And just another update.

With the right tuning and effort (takes some degree of geekery) the t/bolt to t/bolt networking IS very very capable.   It seems that it takes a little more effort than the ars technica guys put in - but with the right knowledge and network understanding, it appears that 10Gb networking is "go" with 10.9 and new mac hardware.

Combine this with PCIe storage, and many interesting possibilities open up!

And now - interestingly enough in 10.9, ethernet over thunderbolt IS implemented.

Its quite exciting, but also problematic at the same time.

A number of folk with FAR more knowledge than myself have been looking into this in the last week or so, and have found it to be a 
"work in progress" at best.

For what its worth, they were testing current MBP to current MBAir.  The theoretical limits they achieved (by sending data not being read off the internal SSD's was over 700MB/s.  (FAR beyond giga-ethernet, and approaching 10giga, when overheads are taken into account.

The problem is that there are (as yet) unexplained pauses in transmission and reception.  No packets lost, but just plain interruptions.  

They looked into all sorts of possibilities, but as of yet have been unable to figure out exactly whats going on.  They were trying to independentally verify results of some preliminary research being done by arstechnica (I think it was them - slightly flaky memory) - and attempting to further identify where the problems lay.  

I seem to remember the general consensus being that for now, using a t/bolt to ethernet adaptor is better for "real time" applications.  But that they fully expect it to get better, and offer up to 10GB (and possibly higher with TBolt2 - which was only on the MBP) ethernet using direct connection in the not too distant future - pending updates from apple.  

I await information about this eagily.  The setup of the ethernet adaptor inside prefs is quite elegant - and WILL allow a single new Mac Pro (with its 6 tbolt ports) to have multiple direct connections to multiple other computers - WITHOUT using a switch.  I don't know if this is going to work smoothly with VEP5 or not though - but it is certainly VERY interesting.

I'd love to hear more discussion on this from others with further knowledge.  

(PS - another mac user in a private dev forum I'm involved with has successfully tested using t-bolt ethernet with another piece of audio software communicating between two machines.  Exciting times)

EDIT : Just some extra information from others who are experimenting with this.
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1657957 - similar results to what my friend saw.  But no reports on the interruptions (I only read the first few posts)

Here's arstechnica's take on it
http://arstechnica.com/apple/2013/10/os-x-10-9-brings-fast-but-choppy-thunderbolt-networking/

Cyril, I have no idea if it is legal or not here in australia.  If it is in your country, then that is something that will in one way or another need to be sorted out.

Although my insurance company wont touch it, that doesn't make it illegal.  Indeed, it makes some sense - given you don't ever own software, just a license to use it. 

Nevertheless, I don't really have the energy to look into the legalities - rather, I just need to know I have a way to get working quickly again should my keys go missing (especially when travelling.)

Yeah, thats the advice I just got from a couple of other friends with far more knowledge than me in this area.

At least, its worth giving it a go!  So 2 SSD's now installed.  Just turned it back on, and miracle of miracles, it still works.  (Always nerve-wracking working on these small macs with too many bits!

B.

Hey guys,

Just went thru my business insurance, and they expressly do not (and will not) cover software - other than the cost of the delivery of new software or the physical media it came on.) 

So I am a little taken back, given I have my vienna software on a few syncrosoft dongles (and plenty of other software on the same dongles) - and an equal amount on iloks.

Can anyone suggest an insurance company in austarlia that will insure this stuff (and also not just when in a studio - I travel with my gear.  And no, my travel insurance also will not cover it, as the software is considered to be "business equipment" which falls outside the policy!)

Thanks for any help.

Brendan.

Its fairly common knowledge that it isn't a good idea to use your OS drive for sample libraries.  But this knowledge is based on using spinning drives.  What about SSD's?  They have amazing speeds when it comes to data transfer rates (and number of i/o's per second).

In building some new mac mini server slaves, I'm wondering if I might be able to get a bit of extra space for sample libraries by partitioning off a part of the OS drive, and using it for samples.  The OS only needs around 30GB or so (max) - and I can get drives from 60 to 240GB at a reasonable price.  I have 240GB Mercury Extreme PRO 6G's already for the main library drive. 

