Thanks JWL, Stevsong, et. al. After reading all of your comments and some additional research, I have decided to go with eSATA storage. Will be purchasing a for a RAID 0 solution.

Thanks hermitage59. I did read the posts I could find. They seems mostly theoretical and I was looking for hands-on experience streaming from external drives through various interfaces. I was looking to USB, of course, because all my PCs have that interface.

Dave TubaKing - "I use an external USB2 drive in conjunction with an internal SATA drive. I have had no problems at all." Good news. I'll give the USB interface a try.

While I'm here, has anyone had any luck with VI on a laptop using an internal 5400 RMP drive?

Thanks to both of you. I'll report back in the days to come with any status I might have.

I am soon to receive SE VI. I want to load the samples on an external USB 2.0 drive. Will I get the needed streaming performance with the samples on such a drive i.e. not an internal drive i.e. is USB 2.0 interface fast enough?

Thanks

Thanks Paul.

I have been out-of-touch with this forum for many many month and wanted to get caught up.

Given that VSL has a new engine, V.I., will they still produce/develop libraries for GS or do they plan to phase out all non-V.I. formats.

Can existing GS sample, First Editions for example, be played with V.I.?

Thanks much,

I have simular result running 5 GPluse instances with max CPU usage at 45% on a P4, 2.4 GHz, 800 MHz FSB.

Tascam is now shipping to dealers and the customers who have already pre-ordered. September 7th is for all others.

Dave,

How is Kevin and your GS3 Mastery Tutorial coming along? Fell free not to give an absolute release date

Opps! When I was writing this I was thinking about maintaining velocity for non-legato samples in order to get better legato not legato samples. Thanks for pointing that out.

On these same lines though, is VSL planning on supplying/selling .art files for GS 3.0 users that combine dynamic legato samples into one .gsp so we can have velocity layered legato?

Tom,
Make certain the velocities of the legato note groups are the same or within the same range so they play the same legato sample. When, for example, you go from a softer to a louder velocity layer in the same legato group, it sounds abrupt.

Right, the latest driver, 6.08, does break GSIF-1. I had to revert to version 6.04 of the Echo driver. This problem does not occur for everyone though. Hopefully they will release their GSIF-2 driver version soon.
http://www.echoaudio.com/Downloads/Archived_Drivers.php

While I have multiple drives on all my machines, with the OS/Application on one and samples on the others, I have often wondered if there really is a performance gain with the split. The basic idea of separating OS/App and samples is, as I understand it, the claimed competition for HD resources. If there is competition it would mean that the OS or GS goes to disk to get data other than samples during runtime. But, I wonder, what else would they be reading other than samples? Aren't the programs 100% loaded into RAM when they startup? Since I can't see my PC and drive lights from my sitting position, I have never checked this out. Does anyone have an opinion on this i.e. during runtime of GS, there are disk accesses other than for retrieving samples?

While I use to build my own PCs - a great experience -, I now, for my last 4 computers, have purchased from Dell. All of these pCs have been able to run GS without any problems and with maximum poly. I use Echo and RME audio cards. Dells also have good enough power supplies to handle at least three HDs in my experiences. Their inexpensive too. Just don't purchase RAM from Dell since they really mark of the price. Dell Small buisiness ususlly have the best prices.

I use the foam that came inside my FE Cube and Preformance Set boxes to decouple my monitors from the shelves they sit on. Yet another reason to buy VSL.

It is true that you want mutliple PC for VSL but, on the other hand, I used to run GS on the same machine as my sequencers with good results. I did run into performance problems under heavy loaded situations but you can still get a lot of work out of that sequencing PC since sequencing is only a moderate load on a PC. The extra performance is there if you want to use it.

There-in lies the key to the discussion - license. By purchasing a license we accept all of the restriction set by the licensing agreement.

Hmm, a trick ha? I know! He didn't write the score - you ghost wrote it, pre-incarnation, so he could finish ghost writing the score to Pillow Talk?

Here's a nice timeline for important events and people in electronic music.
http://www.indiana.edu/~emusic/elechist.htm

Maybe Delia is not a recognized name because she was creating musique concrete after those technique were no longer considered revolutionary and synthesis was coming onto the scene?

Evan,
I have the full First Edition, which I believe you also have. As far as FE vs. the PE, what are some of the first things that come to mind when you think about how glad you are to have the PE . I do like my first edition - a lot. Thanks.

Craig Duke

Right. There are at least three ways to work at the from the piano. 1) to make a piano sketch possibly including some orchestral direction and later orchestrate it, 2) use the piano for sound and write to a score and 3) play into a sequencer (a score of clips and pianos roll, not notes) - which uses a piano KB but sample sounds. In music school I was taught with the first two approaches - so many year ago.

I take the first and the third approach now. When I start with a sketch, I'm more organized, better know where I’m going, I can see the harmonies and can better see hidden relationships. As for the third approach, it make me compose more orchestrationally in some ways, I never know where I'm going (good and bad) but I lose a lot of visibility into the music because of the notation - or lack thereof, and it's harder to apply techniques (for me) since I cannot see all of the notes. I am trying to get back to sketching more though. Since I don't do this for a living I have less discipline than I should have. (hope I'm not getting too OT here).

As for Nadia Boulangier - wow. What was her secret? The number of 20th century composer she touched and taught is amazing. I've always wanted to read a biography of her since her name always pops up in composer biographies I read. One of my old composition teachers studied from her as I recal. Found this short list of her students: http://www.nadiaboulanger.org/nb/amstudents.html

The sound Le Sacre has always amazing me. I've listened to a lot of 20th century orchestral music but with Le Sacre, its almost as if an alien from an advanced culture came to earth and composed it. As a kid, I imagined it as some exotic creature not as sections of an orchestra playing together. I've since learned to keep that to myself when in the company of medical professionals []

I would add Stravinsky as one of the Great Orchestrator. Aaron Copland also composed at the piano.

Nick and others with 10,000 RPM drives,
Please give us a report on the poly and performance you get when you migrate to 3.0 (Orchestra) . Many of us are anxious to see what kind of performance you get.

Mattias,
Good point. So what are some things that can be done to minimize the use of kernel memory? I would imagine there are a lot of OS services and drivers that get loaded a startup that allocate kernel memory. I wonder if this could be one of the differences between XP and W2k, that is, W2K consumes more kernel memory (at least in my case, GS gets more memory under XP than W2k).

This company is selling GS for a low price: http://www.compumusic.com/Browse.aspx?category=Software\\Samplers\
Also check out the new upgrade info as Tascam. $50 upgrade to 3.0 Orchestra from a recent purchase of GS 2.5 160. So, $400 for 160 and Orchestra. Some companies may negotiate on 2.5 since it is a short lived product. It's worth a try.
http://www.nemesysmusic.com/pricing.php

Good luck. If you find a better price, let us know.