sure it's on their radar, but no clue if it will ever be implemented.


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## tmpc (May 12, 2020)

Thanks, MauroPantin. So, with tight memory, I have to load just Symphonic Choirs, play the sequence, purge the samples, and then load eveything else? That's the most idiotic thing I've ever heard of. Well, this goes well with the experience I had with EWQL when I purchased this library back in 2010. I haven't purchased another one of their libraries since. Enough said. Thanks for the info.

After I posted my reply, I realized that I'm not sure you know what I mean. I want to save the already purged plugin and then recall it in the same partially purged state . . . i.e., just the samples I need. Is the answer the same? It can't do it?


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## pmcrockett (May 12, 2020)

Play's purge state should be saving and reloading with the project. It does for me, at least; I don't know why it isn't doing it for you.


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## tmpc (May 12, 2020)

pmcrockett said:


> Play's purge state should be saving and reloading with the project. It does for me, at least; I don't know why it isn't doing it for you.


Thanks for confirming that, pmcrockett! Now that I know it _can_ work, I am now willing to put the effort into figuring out _why_ it doesn't. You really helped me out.


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## tmpc (May 14, 2020)

pmcrockett said:


> Play's purge state should be saving and reloading with the project.


Hey, pmcrockett. I've had no luck at all getting this to work. Can you tell me which operating system, and the version of Play you are using? Thanks.


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## pmcrockett (May 14, 2020)

tmpc said:


> Hey, pmcrockett. I've had no luck at all getting this to work. Can you tell me which operating system, and the version of Play you are using? Thanks.


Windows 10, Play 6.1.8. I'm running it in Reaper, though I don't recall ever having any problem with purging in Sonar, either.

EDIT: Saving patches as new .ewi files should also save the purge state of the patches. Does that work on your system?


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## tmpc (May 14, 2020)

pmcrockett said:


> Windows 10, Play 6.1.8. I'm running it in Reaper, though I don't recall ever having any problem with purging in Sonar, either.
> 
> EDIT: Saving patches as new .ewi files should also save the purge state of the patches. Does that work on your system?


Thanks for getting back to me. No, that's the weird thing about this. The purge works, but saving a purged ewi file and reloading it loads the whole damn thing again. I've been talking to a support guy at EW about this and he's stumped.

By the way, I'm on a Mac still running OS X 10.11 (for other compatibility reasons). The other thing that makes my situation a bit weird is that I am still using Play 4.1.0. The Mac OS that was in use when this version of Play was released was 10.9. Play 4.3.5 was released when 10.11 was new, so maybe that's the one for me to update to.

The real problem is that I have a long and complex Wordbuilder libretto for a piece of music that I've worked on sporadically over many years and (as Wordbuilder is very hard to use) I never wanted to take a chance on it not working properly, so I never updated Play. But, according to the EW guy, it should still work. He says that Wordbuilder didn't really change very much until Play 6, so I can probably go to 4.3.5 or 5 without a problem. I just don't want to lose anything. Updating software scares the hell out of me; too many bad experiences doing it.

I was hoping you were on a Mac and maybe had some experience with older versions of Play, but I still appreciate your info. Have a good one.


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## MauroPantin (May 14, 2020)

Is there a way to conserve the old Play version whilst updating to a newer one on a Mac? I do that on Windows regularly with all my plugins, to avoid the update issues you've mentioned. It entails renaming the plugin file before installing the new one, is that something that can be done in OS X?


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## tmpc (May 15, 2020)

Hi MauroPantin. I believe there is, and I do things like that with Kontakt libraries. But, this is the only EW library I own and I'm not as comfortable with their "world" as I am with Kontakt's. iLok, and the fact that EW only gives you one install per license, further complicates things.

I have everything backed up, but as I found with Spitfire's non Kontakt libraries, what works in the Kontakt world doesn't necessarily work in others. There may be other files I'm unaware of that will be overwritten with a new Play install and then I won't be able to go back. I've deal with a few companies that tell you exactly what files are installed and where, but most don't; I don't believe EW does. So, I'm not sure what I'm going to do, but I'm pretty sure that whatever I do won't go as planned. 

Thanks for your help.


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## pmcrockett (May 15, 2020)

For what it's worth, I have rolled Play versions back before without any problems by uninstalling the new version then reinstalling the old version. (This was actually to fix a wordbuilder bug in 6.1.1, now that I think about it.) No guarantee it would work the same for you, of course, since we're not even on the same OS, but you're definitely not the only person who's had to deal with the prospect of reinstalling an old version of Play.


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## tmpc (May 15, 2020)

Yep, I'm sure I'm not.  By the way, did you start using SC / WordBuilder at version 6, or did you migrate from an earlier version. If you did migrate, did the new version of Play change the sound and/or WordBuilder pronunciations? Thanks for the info.


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## tmpc (May 15, 2020)

I joined the EW forum today (it only took me 10 years) to do a bit of poking around to make sure that the various Play update paths were OK. In short, it's frightening. Year after year of updates that create other problems or are incompatible with previously saved files. There may be some version of Play that works, but I'll be damned if I can find one. If I am being unfair here, enlighten me.