I do have an extra SSD here I can (and probably will) test this idea with - but if anyone says "no" to the idea with a good reason, I'll save myself an afternoon of tinkering!

Thanks! Cheers, Brendan.

I am currently building a system along the lines of what is described here.

Mac mini servers as slaves, macbook pro as DAW.  All with 16GB ram in each (it has come down to very reasonable prices the last few weeks.)  SSD's all round.

So far, testing on the mac mini has shown it to be a very capable system - especially considering is weight.  (I travel for some of my composing work, and want to be able to do EVERYTHING with my portable system! I have 2 mac pros in the studio currently...)

I will test the current mac mini server to breaking point, work out what part of the tech the breaking point is, and then order further mac minis with specs that "balance" the machines as much as possible.  Thus, is it RAM, CPU or drive space on the SSD's that limits the system first?  I'm still testing, but I'm getting remarkable results.

The elicenser database is updated every two weeks or so - in order to bundle the newest version with software you are installing, vsl would need to constantly rebuild their installation packages.

The elicenser should automatically update itself upon each opening. 

As for why it isn't bundled? I have no idea - although the software is owned by a completely different company (steinberg).

Cheers.

Re multicore settings in kontakt - this is the information I've been able to track down on optimizing kontakt 5 in the ni knowledge base :

This raises the question: how many cores should you select here in order to get the best performance from KONTAKT?

This
is not an easy question, as the answer is dependent on your sequencer, the project you are working on, your computer system, and so on.

We
cannot give an exact answer here that will give best performance for
all users in all situations, but as a starting point, you can begin by
turning multiprocessor support on for ALL available cores on your
computer, in other words select the maximum available value. This is true whether you are using KONTAKT in standalone mode or as a plug-in.

If
you are using Pro Tools in particular as your host, we recommend
leaving one or two cores free. So you have an 8-core machine, you
should select 6 or 7 cores in KONTAKT. If you are running on a 2-core machine, you may try using both cores for KONTAKT.

Please do not
be confused when the CPU or system usage monitor of your sequencer does
not reflect the multiprocessing of KONTAKT, as the multiprocessing of KONTAKT is not transparent to the sequencer.

(Also click here for more information on optimizing the performance of NATIVE INSTRUMENTS plug-ins in Pro Tools.)

If
you are running many separate instances of KONTAKT in your session you
will probably get better performance if you reduce the number of multiprocessor cores a bit.

At some point, depending on how
many instances of KONTAKT you are running, you may get better
performance by turning the multiprocessor support OFF completely and
letting your host sequencer manage the multiprocessing instead. This is
also dependent on which host sequencer you are running, they all manage this a bit differently.

I already have a mac pro 3,1 for my master and a 4,1 for a slave.  I'm slowly building a completely portable system that will probably end up being 1 x macbook pro with 4 to 6 mac mini slaves. (Its all about weight - otherwise I'd be building 2x i7 2600k slaves, but they're too big/heavy to carry around on flights regularly.

I've got the mac mini (server version) in for evaluation right now, and thought I'd try get to the bottom of all the setup and performance prefs at the same time.  I also have an i5 2011 mac mini here as well, but the i7 quad core version seems to be very much the one to go for.  Anyway - thats just some extra background, and a little off topic.

Interesting about the NI advice on MP.  Do you have a direct link to any info?

thanks. Brendan.

Ah - great information re ASIO / ASIO2CoreAudio.bundle - that makes a lot of sense.  It puts some fragments of information together into a much better understood concept!

Multicore processing in kontakt (number of cores) and vep (number of cores) - there's lots of people saying different things.  Its interesting that you say to turn it off - this is exactly what I want to test and actually get some data that can be referred back to.  :)  I'd say thats a great starting point though (having it off initially!) The big question is how to test this exactly.  I have an idea - but it may require some help from some kontakt script gurus....

