No new iMac needed - let's buy a slave

[rgames]

Richard, I'm considering building a second slave and I'm just wondering why you recommend 64gb RAM machines? Surely if you build a machine with enough CPU cores having more than 64gb of RAM will be fine? Is there some kind of Bottle neck I need to know about? I am wondering why someone like JXL has machines with 192gb of RAM in them if you recommend no more than 64gb? Is it a bang for buck kind of thing?

More than 64 GB won't hurt anything but I'm not sure you can make use of all that RAM, so why spend money on it? Presumably if you're loading up that much RAM with samples then you have dense orchestrations / multi mic positions that generate high voice counts that likely exceed what any one machine can deliver. Depending on the library you probably can't get more than 1500 - 3000 voices from any single machine, a number that is independent of RAM.

If you just like to have samples sitting in RAM so you can marvel at them then yeah, no worries

I have three 64 GB slaves with 20-40 GB worth of samples loaded in each. I could replace them with a single 128 GB machine but I'd exceed the voice count capabilty of that one machine. I need three slaves not because of RAM but because of voice counts. My experience is that's the limiting factor for most VI composers.

rgames

 

[chimuelo]

RGames always provides the details most appreciated that aren't from benchmarks, which have their specific uses, but real world examples using specific apps for music.

BTW I built 3 x Slaves that follows your train of thought on fast lean Quads.
I can play an incredible amount of tracks without bouncing and with a 4 Port KVM Switcher/QWERTY.

Thanks man, appreciate it! For heavy sample library, some synth use do you think an i7 slave could do it all? I don't have a gigantic template, (often no template at all), but I often wind up with a lot of tracks of spitfire, orchestral tools, cinesamples, and omni, toontrack etc etc.

If right in Logic it doesn't take much to make my iMac (2012 i7 3.4ghz) cough up blood. In VEP it can take way more. But I'd love to have a ton of headroom and just not have to think about it for a change, ya know? So I've been wondering about the new 12, 18 core chips in a pc slave? What thinkest thou?

I prefer quads for Slaves.
The more the better.
Just finished my 3rd 1U Slave with Server quality older NOS/NIB Boards from ASRock.
I would buy 1 on the cheap, and add more as you need.
A 64GB Slave can do a lot of work.

 

[jononotbono]

More than 64 GB won't hurt anything but I'm not sure you can make use of all that RAM, so why spend money on it? Presumably if you're loading up that much RAM with samples then you have dense orchestrations / multi mic positions that generate high voice counts that likely exceed what any one machine can deliver. Depending on the library you probably can't get more than 1500 - 3000 voices from any single machine, a number that is independent of RAM.

Ok thanks for the detailed answer. I really like your YouTube Videos so understand you know what you are talking about but I still have questions about all of this. What can you do to increase the capability of a computer to deliver higher Voice Counts? I'm guessing more CPU Cores/faster CPU cores. And therefore if you put more CPU cores into your system you will increase the capacity of more RAM, which will then in turn lead to using a Higher Voice count because you are using more VIs loaded into said extra RAM?

I like the idea of having Quad machines and 64gb of RAM but I have a PC slave that has an i7 2600k (Quadcore) but can only support 32gb of RAM. I'm just wondering how a Quadcore can support 64gb? I'm also concerned about my electricity bill and heat because my Lab is already as hot as dirty Strip Club.

If you just like to have samples sitting in RAM so you can marvel at them then yeah, no worries

Haha! Well, I don't sit there marvelling at them but having so much stuff ready to play for any circumstance is quite valuable to me. A couple of weeks a go I wrote 2 fully finished and produced Library tracks, a 10 minute short, and some Sound Design stuff for a feature film in 4 days. I could never have done that without a template and a lot of things ready to go and routed. It's more about efficiency and speed of access to meet deadlines. None of my music has got dense orchestrations (I'll come back to this conversation in 10 years and see where I'm at with that) utilising hundreds of live midi tracks but that, for me at least, is not the point in a template as I'm not some kind of Classical Composer. Just an aspiring media composer living in a world of Sound Design with occasional Orchestration flirting (something I hope over time to learn much more about).

I appreciate you taking the time to answer my questions man.