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NI Symphony Series Template Woes.

shropshirelad

Senior Member
I've spent quite a few hours setting up a Studio One template for NI Symphony Series - it runs to about 38 instances of Kontakt and 300+ tracks. I had low expectations about whether the thing would actually run on my iMac (2014,i5,24gb ram, all files on SSD) - it kind of does with a 4k buffer but anything lower and I get problems. All instances of Kontakt are purged and cpu use is low until the playing starts! I could up the RAM to the max 32gb but doubt it would help much. I've enjoyed the exercise of putting the template together and have learned a lot in the process. Just wanted to run it past the experts here to see if this project is forever doomed or is there something else I could do to make it work. Thanks!
 
I've spent quite a few hours setting up a Studio One template for NI Symphony Series - it runs to about 38 instances of Kontakt and 300+ tracks. I had low expectations about whether the thing would actually run on my iMac (2014,i5,24gb ram, all files on SSD) - it kind of does with a 4k buffer but anything lower and I get problems. All instances of Kontakt are purged and cpu use is low until the playing starts! I could up the RAM to the max 32gb but doubt it would help much. I've enjoyed the exercise of putting the template together and have learned a lot in the process. Just wanted to run it past the experts here to see if this project is forever doomed or is there something else I could do to make it work. Thanks!


Please tell us a little more about what exactly is loaded in your template and how you've organized it. I have a hunch it could be optimized a little performance wise. E.g. 38 Kontakt instances just for Symphony Series sounds overkill to me.
 
You should really consider a disabled template and enable a section at each time (e.g. strings, brass, etc). 24GB is kind of scraping by, but I've seen other composers on this board making great music with 16GB. However, with 32GB, you can definitely load every articulation for one section at a time of the NI Symphony Series. But as it was mentioned earlier, your CPU is the hinderance on your streaming buffer. Also, your sample drive needs to be SSD to achieve the best performance as well.

Also, if you put any finishing/mixing plugins between your VIs and your outputs while streaming voices, that will kill your CPU. Best to approach each song as "composing." Then render/freeze for mixing and using finishing plugins.

Finally, your best performance is going to be with using Reaper. Other DAWs still perform well, but Reaper will certainly be the most efficient on CPU and RAM.
 
Thanks for the great replies here, I appreciate you taking the time. I think I'll accept that this was a useful exercise and perhaps resurrect the template when it's time to look for a new PC. I'd forgotten that my iMac was getting so long in the tooth - until this point it hasn't complained about anything I've asked it to do. Going to spend some time this evening putting together a slightly less ambitious template!
 
I have studio one as well and a decent CPU, loads of memory, and NI SS brass always gives my DAW the snap crackle and pops. For some reason it’s this specific library for me that is always the culprit. One I freeze it down I’m fine.
 
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