As for which cores / virtual cores (HT) are being used - the activity monitor actually doesn't tell u much about what is being used when.  Not terribly well anyway. Generally, if multi-core aware programs are working well, they distribute the load fairly evenly across all cores - rather than filling them up one by one.  This is where programs like "AT Monitor" (free on OSX but donationware - its great!) really help.  You can tell what is happening on each core in real time, as well as be given a reasonable indication on the headroom of a system.

Anyway - I just found out my ram should arrive towards the end of next week - which will probably make things easier to test (gives headroom.)  In the meantime, I might use my master machine (mac pro 3,1 with 26GB ram) to run some more tests - where the ram ceiling shouldn't be a problem.

Hi again.

I'm not sure I've got much more in terms of knowledge to share, but I do have more questions - and a little bit of data.

First up - I ran a couple of tests just to get an idea of how powerful the mac mini was in terms of DAW performance.  And to see what multi-cpu settings inside nuendo were doing.

Turns out the little computer does quite well.  Easily runs 64tracks of audio with low (ish) buffers.  Multi-cpu performance definitely helps, as does switching audio priority to "boost" in nuendo.  I'll try graph the numbers at some stage - but it certainly showed shortcomings running low latencies with the firewire interface.  (MH2882 expanded connected directly to the mac mini).  Around 256 to 512 buffers, the CPU performance was reasonable, and I could really start loading up virtual effects quite well. 

Just a note - even though these are macs, nuendo still refers to the audio performance as ASIO performance (!).  The asio performance seemed to roughly mimic the CPU readings I was getting thru "at monitor" although seemed to be 5 to 10% more, and also jumped around a lot more.  They got more stable as I set higher buffers on the sound card, under fairly heavy load.

But really - this wasn't the point, other than being interested in seeing if nuendo made use of all 8 cores (quad core i7 2.0ghtz, but with HT - so 8 cores visible to the OS)

It does - but it uses cores 1,3,5,7 a little more than 2,4,6,8 - for whatever reason.  More on this later.

Now.  To testing VEP / Kontakt on the mini, slaved to my mac pro.  This is where I'm stuck.  I just can't seem to come up with a test that will give me meaningful results. 
What I'd like to be able to do is keep loading kontakt up with sample instruments that are exactly the same - but unfortunately kontakt is too "clever" for this, and doesn't re-load the samples when you load a second copy of the instrument.  So, to stress test, you seem to need to just keep loading different instruments.  However, because these are different sample sizes, its very hard to give accurate answers to what is going on.

Can someone suggest a way of doing it?  Can anyone think of a test worth doing that will get valuable data?

Now - some things I did notice.

Using 4 cores in VEP, and 4 cores for Kontakt, and having 2 copies of kontakt5 open still only saw cores 1,3,5&7 being used.

Turning on 8 cores in kontakt, and leaving VEP at 4 cores, saw 1,3,5&7 being used the most, but 2,4,6,8 being used at around 25 to 40% the amount of 1,3,5,7.  I didn't get close to maxing out the CPU - but I was not using full on sample instruments.  The problem being these more "CPU intensive instruments I have tend to eat ram, so I run out of ram before the test is really significant.

I'm thinking I might just hold off on any more tests until the ram arrives - which could be a week or two (its coming from the states)

But ANY thoughts on actually creating a meaningful test would be much appreciated.  I'll also attempt to create some sort of test for East West instruments, and Spectrasonics Instruments. 

(For giggles, I loaded Alicia Keys (quite a big library) and studio drummer at the same time.  I was getting dropouts on all buffer settings with just those 2 instruments.  However, RAM usage was at 99% - and CPU wasn't so high - so I don't think I was reaching CPU limits.)

There is loads more to be learnt, and I feel like only the surface is being scratched.

Cheers, Brendan.

Hey Chris -

Hm. I had trouble with my license yest - but (for me) the problem was that the elicenser control software was open while I tried to open VEP5.

Try restarting from scratch - loading up the elicenser software, allowing it to do its "maintenance" at the top.  Double check your VEP5 license is on your dongle.  Quit the elicenser program.  Repair disk permissions (if on mac) - and now try starting VEP5.  Does that help?

