NI should probably include this video on their website.....that's how good it is. Thanks for sharing your knowledge and insights with us Steve. All the best!
Wow. This very intense and deep. I should make some free time and make a coffee and setup everything and learn side by side. Great contribution Steve. Thanks.
Thanks for the excellent video and the valuable information. This answers so many of the questions I've had for a long time concerning Kontakt RAM and disc usage/management. Kudos!
And the cool thing, as old as this video is, the info is just as relevant in 2023 as it was in 2016 when it came out. I should make a slight update video because some of my conclusions have changed slightly, (not much, just a little as computers have advanced - more RAM, faster drives, and better CPUs, plus more advanced sample libraries, which affects how I might set some of Kontakt's prefs).
awesome Steve! thanks! was having problems with notes cutting off... when I realized disk % was getting red right when notes were cutting off and with ssd drives and all!! didn't know what to do about it until... I watched this video and adjusted the Instrument Preload Buffer! solved! No issues about memory in my system... I have same computer here 2012... 2 X 3.48 s but with 96 gigs of ram so... I should be ok now... thanks again Steve!
Thanks Steve for this clear and Informative housekeeping video. I have a much small setup than you and using a PC, but it's given me places to look and keep in mind when I use Kontakt and my EW libraries.
Flipppin' Heck. You nailed it Steve. I will be watching this again and again, to hone down my system. Thanks for your research and communication. So much!
Oh man, I just discovered your channel. I also just purchased VSL 7 and also upgraded to Kontakt 6... in your description you mentioned you will do an updated version of this video with the latest versions of the products I mentioned. I’d appreciate it a lot! Like I said, I just discovered your channel. Will look around more to see what you do... Cheers man!
That was a fascinating video. So many things I did not know about Kontakt. I have 48GBs of RAM and 2 X 2TB SSDs but still have trouble with Kontakt. I have been researching how to make it run better. I am glad I found this video. I'm keen to fire up Logic & Kontakt and make some music. Thanks and I wouldn't mind a part 2.
Francis Srečko Fabian Glad it helped. I saved a few extra tips for a part 2. Depending on the size of your template, and which CPU you have, consider upgrading to 64GBs of RAM or more when you get a few extra bucks. If you’re libraries have multiple mic positions and many articulations, part 2 will be for you.
Thanks for your efforts and creating these great tutorials, explaining the combined setup in Kontakt and Vienna Ensemble Pro, aiming for CPU and RAM optimization in DAW template design. Wonderful overview and demonstration of the most important performance aspects. Donation rightly deserved. Looking forward to updates and new content.
Know this is older but it helps. Also, some libraries that have portamento available as a low velocity articulation can save you a ton of cpu if you turn it off.
Great video Steve! Also of note is for folks to disable their Wi-Fi when using their DAWS. It helps to preserve CPU. Love your work man, Hot band too! Keep real music alive!
Kevin Grady Thank you very much Kevin. Great advise. I'll add to Kevin's tip that turning off User processes that take up a higher than average amount of CPU cycles is a very good idea for users of MacBooks and other single 4-core computers. Third party extensions (especially ones added to the menu bar in macOS) generally take up more User cycles than anything else and can easily be turned off. Also, web browsers are the worst if you have TH-cam pages or other media sites open because the browser multithreads like crazy.
Totally took your advice, and got a project I was working on that was like 28GB of ram down to like 8GB and now every time it loads, it STAYS at 8GB. I don't wanna jinx it but... I think this really solved the problem because before- even with SSDs, I was getting drops. Thank you so much!
Excellent. Glad to hear it. One thing, since I made the video more libs have come out with multiple mic positions. If you have libs like this and you use the extra mic positions, (spitfire, Orchestral Tools, etc...), turn on Multiprocessor Support on to the total amount of physical and virtual cores/threads you have. If you have an 8 core i7 for example, that has 8 physical + 8 virtual cores for 16. Turn Kontakt on 14 or 16. With multiple mic positions the voice count jumps up much higher and Kontakt’s internal engine just can’t handle it very well, (that’s just an indispensable fact). I’ll try and get a video out before the end of the year with the results of all the testing I’ve done the last few years.
@@SteveSteeleSoundSymphony interesting!! Wait so if my computer has 8 cores- it's a 2013 trash can.... I set it at 8 core or 16 cores? 🙃🙃 Thank you again!
