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

[Phryq]

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?

 

[storyteller]

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.

 

[Lee Blaske]

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.

 

[Phryq]

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.

 

[storyteller]

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.

 

[Phryq]

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.

 

[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.

 

[Phryq]

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, https://www.anandtech.com/show/1105...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]

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, https://www.anandtech.com/show/1105...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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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).