Interesting it says VIP though - something strange happening for sure. 
But I'm sure its not a waste of 40 Euro at all - you will get it working... someone @ Vienna (or someone else in the forums) will help you out if you're unable to get it work yourself.  Sometimes there's little hiccups with software - its part of having incredibly complex systems that we just happen to use to enable our creativity. 

Cheers! Brendan.

Ah - yes, I misunderstood you.  Apologies! :)  I used PC's years ago, and sometimes I still use "asio" instead of core audio... My mistake.

It is interesting to know the soundcard on the master affects / impacts the slave.  I guess so long as I am using a system that doesn't vary, I'll be able to work out the variables involved with multi-processing / ram use etc - as we KNOW that a PCIe card will generally improve the system, but I don't think they will change the behaviour of the variables.

I've got some ideas in mind as to testing as well - I'll report back any findings I come up with today.

Cheers, Brendan.

I'm not into comparing how a mac or pc compare at all - this isn't really the purpose of what I'm trying to do.

What I'm interested in looking at is working out the best way to set up both slaves and servers (as far as settings) in a mac environment. AND working out where the system "breaks" - what part of the system is the weakest link.  Being able to identify exactly whats going on....

Thankfully, for the slaves, the sound card isn't on the slave - so that doesn't really effect the slave's performance (as far as being able to tell what is able to be done on a particular slave).  And although I use FW audio on my macs (metric halos) I am in the process of getting an RME card for my mac pro in order to lower latency settings.

B.

Hi all,

I'm hoping we can get a thread going that helps folk get the best possible performance out of their systems that are running VEP5.

There is a reasonable amount of info in the manual, but it still involves a great deal of stabbing in the dark when it comes to getting things running smoothly.

It would be great to try devise a test with VEP5 running on both slaves, and locally.  Using various different instruments. Kontakt.  Play.  Vienna Instruments.  Spectrasonics Instruments. 

There are just SO many variables. 

Midi ports open, audio ports open, number of buffers (VEP buffers) and sound card buffers, multicore support in the different programs etc.

So - I have a few hours free tomorrow - and will hopefully start deriving a test.  I also have a mac mini server here on trial, and would really like to be able to completely evaluate it - but without knowing if I've actually got the right settings, I don't know if the limits I'm reaching are those of the mac mini, or simply because of settings etc.

Has anyone ever tried something like this before? 

I'm looking for some guidance if possible - starting points etc.  I'm pretty sure I'll be able to work something out that is giving meaningful results, but its always good to bounce ideas off of different people.

Information I'm looking for in particular.  How can one tell where the "bottle necks" of the system are - particually when evaluating a slave computer.  Is there an accurate way of telling WHAT is causing problems when they occur? 

I'm thinking the various bottle necks might be :

Network issues (???)
Hard drive speed
Ram (easy to tell - so I'm not worried about that)
CPU
ASIO spikes (kinda related to CPU, kinda not.

A few other questions.  The new mac mini server has hyperthreading - 8 cores show up in all the various performance measuring test programs I've tried.  However, no matter what settings I've used in VEP, I can only ever see 4 cores (every second) working.  This is some concern, and I've got no idea whats going on.  Any tips / ideas?

Ok - thats it for now.  I'm going to go have a beer and think about the testing method - HOW it can be done while not getting too overwhelming (too many options.  Need to narrow it right down.)

Any and many thoughts muchly appreciated.

I'm sure any work / results we get done here will be of benefit to other users on pc as well - others may well be able to extend the work.

Cheers.  Brendan Woithe.

Hi Dave,

I use 3 SSD's (1 for OS - only 120GB) and 2x240GB for my more "intensive" sample libraries.  I don't use symphonic cube, so I can't help there.

However, I did run some pretty intensive tests using LASS 1.5, EW, and VSE (all) with some very interesting results.

1./ Using Raid0 accross both drives yielded no performance benefit specifically when used for samples.  My drives are SATA3 using the latest sandforce controller, and have a thru put (tested using blackmagic speed test) of > 500MB/s in and out.  The drives are now back in my mac pro 3,1 (so running SATA2) and on seperate SATA busses.