I think I'm going to stay right where I am.


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## EgM (May 15, 2020)

I don't think Play's sample purge was meant to function like Kontakt's, which I love!

It just permanently purges the samples and won't load on the fly if there's incoming midi notes :(


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## tmpc (May 15, 2020)

That's not what I'm talking about. You load it up, play your sequence, purge it, and save the whole thing. When you reload it, it is supposed to only load the needed samples; the ones that weren't purged. It doesn't do that on the version I'm using; it loads the whole thing. It turns out that this was a known bug in the initial release of Play 4. It was fixed in Play 4.1.5, but that version had other problems, as did each new version after that. 4.2.2 was evidently not too bad, but even that had problems. A lot of the new problems had to do with the loading of older files. Not for me, man.


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## pmcrockett (May 15, 2020)

tmpc said:


> Yep, I'm sure I'm not.  By the way, did you start using SC / WordBuilder at version 6, or did you migrate from an earlier version. If you did migrate, did the new version of Play change the sound and/or WordBuilder pronunciations? Thanks for the info.


Migrated from an earlier version. I didn't notice any change to the way the wordbuilder sounded. I think the only thing 6 really changed was that it added compatibility for Hollywood Choirs and implemented the ability to sync with the DAW timeline.


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## tmpc (May 15, 2020)

pmcrockett said:


> Migrated from an earlier version. I didn't notice any change to the way the wordbuilder sounded. I think the only thing 6 really changed was that it added compatibility for Hollywood Choirs and implemented the ability to sync with the DAW timeline.


Well that's good to know. What version did you migrate from? And, how many Play updates have you been through?


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## pmcrockett (May 15, 2020)

tmpc said:


> Well that's good to know. What version did you migrate from? And, how many Play updates have you been through?


Play 2 was the earliest version I used. Back when I bought Symphonic Choirs (in 2010), the wordbuilder was a separate MFX MIDI plug-in instead of being built into Play.


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## pmcrockett (May 15, 2020)

Did some checking. Trying to load .voi files exported from the old MFX plug-in crashes Play, so clearly backwards compatibility doesn't extend that far back. However, I just loaded up a Symphonic Choirs project from 2013 that, judging by the dates on the old Play installers that I still have, was probably created with Play 3.0.47. The project seems to run fine with my current Play 6 install. I haven't null tested or gone through everything in great detail, but listening casually to the audio output, it seems the same as the exported stems from 2013.


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## tmpc (May 15, 2020)

pmcrockett said:


> Play 2 was the earliest version I used. Back when I bought Symphonic Choirs (in 2010), the wordbuilder was a separate MFX MIDI plug-in instead of being built into Play.


What a coincidence, I bought SC in 2010 too, though I don't remember WordBuilder being a separate plug-in. That may be because I wasn't able to use it for about 6 months. I had purchased a new MacBook Pro to run it on and although they said it was compatible, it actually wasn't. Man, I was angry.

So, you've been through a *lot* of Play updates. I know we're on a different platform, but what has your experience been updating Play?


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## tmpc (May 15, 2020)

pmcrockett said:


> Did some checking. Trying to load .voi files exported from the old MFX plug-in crashes Play, so clearly backwards compatibility doesn't extend that far back. However, I just loaded up a Symphonic Choirs project from 2013 that, judging by the dates on the old Play installers that I still have, was probably created with Play 3.0.47. The project seems to run fine with my current Play 6 install. I haven't null tested or gone through everything in great detail, but listening casually to the audio output, it seems the same as the exported stems from 2013.


Wow! That's amazing. Thanks very much for doing that. Man, I just don't know what to do; too many variables.


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## pmcrockett (May 16, 2020)

tmpc said:


> What a coincidence, I bought SC in 2010 too, though I don't remember WordBuilder being a separate plug-in. That may be because I wasn't able to use it for about 6 months. I had purchased a new MacBook Pro to run it on and although they said it was compatible, it actually wasn't. Man, I was angry.
> 
> So, you've been through a *lot* of Play updates. I know we're on a different platform, but what has your experience been updating Play?


Other than the wordbuilder bug in 6.1.1 (which has since been fixed), I don't recall any real problems. I think the install locations, etc. have been switched around a little over time, especially with the move to serving things automatically through the installation center. I think I remember for a time having uninstallers for previous versions of Play still hanging around in the Windows add/remove programs list after I'd installed updates over them, and there are a couple of folders in the software's various install locations that are empty and look like they're left over from previous versions of Play. But it's pretty common for uninstalled software of any type to leave folders, registry keys, etc. behind, and none of that stuff has ever seemed to affect how Play actually functions.


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## tmpc (May 16, 2020)

pmcrockett said:


> Other than the wordbuilder bug in 6.1.1 (which has since been fixed), I don't recall any real problems.


That's good to know. It's interesting to compare your experience with others I've read about. It's hard to make sense of it or draw any real conclusion from it all. I did a few more experiments today and I'm leaning towards just leaving it alone and working around the problem. It would drive me nuts if I tried updating it and it screwed everything up. Well, thanks for taking the time to share your experience with me.


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