Help needed: New system for moving from Opus+GS to SE and hopefully many other VI to come...

[info_20039]

Hi all,

I'm in the process of renewing my system quite a bit, but not having followed the hardware or software field for a couple of years, I notice that I've lost track on quite many things...

To explain my background, so far I've been working with a separate DAW with Cubase3 and a dedicated Gigaslave running GS3 and Opus 1+2 and Epic Horns over FX Teleport. I purchased Brass I of the Vienna Instruments line, but was in the middle of a project and didn't have time to put myself into it, so I'm a complete newbie with all of this.

Now that VSL has SE out there, I'm really eager to take this package as my entry into the facinating world of Vienna Instruments. I never got along with GS or FXT too well and finally just found myself having to find numerous workarounds to get through all the problems, so I have to say, I'm looking forward in getting rid of the need of a sampler in my system.

Having used the last week trying to catch up with things in the software and hardware fields I am, to say the least, quite confused with numerous things!

1) Vienna Ensemble:  I've watched all the tutorials and tried to read up on things here, but I think I still don't get this completely. I would be utterly grateful if someone could take the time to explain this "tool" (?) for me in a couple of sentences. Is this something I would benefit from if I'm using the SE and Brass1 libraries (for now) only? Or is it just something you "need" when working with the more complete VI package? Is the advantage in networking - in other words - when working with slave computers only, or is it useful also if running all the Viennas on my main DAW?

2) Reverb: Okay, please bear with me here. What I've been doing so far is utilising GigaPulse from my GS-slave. I'm not even close to any kind of power user, I just basically load the hall-preset and go. Now then, loosing GS and moving on to the VI-line means I will need to sort out the reverb somehow; the VI's are just dry, correct? I've noticed, that quite a few here seems to be using Altiverb. I also noticed, that Tascam now has GP as a VST plugin too. (anyone knows if there's a upgrade path from GS3 btw?). Any recomendations? I have no need to sample my own spaces, or have a million of tweaking possibilities. I just basically need something as I won't be able to use the built in GP in GS for my viennas anymore. A point worth mentioning is, that I plan to use quite a bit of EW-libraries too, so if any experiences with what blends in with EWQLSO, -SC etc., then great! What about separate processing like TC-powercore or UAD? Not convolution, I know, but how "necessary" is it anyway?

3) The whole 64-bit blur: I've been trying to read up on 64-bit technology and where we are with it, but I still find myself confused. I am obviously tempted by the possibility of loading more RAM. Vista appears to be miles from being usable for serious work, but I'm tempted by XP64. Everyone is bringing up the need of 64-bit hardware, drivers, OS, and software to be able to succeed, but at the same time I'm reading about running 32-bit software (Cubase in my case) on 64-bit OS, and as long as the hardware drivers work, I should be able to access more RAM than the 2-3GB limit with 32-bit XP?

What I want to do is run a stable DAW and to be able to build a nice setup of samples I can use without too much bouncing, switching, unloading etc. by having slaves for that. First of all, if I can find compatible hardware with drivers for a 64-bit XP DAW and load it with 8GB RAM, I have understood, that I could run Cubase as 32-bit and VE could utilize ~4 GB of it and the other ~4GB would be in use of the OS/Cubase, correct? If so, would this be enough to work smoothly with the SE, or would I be better off looking at splitting it or optionally having it fully on a separate dedicated slave? If keeping the DAW on 32-bit OS is more recommended for stability, could I then assume I could build a 64bit XP-slave for the Vienna and be able to use up to 8 GB of RAM on that one for the SE? Or is this total overkill for the library in question?

I'm also planning to run EWQLSO Platinum XP, Symphonic Choirs, RA etc and these will obviously also demand slaves, but maybe that is something that does not really belong on this forum. I'm just thinking, is there maybe something I would need to bear in mind regarding that? It appears that with VE, VSL is able to take more advantage of the RAM the 64-bit world can offer than EW is at the moment.

4) MIDI / Audio I/O: My first primary question in this field is regarding the VE... Let me see if I have understood this correctly: VE doesn't have anything similar to FX-teleport built in, but it allows me to control possible Vienna instances located on dedicated computers through an interface on my DAW? I still need a solution for MIDI and Audio I/O, correct? I understand that in case any of the 64-bit systems would work out, it narrows down my options quite a bit? Would I be looking at hardware only in this case, or is something like FXT workable in this kind of an environment?

