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I have a template with 30+ ports in use and about 500 instruments in Kontakt, Vienna Player, UVI and a few more, barely any processing going on. I have everything in one instance and t's using up to 8 threads.
My computer has 64GB Ram (using 40+) with this template and Intel Core i7-7700K Kaby Lake Processor. This is just a quad-core 4.2GHz so probably the weakest link.
What do I need to upgrade in order to make this template work without constantly freezing (every 5 minutes or so)?
I suppose you use SSD
What is the size of the preload buffers in VSL ?
Try to make it bigger and have a look to how much memory you have left
Same for Kontakt, check DFD
Your solutions
I suppose you use SSD
What is the size of the preload buffers in VSL ?
Try to make it bigger and have a look to how much memory you have left
Same for Kontakt, check DFD
Your solutions
- reduce the number of instruments by using articulation changes
- buy a second computer
Preload buffers in Kontakt are currently at 132 kB, and there is not a lot of DFD Voice Memory going on.
do you have SSD for your libs ?
What is the size of pre-load buffer in VSL ?
Why do you need 500 instruments?
Hector Berlioz, Gustav Mahler and R. Strauss - the composers who have used more instruments than anyone else in history (besides maybe a few psychos who are not known) - used maybe around 50 different individual instruments (with more individual players on the same instruments). So what are you doing that needs 500 different instruments?
o.K. I guess that is not a nice way of putting it. But what I wonder is - why on earth does anyone need 30 ports and 500 instruments when you have VE?
Hundreds or even thousands of articulations are available with even a couple ports. How many instruments are there in the largest symphony orchestra? In actual different instruments? Pop music uses tiny numbers of different instruments. It is only the most ambitious post-romantic composers who used vast numbers of instruments. And these can be totally represented by - at most - 3 ports of MIDI channels using multiple articulation-instruments on each channel. There is no reason whatsoever to use 30 ports, ever, if you use Vienna Instruments and Vienna Ensemble. It is a waste of MIDI ports. If you do this - you are not using the full bandwidth available within even a few MIDI ports.
William you are right !
I have just re-make my new working template using Logic 10.4 articulations
I have 134 tracks including percussion, a few synth and a few Ochestral Tutty
If you look at the screen copy attached you can see how many tracks are used per familly.
To change subject :
I have lost the place to get Icons for Logic instruments !
The one of Charles Green has a dead link.
I want to keep this thread on topic, but if you are interested, this is my current template. It was less than I remembered, so it's about 350 instruments, which is a modest amount. It would have been much more of course if I didn't use articulate switching. You often see templates with 500-1000 tracks among TV composers.
I wonder how large Mozart and Mahler's templates would have been :)
To answer the question what does one need for a large setup, it is basically maxed out RAM, as many multicores as possible, samples stored on SSD and probably separate slave(s) for playback so that a single computer doesn't have to handle both DAW and sample playback.
Nevertheless it makes no sense to use that many channels or ports. This is a large orchestra with full instrumentation:
Piccolo
2 Flutes
2 Oboes
English Horn
2 Clarinets
Bass Clarinet
2 Bassoons
Contrabassoon
3 or 4 trumpets
4 (or 8 horns in the largest orchestrations such as Mahler and Strauss)
2 Tenor Trombones
Bass Trombone
Tuba
Timpani
3 to 4 percussion
Harp
Pipe organ
Piano
Strings divided into 5 staves.
Using Vienna Instruments and Vienna Ensemble one can have on EACH OF THESE TRACKS dozens and dozens of different artiulcations using the different samples created by VSL which fully represent the most complex orchestration.
This means that a huge symphony orchestra of the type listed above will be totally represented by 37 channels - meaning three ports with some channels left over. This orchestra is totally sufficient within the constraints of digital sampling for any composer for television or film. In fact it can credbily represent far more complex concert music. The simplest music of all is Hans Zimmer's massively layered block chord composing with percussion noodling. There is zero complexity to that music, and most film and TV scoring is using that simplistic formula today.