2./ I was able to increase performance of my machine by seperating instruments accross the 2 drives.  Not a huge amount, but it did improve loading times.  A little trial and error, depending on what your template looks like.

3./ I didn't see ANY performance decrease when filling up the drives.  This is for reading the drive only.  writing slowed down as they neared full (which makes sense).  I don't use OS trim support (I'm on 10.6.x) - but my drives are the OWC 6G drives, which have extra space allocated above the 240GB (16GB) in order to maintain performance over time.  I now use both drives with around 220GB of samples on each one - which is better than I expected.

Not sure this answers your questions, but there might be some useful info in there somewhere.

B.

Mac minis make very interesting slaves.  I've been fiddling around with a couple recently.

The reason you might want to go with them : They consume VERY little power, they are light (if you travel at all for jobs, this is a huge benefit) and they are very easily scalable.

The reason you might not want to go with them : They are fiddly to work on (adding second drive / ram etc is not for a beginner) and putting 16GB ram in (possible) is still expensive (OWC = about $900!)  However, 8GB So-dims that work with the mac mini's are starting to become avaliable from other sources, and within 3 or 4 weeks we should see good supplys of crucial 2x8GB for around $450 to $500 in various stores.  This immediately makes a very interesting proposition out of the mac minis.

You can rack 2 in 1RU easy enough (and there are even 4 in 1RU trays around) - and it doesn't cost TOO much to have a spare.

I *was* looking at building a sandy bridge 2600 based machine for a slave, but could not seem to get one under 12KG (needed for my travel rig) and within 1 or 2RU.  I tried hard, but it just never worked out for me.  I'd certainly be interested in seeing if anyone has done this!

Testing WD Black 2.5" 750GB drives in the mac mini showed about 120 (!!!) MB/s transfer rates (not bad at all!) and my OWC SSD's gave me results of over 500!

At this stage, 4 mac minis, (2 with 16GB ram, 2 with 8 GB ram) might just do the trick for me... (SSD's for samples, HD for OS) but I'm still not totally committed to pulling the trigger.  I only need to put my new system together by beginning of next year, so I have some time to experiment, plan, and think.

B.

As it happens, thunderbolt can carry GigaEthernet - but you need a "translation" layer - ie, a "hub" to use it.... in which case, it is not that different to just plugging it into your computer.  The new mac displays (connected by tbolt) have a gigaEthernet socket, and the new belkin thunderbolt hub has usb, fw and gigaEthernet ports. 

I do not know of the ability "yet" to directly network 2 computers thru connecting up thunderbolt cables.  I assume that if it happens (if it hasn't already) it would be thru still using a ethernet IP layer within the thunderbolt connect.  I would expect this to occur at some stage given current implementations / uses of the tbolt technology.

Cheers! Brendan.

I have not personally tested the current 8/12 core mac pro's.

I'm currently running mac pro 3.1 as my main computer, and a 4.1 as slave (both 8 core.)  I have a current 6 core mac pro running as a "tape machine" alongside a RADAR in the music recording room, and have played with / tested it in various ways.

Your question however, is "how long is a piece of string"... as I see it anyway.  Even just saying an 11GB load... that is easy on one machine, BUT depending on your interface (internal on mac is MUCH better than external - although TB / PCIe boxes will change that!) and of course plugin / VI usage can change everything.

Every machine I have ever had I have maxed out.  You just work within the limitations presented to you.

Personally, I'm looking into going the other direction - setting up a number of low cost machines that can be added to easily in the future if necessary.  Small and light mac mini's which make for very easy portability. 

New mac pro's are a while off yet.  SB "E" is looking like november, so I don't see the new mac pro coming before then.   It WILL be interesting to see what it is capable of - and if it indeed gets put in a 3RU case as rumoured.  Still, I can fit 6 mac minis in a 3RU case, all in under 10KG...  worth considering I think.  The the idea of VEP5 running virtual effects racks is even more interesting when coupled with a scalable system.

All in one is great in theory, but I personally still think the idea of "scalable" systems will be with us for some time (at least for the life of a new system say.... peering into the crystal ball is still murky... but the current INTEL roadmap offers some interesting bits of information that show what workstations 3 years down the track will be like.  I am personally excited, but then again, am always excited about tech. :)

Brendan.