Sorry for so many questions, but there's so many things around now completely new for me, jumping over from the Gigastudio and Sample Library -era, so trying to digest everything I've read in a few days messes my head up a bit :)

Thanks in advance,

-rae

[DG]

@info_20039 said:

First of all, your statement about 4GB for Cubase and 4GB for VE is theoretically correct, but you don't have to run Cubase 64bit; you can stick to 32bit and not end up with having to use the VST bridge for all your 32bit plugs.

[quote=info_20039]I'm also planning to run EWQLSO Platinum XP, Symphonic Choirs, RA etc and these will obviously also demand slaves, but maybe that is something that does not really belong on this forum. I'm just thinking, is there maybe something I would need to bear in mind regarding that? It appears that with VE, VSL is able to take more advantage of the RAM the 64-bit world can offer than EW is at the moment.

Basically, yes. Theoretically you should be able to use up to 4GB in Kontakt on your slave PC (via FXT) but there are reported problems of Kontakt not working well in XP64.

[quote=info_20039]4) MIDI / Audio I/O: My first primary question in this field is regarding the VE... Let me see if I have understood this correctly: VE doesn't have anything similar to FX-teleport built in, but it allows me to control possible Vienna instances located on dedicated computers through an interface on my DAW? I still need a solution for MIDI and Audio I/O, correct? I understand that in case any of the 64-bit systems would work out, it narrows down my options quite a bit? Would I be looking at hardware only in this case, or is something like FXT workable in this kind of an environment?

You can use VI and VE with FXT. If you use a 64bit OS on your slave, such as XP64, you can use as much RAM as there is on this PC via FXT. No need to worry about audio card drivers.

 

DG

[info_20039]

Thanks for your answers DG!  Very helpful in the quest of trying to catch up with a couple of years...

So, I'm now thinking of 2 different options:
OPTION A DAW:XP 32bit 4GB ram Cubase EW-libraries ViennaSLAVEXP 64bit 8GB RAM Vienna SE, Brass I & VE  EW SLAVEXP 32 bit 4 GB ram

EW-libraries continued

Now does this make any sense?  If I was to use FXT with the slaves, then this setup would save me the trouble of finding 64-compatible audio harware drivers, right? Is the intention with VE to run the reverb/FX on the machine that hosts the samples as a plugin to VE. If so, in this scenario all the reverb processing would be off the back of my DAW then right? Or would the idea be to host the samples on a slave, but process them on the DAW? Sorry, very basics, but I don't have a clue. How much RAM would I really need for SE anyway? Is the idea of a dedicated 8 GB slave total overkill in this case? Or would it make more sense to set up things like this: OPTION B DAW:XP 64bit 8 GB ram Cubase 32-bit Vienna SE, Brass I & VE  EW SLAVE 1XP 32bit 4GB RAM EW SLAVE 2XP 32 bit 4 GB ram EW-libraries continued As I'm reading that Kontakt isn't being able to utilize much more RAM than 4 GB in any surrounding, and not working out too well in 64-bit OS, I started out from the idea that the EW-libraries would be on 32-bit XP machines with 4 GB of RAM and the 3GB /switch  In case SE would do fine with what's left of 8GB after OS and cubase, then this would give me 2 completely dedicated EW -slaves, which might be a better ratio for using SO Platinum XP, RA, SC etc. But if in scenario A the reverb processing would be on the dedicated slave, this would bring that over to my DAW with other tasks to do as well. If this would be how it works in any setup regardless, then this speculation is obviously useless... I'm clearly still somewhat lost with some of the very basics of things here. Do I understand corretly, that VE does not offer an interface that would allow me to control VI's located on other computers? This is what I thought first, but now I don't know anymore. I'm thinking of a interface I would have as a plugin in Cubase and I could control all VI's whether they are on my DAW or on a slave computer not needing to jump between computers, or even needing monitors or optionally swithces for controlling those. I read the manual, watched the tutorial videos, have been reading this forum a lot lately, but for some reason I still don't seem to get the very basics of things....[*-)] maybe it's just me. -rae PS. Sorry for the unstructured text. For some reason this forum doesn't seem to get my line breaks right. Tried to figure it out, but no success :(