And you ask what would Wagner have used? Something smaller than Mahler or Strauss who went beyond him in size and complexity of orchestras. Mahller added a number of extra instruments - such as the 2nd Symphony's use of E flat soprano clarinet, extra brass choir, etc. But even that gigantic symphony which dwarfs TV and film music in complexity only uses a few more diffeernt instruments. Strauss's Alpensinfonie or Also Sprach Zarathustra tone poems use giant orchestras as well - but all of these are completely representable with 3 or 4 ports with 48 channels to 60 channels.
If you wanted to included multiple layered performances in the strings - such as using Dimension Strings, this could concievably increase the number of channels by 24 if you put each instrument on a separate channel which is generally not needed. Most people will use all 8 Dimension Violins - or may be two sets of 4 - for example on one or two channels and use separate humanize settings within each instrument.
My Romantic Symphony which you will find HERE uses for the entire performance a total of 85 tracks including Appassionata Strings, Orchestral Strings, Chamber and Solo along with all the Dimension Strings, complements of 9 woodwinds and 15 brass, 6 percussion, harp and pipe organ. But all those instruments easily fit on only 3 ports using 48 channels.
For a standard symphonic orchestral template, a similar template as you describe could be possible. My template is built to write in many different genres and for the type of music I like to write. My point about Wagner and Mahler was that we don't know how their template would look if they had a computer and were writing for TV. So what's common among TV composers is a bit more relevant than what they did. But it all comes down to what music and what methods we like. And my wish is to have a computer that can handle all of it. My problem is not to to find out what template I can have on the computer I already have.
The "standard" symphony orchestra is usually smaller than that one. But even so, that ensemble can play just about any style in existence with a few additions (drums, guitars, electronics, etc.). An example of that principle is the use of "Chamber" strings for pop arrangements because they are edgier sounding.
But the only reason I write in response is because the whole idea behind Vienna Instruments was to allow composers to AVOID having to use a huge number of tracks by means of using the matrices which do the work of multiple tracks on one. Exactly the way a single player has with his single instrument and performance ability all the articulations. In a live orchestra you don't have twenty four flutes sitting in a row to play one musical line, each coming in separately to play a different articulation. That would be exactly analogous to MIDI having all those tracks for just a single instrument.
Of course you can setup things however you prefer I am not saying otherwise, but creating a huge load on a computer system for no reason by loading vast numbers of never-used articulations was something I always avoided. So I never used the VSL presets but just created my own based on what was actually needed. If you have absolutely every articulation loaded it is much harder to select and decide which to use.
I have found that a huge amount of music can be created by ONE ARTICULATION on one track! For example a lyrical melody line doesn't need fifty variations of staccato, spiccato, fast repetition, ponticello tremolo, flautando, etc.. It just needs a single legato with careful phrasing and control of dynamic expression. So if you start from that simplicity, and just add to it as needed - instead of starting from vast complexity and trying clumsily to deal with the enormous burden by obtaining more and more powerful computers that have to be perfect or the whole system crashes - - it makes things vastly easier.
Though that is a different philosophy than a lot of people have nowadays I realize.
Although I don't have much technical input to add to the question at hand, I can't resist commenting that it is a fortunate age that we find ourselves in, when we can if we choose harness the power of today's computer technology to construct mega-templates! Truly, different approaches for different individuals -- and quite a spectrum, with some preferring to work from a full toolbox at all times (or, indeed, a completely stocked work van!) and others preferring to have just a few on their belt. Or with Smart Orchestra, perhaps a multi-tool (I am avoiding the term "Swiss army knife," as that would lead to further tangents ...).
And in a production environment, I am sure that considerations are quite different from those of the "developing/evolving" composer, or hobbyist. Philosophically (and in practice), I very much agree with what William expressed so well in the last paragaraph of the previous post, starting from simplicity and adding only what is needed, when it is indicated. But we all have different approaches to composing, and indeed if I were faster at recognizing exactly what a musical phrase or arrangement "needed," perhaps I would want all of those tools a single mouse click away.
Forgive me for, I fear, adding little to the discussion and restating things that have been expressed previously in this forum. But isn't it a delight to have such choices of workflow before us ...