@@TravisLohmannMusic 16. You’ve got 8 physical cores + 8 virtual threads, which is also called 16 threads, (a term that’s accurate but somewhat misused). Set it on 14 or 16 and leave it. The people who say that the host, in this case VEP or DP manages Kontakt’s cores are wrong. Only turn it off if it causes crashes, although that’s unlikely. It’s more likely you’ll need it with modern libraries. Enjoy! Oh, and look out for some great content on my channel in December!
@@SteveSteeleSoundSymphony thank you so much. And within Logic itself.... do i keep the processing threads to 'Auto' and the Multithreading to 'Playback and Live'
@@TravisLohmannMusic Yes, that’s right. Although I use Digital Performer more than Logic, but when I do use Logic I set the processing threads near the highest number or Auto and Multithreading changes depending on what I’m doing. If I’m mixing then I set it for playback. If I am tracking and listening an orchestral mock up then I set it for Live and Playback.
Dude love your vides but you gotta do something about that compression of your voice. I cant stand listening to your saliva every single sec. Drives me crazy :D
I understand. Your wish is my command. I just bought iZotope RX6 Standard (with Mouth De-Click and other lip smack and moisture sound clean up modules that work excellently). I've been using a headset mic because it's so much easier to use than any other (except a lavaliere which I don't own), but it picks up a lot of mouth noises. So, I'm now using a very high end studio condenser (a FET 47 type). The new voiceover is sublime. A new video on the iPad Pro vs the Macbook will be the first one will these upgrades. A dynamic would be best (RE20), but don't have the money for one right now. Anyway, all my future vids will be CLEAN!. You could pitch in a full bucks on my Patreon page to help offset the cost. Wink wink:) www.patreon.com/user?u=3793454 Thanks for taking the time to express your opinion.
Music by Giovanni Rotondo Thanks! I’ve been saying for awhile now that I’d make a part 2, but I’m finally working on it now. I’ve been waiting for technology to catch up so everyone can use the advanced features of Kontakt properly. I think it will pretty much be the final word on Kontakt 5. I’m including all the good stuff in this one. Will be out within a month or two at the most.
Wow! your narrator is very clear even english is not my native it will be a perfect if you do some music theory especially in orchestration scoring music. with that clear narrator and easy to understand.
Great Video Steve. The tweaks I've really been thinking about as I'm slowly replacing some of my Play (East West) Instruments for Spitfire Instruments at a hgher sample rate.
Benjamin Marcucci You’re welcome. I’ll have a major Vienna Ensemble Pro video out soon that shows many ways of taking advantage of Spitfire’s UACC within a DAW’s template.
We're almost on the same setup, but If you could make a video on how do you set up your FinaleScore writing soft (rewiring ? ) with DP 9.... I'll be very glad to you. Thanks.
I could throw that in one of my next videos. There's not much to it, except for the best way to integrate it into the workflow. And it seems to be stable which is good. I can't get Notion to not crash with ReWire turned on. When Finale was asking users what features they wanted to see in this last release I yelled, "ReWire", and I was blown away that they actually added it. I'm really glad they did. Makes using Finale as DP's score editor a breeze and my life much easier.
I was on Sibelius, VEP & PT (for Avid PT compatibility, ( not true, but that's what I use to answer when someone ask me: Why? :) )), but I really want to come back to Finale. Now the final step. I'll try the demo to see if I can arrange it in a efficient workflow ( for me). I use to work not so much with tempo track ( conductor trk ) and I'm afraid I do need to change this bad habit.
+fabricks01 Basically you'll turn on ReWire in Finale. Quit Finale. Launch VEP, then your DAW then Finale. Finale will use VEP to host your sample libraries, but VEP's audio is sent back to Final, obviously. And because Finale on Mac uses AU (darn it! - no MAS, no VST3), you'll needs to use the Event Input for extra MIDI ports. Once Finale and VEP are all ready, set up as many stereo AUXs or Audio Tracks in your DAW as you need for each channel/Instrument/stave that you have in Finale (Command-K) brings up the score manager that will help you arrange all of this), then point and input those channels to those AUX or Audio channels you created in your DAW. That's it. I'll get back with you when I'm at my studio.
When you discuss the section about resetting markers, you missed the part where you will also purge any of the round robin samples that weren't triggered since your first playback. So, common practice would be to playback a few times before updating your sample pool and printing stems.