Hey all - thanks for the replys.

I have turned OFF multiproc in kontakt, and left it ON in Nuendo.  I've also shifted everything into a single VEP instance in nuendo, telling it to use 8 cores, and just using loads of midi channels so I can use many instruments inside the single instance.

This seems to have had a remarkable effect (positive) with my system.

I'm running a 64bit kernal, nuendo is obviously still running 32bit.  I have kontakt 64bit AU running inside VEP, but still with the memory server on... I'll attempt to turn it off AFTER i render out the current episode I'm working on.

I want to get further into this - and will in a few days.  Deadlines.  But your advice and discussion has helped me get out of jail at least for today.

Hopefully this helps others too!

Cheers, Brendan.

Sorry - just working out the intricacies of your forum system (that I love - just had the wrong editor selected for a while there...)

TAGS! Nice.

B.

Hi all - am fairly new around these forums, but have read where necessary. I've been over @ nuendo.com and associated forums for a good 10 years... and have a reasonable technical grounding in DAW use.

Anyway - in the last 2 months, I've taken the plunge and added VEPro to my system. 2 reasons mainly - to access more memory (nuendo is running 32bit on mac) and also to give me the possibility of using slave machines if I need to. I *don't* really want to, but will see.
So - I've experimented with all sorts of settings, and can't seem to come up with anything that is working brilliantly, and was hoping other users here might be able to help with what I should be looking out for. I'll let you know how I've got my system set up right now, and then maybe if you want to tell me either settings that are incorrect, or prefs, or even the entire setup...

I have 16GB ram in this particular system (2008 mac pro 2x4 core, no hyperthreading)OSX 10.6.6, blackmagic intensity for video.

Nuendo 5.1 1

VEPro Server 64bit server hosting 2 active instances.

Instance 1 - Spectrasonics (Omnisphere, Stylus and Trillian). Not a lot going on in here - I have used sessions with 6 instances of omnisphere, and 2 each of trillian and stylus with no issue. I don't think its a spectrasonics problem! (Relief!)

Instance 2 - Native Instruments. 2xBattery (currently empty) and 4x Kontakt (with only 1.3GB loaded in the kontakt memory server for the moment - it will expand!)

My buffers are at 512, which is far from acceptable, but thats the way it goes on this machine. (Metric Halo 2882 interface)

VEPro Server Prefs : Multithreading (4 cores per instance)
Audio ports : 16 per instance
VST Midi ports : 8 per instance (Im using VST3...)

It is perhaps the Kontakt prefs that are causing me the most concern (but I could be barking up the wrong tree...)
Engine prefs : CPU overload protection : off
Multiproc support (AU-plugin) - 8 cores. (IS THIS CORRECT?) Memory : Override Instruments preload size : 240KB. Memory Server is on, and set to Automatic.

Nuendo has buffer setting for VEPro as 1 buffer. (almost unplayable, given 512 buffers inside nuendo, but hey!) I get audio dropouts in VERY simple sessions (compared to what I have run in the past - but in the past, kontakt use has been minimal inside VEPro. I'm now starting to lean on it a little more.

The dropouts started when having LESS than 16 instruments open, 8 of those "infinity samples" for a drum set. The dropouts might only be .5 sec, but will occur when just playing back, or even recording a bit of audio (like guitar etc.) This has only started since using Kontakt more in VEPro.

Drive setup is fine (4xdrives...1 system, 1 (WD 2TB black) for audio, 1 WD 1.5TB black for samples, and a WD Green for backup)
I have tried increasing nuendo buffer setting to 1024, and the dropouts still occured.
ASIO does not appear to be peaking out. CPU usage is low (<30% in playback) and ram usage is less than 40% in this session. Nuendo prefs are : Buffers 512, Audio priority boost, Disk preload 4 secs, Multi proc turned ON and adjust for record latency turned on.

Am I missing any variables (there are enough of them!)
Any thoughts on where I should go fishing for a solution would be greatly appreciated!

Cheers, Brendan.