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  • advice on an imac master pc slave studio setup

    Hi All This may have been covered before - many apologies if so. I have an imac 2.0 ghz core 2 duo, 3 gb ram as my only computer at the moment. i use Logic 8 and want advice on a slave pc to run VSL using ensemble 3. should i be looking at a slave pc with a fast as possible cpu and plenty of ram, and if so will the performance of the pc make any difference at all to how the imac will cope. Is the imac up to the job of acting as a master? Any advice before this pending purchase would be gratefully received. Thanks.

  • Hi - I have an iMac same as yours. I use it for emails and photos. I also have Logic 8 and use that on a Mac Pro 3.0 ghz with 14 gigs of ram etc etc.

    Snow Leopard is released tomorrow I believe. Don't waste your time with PC's as slaves to an iMac. You only need one computer - but not an iMac for doing anything remotely serious with Logic. There's also the issue with hard drive space.


  • Hi, I too have an iMac 3.06 4gig 24" model. I'm looking forward to purchasing the Ensemble Pro in order to do the same type of thing. I also have a 3 yr old PPC G5 quad with 16 gigs memory and a PC quad 2.4 with 8 gigs memory. Could you suggest what I would be able to do with the computers that I own? We'd all like to purchase a Mac Pro, but some of us can't and need to get some good advice and assistance to make do. Any and all answers would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

  • Hi again, Isn't there anyone here that can help Grinwald and my self??? We need to try and get the best with what we have. I have both a quad PC(8gigs) and a G5 quad(16gigs) loaded and would like to know what would be the best way to get the best results? Could I use Ensemble 3 for the G5 quad and Ensemble Pro for the PC quad running Vista 64 at the same time? Thanks

  • I'm using a MacBook Pro (C2D 2.16 GHz, 3 GB RAM) as my master computer running 10.4.11 & Logic Pro 7. My slave is a Win XP 32-bit machine with 4GB RAM that I use exclusively for Vienna Instruments. All other plugs (including reverb) are on the Mac. This all works fine for me regarding VE3 - the Mac is definitely up to the job.

    HTH,

    M


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    @StashO said:

    Hi again, Isn't there anyone here that can help Grinwald and my self??? We need to try and get the best with what we have. I have both a quad PC(8gigs) and a G5 quad(16gigs) loaded and would like to know what would be the best way to get the best results? Could I use Ensemble 3 for the G5 quad and Ensemble Pro for the PC quad running Vista 64 at the same time? Thanks

    I'd run VE Pro on all of your machines. VE Pro will even run as a true 64-bit application on your G5 quad, so you can utilize all that RAM, which probably cost you a fortune (as one of the very few rare-to-find PPC64 applications out there). We don't actively promote the PPC compatibility however, since we intend to move away from PPC support in the future, something we have already started to see happening with the Vienna Suite Convolution Reverb and the Vienna Imperial.


  • Thanks Martin, Great news. I knew I could use the PPC quad, but didn't realize it would run as 64bit. StashO

  • Many thanks for your reply Mosso.Nice to know that it all works on a similar powered setup. Will be purchasing the new pc sometime in the nexy month. Cheers Grinwald

  • Hi Martin, I was gone again for a bit and did not get a chance to reply as soon as I would have liked to. Here is my question: Should I run the DAW and program from the PPC quad, or am I better off running the DAW from my iMac 3.06 and using the quad as a server only? Also, might I get an advantage if I used an actual PC server? Thank you very much for your response and help for Grinwald and myself Stash

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    Hi,

    I may jump in for Martin here. It really depends on the tasks you want to do on your master/soave computer....

    @StashO said:

    Also, might I get an advantage if I used an actual PC server?

    MIDI stays MIDI, and LAN will work cross-platform, so you should be fine. On a modern Win 64 system, you can easily add more RAM, and it should be a bit more economic, though.

    I´d start with what you have and then take it from there.

    Best,

    Paul


    Paul Kopf Product Manager VSL
  • Thanks Paul. Much appreciated!! StashO

  • Many of the current small-profile midi-towers and Mac Mini configurations are shyer in the RAM department than the CPU -- although the new Mini's can supposedly take up to 8 GB (Apple only support 4 GB in their official statements). Some of the Windows-based small-profile PC's only take 2 GB!

    What would you say is the cutoff point before an all-in-one usage of VE PRO on the main computer is more efficient than offering up a slave computer? I unfortunately can't convert my current iMac to that use as it is near end-of-life in terms of compatibility, but am considering getting a Mac Mini or similar Windows midi-tower before getting my next Main Computer (of course this means sticking with VE3 in the short term -- I already bought VE PRO though).

    I don't blame VSL for the Intel-only route, but it does have the unfortunate effect of rendering most near-returement computers useless as VE slaves. So when buying two new computers, it becomes a question of the advantages in strict terms vs. the convenience of reusing an otherwise-junked older computer. :-)

    I understand the latency to be equivalent to one buffer, so there doesn't seem to be an issue in that regards with running a slave vs. all-in-one on the main computer. And it's great that mixed OS's aren't an issue for the MIDI and Audio over LAN protocol (I didn't think they would be).

    For those contemplating using Windows vs. Mac OS X on the slave, and Mac OS X on the master, one advantage I can see is access to more plug-ins and VI's that are Windows-only. I can't think of any that are Mac-only, except proprietary MAS format from MOTU (which can't run outside DP anyway).

    All things else being equal, are there known performance differences between VE PRO running on a Windows slave vs. a Mac OS X slave, in terms of how much memory one needs on that computer?