Thanks for your comment. But I purposely left it out of this video and several additional great tips for an upcoming part 2 video because many companies handle round robins, release samples, piano half pedaling samples and other additional samples used for realism (which i consider all to be the same topic), quite differently so that it really requires it's own video. Unless you don't want to hear RRs. However, my personal opinion is that except for some libs like Spitfire, OT, and Sonicculture and maybe some piano libs, I don't care much about purging round robins. I might just do a global purge of an entire Kontakt instance and save it that way for loading, while I choose reset markers/update sample pool on the other instances. That way I can knock it out all in one pass and let those libraries load empty. But you're right, it's a topic for discussion. Again thanks for commenting. Btw, part 2 is due in a couple of weeks. Thanks.
It's coming together. Really. I've been busy setting up a bunch of template lately. But it's given more ideas for a more complete video. I don't think there will be a stone left unturned. We'll see soon.
Do you use your template fairly often on gigs? I've come to find that I spend hours and hours on building a template only to find it doesn't work for the job I get. I end up scrapping a bunch of elements of it. Also, STEMS tend to change from gig to gig. It all depends on your mixing engineer and how much is recorded and how much will be samples.
Great video! One question -- You suggested emptying the database, but you didn't explain the best way to do this. Could you briefly say how this should be done? Thanks!
richard emmet Open Kontakt's Preferences. Go to the Database menu. If there are any items in the Database window, select them all and click Remove. Close the Preferences window. You'll have to do this for the Standalone and each plugin type (AU, VST, etc..), individually. That's it. Glad you found the video helpful!
Excellent Job Steve. This is really helpful and I will try out all the tricks when I get home :) I have used sudo purge before, as I work in IT so I am ok doing all that ;) But the multi-core and all that stuff was really helpful. Brilliant video and thanks a million :D Just one more thing. If I have all my instruments setup in single instances of VEP, so I have about 50 tabs, how I would I distribute that over a quad i7 would you think? One thread or each? or two... Ok on my Mac Pro as it is a 12-Core same as yours though :)
You have one instance with 50 channels? If VEP6 sees 8 cores set it on 6, if it sees 4 set it on 2. And, just as a reminder VEP6 now let's you set the thread count for each tabbed instances independently. VSL says that one instance is more efficient than several, but most of their videos show multiple instances. IMO, when using either DP (MAS) or Cubase (VST3) on a Xeon based machine you can get away with almost anything. Only Logic users using the AU version of VEP have to use a little trial and error. Anyway, sounds like you've got it covered. Glad I could help.
Well, I haven't tried the 16 Port Multiport Template Song for Logic X PRO 10.1 so maybe the issues with the AU version of VEP6 are really history. Either way I'm glad each of the three DAWs (and Pro Tools) have their own native version of VEP. The Event Input used to really be such a pain. I still use it with Finale but it doesn't have to handle much.
I am not using one tab. As I am using Logic I have one instance of PLAY/Kontakt in each tab. So I have 50 instances of PLAy for my Hollywood Orchestra Diamond setup. And then on the Mac side I am using a mixture of Kontakt/PLAY and Synths. This is one of the reasons I was thinking about moving over to DP permanently. I really like the earch feature as well, for slimming down larger templates :D
Sadly the multiport issue is still there. VSL had said they tried out the feature, but Apple have not built the system correctly to produce the desired results yet. Who knows maybe it will come with Sierra or the next update Logic put out shortly after the macOS launch.
+Christopher Thake Good luck waiting on Apple. I looked at the developer page for AU and they've hardly done anything over the last 10 years or so. I can tell you that Digital Performer works great with VEP. The MAS version is excellent. And because DP is always in multitimbral mode, and the MIDI tracks don't hold VIs, DP takes very little CPU. I don't want to tell anyone what DAW to use. But I will say that DP and VEP seem like their made for each other. Very smooth. Just my opinion. You could actually use both DP and Logic then VEP, with DP as a ReWire master. I've done that before because I do like Logic for some things like synths, etc...
Hello I have recently purchased a dell R610 server to use as a slave it has 96 gigs of ram. Has 2 intel Xeon 5650 2.66ghz 6 core processors (which give me 24 threads in VEPro) The master computer is running cubase pro 9.5 And is an dual 8 core 2.93 with 48 gigs of ram. Ssd system drive and ssd sample drives. I used to run VEPro and cubase on one machine. I now have the server and Mac connected with cat6 Ethernet via a gigabit switcher. My template is very large has close to 30 instances of vep. Housing many kontakt instruments. And two instances that run about 3 omnisphere 2. I have been testing it out and I am here what sounds like the cpu is maxing out even when just triggering one midi track. but when I watch task manager on pc it is low only at 30 percent. I think I was getting better performance running all on one machine. Is there something else this can be?
Sorry I'm just now replying. For some reason your comment got held for review and I just now saw it. I need more information before I can help you. 1). All the buffer settings across your system need to be set in accordance with each other. 2). You can run VE Pro on you Host and Slave. That's what I do. 3). I need to know more about your libraries and exactly how you have them laid out across the instances. 30 instances is A LOT! Why so many? You can use a CC to disable channels and instances that you aren't using to save on CPU and RAM resources. I run no more than 8 instances and usually 6 or 7. 4). There's so much that goes into a balanced system. Go to my website and email me. I'll reply with an email address. Send me a short screen movie of you setup, and I'll take a look.
cecilia rodriguez On a Mac, (can't help you if you have Windows but there should be a similar app and command), look in the folders Applications/Utilities/ then find and open Terminal. Purge is done there not in your DAW. Type "sudo purge" (no quotes). It will ask you for your user password. Before you do, open the Activity Monitor app which is also in the Utilities folder. Click the memory tab. Watch the area at the bottom where it says Total Memory, Cached Memory, etc.. As you type in you password into Terminal keep an eye on the Cached Memory and see how much is purged. It may drop 5GBs to 15GBs depending on your system and if you've been opening and closing apps. You might notice substantial savings. If you just turned on your computer, you won't. For Macs with low memory you want to eliminate Cached memory when using Cubase or any other DAW. Keep the Terminal app open in another desktop space (click on the green button st the top left of the Terminal and Activity Monitor windows and they'll go full screen in their own spaces! Easy. When VEP is running and it's loaded with samples, that's the Cached memory for VEP. Although not as helpful in that situation it might really help you in critical situations. Kontakt, Play and Vienna Instruments Pro will reload samples when it needs them. Even with 64GBs and 96GBs of ram in my Mac Pros I still purge almost daily during seasons.
That's a really great tutorial. Currently using multiple instances on 2 slaves and the whole setup is struggling. Gonna try the 1 instance way instead. Also, what's the little tool name you are using to monitor your memory in the taskbar? Thanks for sharing this. Really helpfull.
iStats Menu. It's on the App Store. I only use the memory and CPU sensor temp functions, whereas most people seem to leave most of it on. The only features I find necessary are the memory percentage, and the CPU temps (with fan controls). When the CPU temps are getting high I turn all the fans on full blast for a minute or two and everything cools down to startup temps, including the m.2 drives (which slow down as they overheat). Hope that helps.
Hey Steve, I watched many many video till now about optimisation etc... but one of the best deep details information and understandable video. Great thanks about it. If suitable for you may i ask something about hardware of software ?
Thank you. Now i am already working on single Pc ( Asus Rampage V extreme motherboard-Intel i7-5960x procc.- 64 Gb 2800mhz Corsair Dominator Memory- 4 Tb samsung SSD etc... Main host win10 pro and C 2TB Samsung Evo, Daw Cubase 9 pro, mixing protools 12.8, arranging specially high-end kontakt libraries + EWQL composer cloud plus member and many other high-end libraries... All is latest updates ready.I can explain my process: EWQL set in SSD libraries, Kontakt %30 inside of SSD %70 16 TB G-technologhy Raid0 HDD. I did batch resave %90 libraries but i am not save )) I am adding for each single instruments "one insturments track on cubase" . I've never use midi track or etc. I'm not set any templates for arranging on cubase. I mean each project ican work different instruments from several libraries.Of course i've not enough SSD or memory. Sometimes system specially memory and disk so slow working. Someone suggest disable track one of the best option but if i want to hear at the same tiime all tracks but hardware not enough... I will try to use " Render in Place " convert instruments track to audio and disable instruments track and i can listen my partion and i can continue project... Bye the way if i am working just vst instruments and more than 250 track orchestral music, if not enough information for you please ask me more ... Main question hardware how could be better ? Q1:Do i need multiple computer and VEP ? If yes 2 or more ? which proccecors, motherboard, memory ? Q2: Dual processor must be or high-end single processor enough for me ? Q3: Vienna Instruments pro working just vienna seris they told me that kontakt or other libraries not support. But your video if i right you are using with kontakt ? Take care...
Onur Eltutmaz Onur, I'm sorry I didn't reply. My TH-cam comments are getting sent to different email boxes and sometimes they get routed to cyber oblivion. Did you still want me to answer your questions? Again, my apologizes.
Steve Steele hi, thank you for your kindly response. Yes I need advice for 1 master 2 slave computer with VEpro6...i have to work on windows this is for your info. I need any advice about hardware specially dual Xeon ' motherboard ram etc... thank you. If I can reach more suitable platform please inform me
Amazing video! I have exactly the specs you gave in your example, 3.4ghz quad-core i7, 32gb RAM, 2 internal SSD with all my libraries. I'm on Yosemite, I do lots of film scoring (DP user as yourself and proud of it) and also write epic stuff for TV, so sessions can get pretty big. I sometimes also use a hackintosh with VEP but I try to make it work mostly with my iMac, so my following questions are considering my iMac alone: 1- Should I use 108kb as a starting point (as you suggested in the video) and just see how my computer performs? For example, should I open a usually problematic large session and test it with that setting? 2- If any adjustments need to be done, how can I decide if I go left or right? Considering my specs, should I only go more and more to the right? 3- What's a good stopping point? At what point should I know that's the best possible place for that setting to be? What's a good reference? THANKS A LOT!!
MILO COELLO Sorry for the slow reply. Your post got sent to the wrong inbox. So, the goal in adjusting the buffer preload setting is to get the best performance balance between your CPU, the SSDs and the RAM. The problem occurs because Kontakt loads some, but not all, of the samples into RAM while keeping the rest on the SSDs, (which is called DFD). This is a bit of a leftover from the 32-bit days. Hopefully Kontakt 6 will include simple modern controls for allowing systems with 96 or 128GBs of RAM or higher a way to bypass DFD altogether without having to go into each instrument and disabling it. But with modern systems that have a lot more RAM with 64-bit DAWs you can “preload” more of a the samples into RAM. This has two benefits. One, the samples are already in RAM and the system won’t have to rely on the SSDs to stream the samples fast enough. The other reason is that when the system has to stream samples from the SSDs it’s the CPU that has to perform that which puts more strain on the CPU. So, if you where to move the slider all the way to the right most of the samples will be loaded into RAM and the CPU won’t have to work as hard. Depending how large your template is you might be able to set it at its highest setting. Try it. Btw, I have 64GBs of RAM on one Mac Pro and 96GBs on the other Mac Pro. So I can do this with no problem. 32GBs might not quite be enough. So a good setting might be somewhere around 160KBs or so. Btw, as I mentioned earlier there’s a way to completely turn off DFD so that everything loads into RAM but I generally don’t mention this in my videos because if you don’t have enough RAM and you have a big template it can turn out to be a hassle if you’re unsure what you’re doing. It’s called Sampler mode but with 32GBs of RAM don’t use it. To answer your question. With 32GBs of RAM try to set it so that no more than 24GBs gets loaded in so that you’ll have RAM left over for the OS and so your system won’t start paging. (Look in Activity Monitor under the Memory tab at the bottom for Swap Used. If it’s using more than 0 bytes you run the risk of slowing down you’re System a lot by forcing data into Virtual Memory unnecessarily). Then if you’re following my advise about purging Kontakt, you should just make sure your CPUs aren’t overloading and that you’re not using more than 80% of the total amount of RAM and that will end up being a good balance for your system. Good luck!
Around 3 mins where you refer to the threads-per-instance you mention you're just using one instance in this example. in other videos you have more. Is it more efficient resource-wise to use multiple instances, or do you just do that to keep the sections organized and bussed separately? Thanks!
dan wool As a general rule of thumb It’s more efficient to spread out your libraries (in terms of voices and CPU usage %) across cores. However, the need to be efficient depends on how many libraries you’re hosting and what model CPU you have. Currently I’m using 6-8 instances (one for each section of the orchestra plus others), across two 12-core Mac Pros. Hope that helps.
I went ahead and organized my current largish project as you describe. I'm on one 12core MP - no slaves - but it seems extremely efficient. I think the tip about thread-distribution really helps. The project is lot less glitchy and prone to spikes than running the same project all from within DP 9.51. Plus, as I mentioned in the comments on one of your other videos, no long Save time! ...Thanks again for these videos. They're super helpful!
dan wool You’re welcome. I’ve been promising to make a part 2. However most of what I have left is situational. If you’re using Kontakt and have any multi-mic position libraries (like the Spitfire symphonic or Albion libs, or any of the OT’s Berlin Series), let me know. I have a few tips that I use in the VE Pro templates I build for people that I could share with you.
Very interesting video!! Thanks a lot! I have a question though... I can't get the multi output to work in Cubase through VEP6... I don't really understand how it works...(It works with Kontakt only though... It's just don't get the routing... Could you explain it to me? I gave a look on google but couldn't find a clear answer... Thanks a lot! Jeremie.
I'm not sure what you're trying to do. Are you trying to route MIDI or audio to, or from VEP to Cubase? Do you mean setting up multi-timbrel outputs from Cubase to VEP? Or do you mean the multi outputs from Kontakt going into VEP back too your Cubase? Tell me what you're trying to do and I'll give you a full explanation.
So Kontakt or Superior Drummer 2 in a channel in VEP, you want multiple outputs routed back to Cubase? I'll go with that. No problem. A lot of the VEP templates I build for people, and myself have this. It's a topic that's planned for my next VEP video but it seems like you could use the answer sooner than later. Could you send me an email, either through Google or via my website? I'll reply with info.
I'm curious... What is going on at 8:49 with your drives? You are peaking at 76% on DFD use even though you seem to run with maximum sample buffers and very high latency setting (1024). Is everything working like it should? I never get that kind of stuff on my much lower budget SSD setup.
MkdrNet There’s no problem here. That’s a spike that lasted a few milliseconds. That large tutti chord had to load a lot of samples from the multi-mic Spitfire Brass libraries in that very short time. It’s also early in the video. There are several steps I took and there are steps I could take to eliminate DFD spikes altogether, including using sampler mood.
That was outstanding. So i have a 24 core mac pro and i have six instances, would the optimal setting be 3 cores per instance and the set log to 4 cores which leaves 2 cores for the OS?
Ariel Mann Ah, ok. I use Digital Performer. Does Logic have a dynamic allocation setting (Logic chooses automatically)? Or does it force you to make a choice? Either way, if you're only using Logic to host the VEP server interfaces, then 4-8 cores should be fine. When you play back your Logic/VEP template watch the Activity Monitor and look at the CPU% number and thread count. Also look at Logic's CPU monitor. Starving Logic of CPU resources would be problem. If your four VEP instances are not evenly balanced, you can set the number of cores each instance uses individually under the Edit menu in Project Settings. Then give back some cores to Logic or other VEP instances. I should probably update this video and my Kontakt video. Maybe this week I'll make one that covers both and compares the performance of different thread count settings.
For guys wanting to get into making score-like music production, what would some of you more experienced guys say is needed as far as processors go these days? (Quad, 6, 8 core etc)
Frederick Kitt As many cores as possible. You’re hear some TH-camr’s say CPU speed is much more important than number of cores. For major DAWs, (Digital Performer, Cubase and Logic), Vienna Ensemble Pro and Kontakt this is absolutely wrong! These apps are very much multiprocessor aware and take advantage of sending different threads to multiple cores. 8 cores is minimum. 12-16 core is better even if they are a half a GHz slower than the 8 core. Xeons are better then i5/i7s although there are some good i7s/i9s. I use two Mac Pros with 12 core Xeons in each and 128GBs of RAM in each. I may make a cores vs speed video at some point to show once and for all that cores matter for film scoring apps.
It's better to spread instruments out over multiple instances of Kontakt than it is to load more than 5 or 6 libraries into one Kontakt channel, especially if the instruments have multiple mic positions, large numbers of layers, or your track is going to consume a large number of voices over time. By overloading a single Kontakt instance it's possible to spike a physical CPU core, which basically brings the entire system to its knees no matter how many cores you may have. Even if you have a 28/56 core Xeon, if the first CPU core spikes, the other cores can do nothing to help recover and you're system will temporarily come to a halt. Spreading Kontakt out will help assure good multithreading practices. Other sample players are starting to leave Kontakt in the dust. VSL's Synchron Player is extremely efficient. If Spitfire, Orchestral Tools and East West are successful at optimizing their sample engines, you'll see much better performance soon.
This is an old video, but currently I use macOS Activity Monitor and iStat Menus. If set up properly, iStat Menus is a must have. You can buy it on the Mac App Store and maybe from the Bjango.com website. If you buy it contact me. I'll show you the best way to configure it if you go to my website and email me.
Hey man great video! really helped me optimize my kontakt since i use it outside Reason 9 in Standalone mode. I have 24G memory and one SSD would it be best to move all my contact libraries to a separate SSD drive ? unfortunately i can use the pcie for SSD because of my UAD cards so regular sata SSD's. also what about the buffer size in kontakt ?
WHITELIONMUZIK PRODUCTIONZ Hey there. Sorry for the delay. I've been away due to the hurricane that just hit us. Yes, it would be best to store your sample libraries on a separate SSD. The access times, DFD and latency will improve. However, if you have a utility that shows you your current SSDs I/O read and write throughput, and you're not maxing out the bandwidth, you might be fine as is. If you set Kontakt's pre-load buffer size high (which will use more RAM so be careful), you might be able to load most of your library into RAM and reduce Kontakt's streaming needs. The standalone latency size? The more you raise it the longer the delay between when you play a note and when you hear it. But setting at 1024 saves a lot of CPU resources compared to lower numbers such as 128 or 64. I keep mine at 1024 because I generally don't mind the short delay. However if i was performing with Kontakt, I would set it as low as I could get away with. Are you using a Mac or PC?
Miss Controllerism It depends on the context. All things being equal I would use more instances of Kontakt so they spread threading across CPU cores. I get this question all the time and I really need to make a video about it. There's more to it than most people realize. There are other times I would load a lot of multis in a few instances of Kontakt. What are your computer(s) specs (CPU, RAM and how many SSDs)? How big is your template? What are your main libraries? If your libraries have multiple mic positions, do you only use the mix mic or do you use all of the mics (when printing stems)? For instance, if you're mocking up orchestral music what libraries do you use for your winds, brass and strings? If you can tell me this I can give you a precise answer.
I see in your VEP template you have loads of tracks in one instance and you are on a Mac. How are you doing this because (at least in Logic) there is only one Midi Port as standard. How do you get each track to have its own channel in your DAW? In Logic the only way to have independent control over track volume, FX/Bus Sends and Midi FX is using a separate Software Instrument track for each instrument which means a separate VEP instance for each track. Is this different in Digital Performer?
Yes, it's different in Digital Performer. VSL, thankfully, makes a MAS plugin version of VEP (that's DP's homegrown plugin format, although it can use AU and VST2 as well). MAS has up to 48 ports available for each instance. Cubase's VST3 has either 32 or 48. And, yes Logic has 1. I like Logic for some things, but the way Apple has ignored the AU spec in OS X over the years has been tragic. Plus, DP and VEP were made for each other, IMO.
Hey Steve Im a composer wanting to run large template sessions like this.. Im about to get a Mac Pro as an upgrade from a macbook pro.. Should I spec it out with a 3.0ghz 8 core or 2.7ghz 12 core processor? Only Ive heard a higher clock speed could be more favourable over more cores for this type of thing.. or is that bullshit. haha cheers!
Go for the 12-core. For what we're doing, the 12-core is better suited for all the multithreading that takes place in these types of templates. And load that baby up with RAM (get the large DIMMs from OWC if you can afford it- either the 16GB Modules (1866MHz) or the 32GB Modules (1333MHz). You can max out your Mac Pro at 128GBs, but somewhere between 64GBs and 96GBs should be the right balance.). Also, don't forget about hyperthreading. With a large template it's more about having more cores to process all of those Konatkt and reverb threads, then having a slightly faster CPU with, in this case, 8 less cores (4 physical and 4 virtual). The big 3 composing DAWs (Digital Performer, Cubase and Logic), plus Kontakt and Vienna Ensemble Pro are VERY good at mutilprocessing. Kontakt and VEP both have settings to manage CPU threading, but your DAW, VEP and macOS will actually take care of the multiprocessing. The virtual hyperthreading cores are seen by the apps, and they do get used but not as much as they might with other tasks (video rendering). Still, with all of the instances of Kontakt, and reverbs, etc, etc, each using up their own thread, you'll realize that 2.7GHz vs 3.0GHz isn't that much faster, but the addition of 4 physical and 4 virtual cores will more than make up for it. Bottom line, the apps we use, more often than not, benefit more from having more threads than they do a having a slightly faster single thread. Hope that settles it for you. Enjoy your new Mac Pro! Let me know how it goes.
Do you still recommend using VEPro with the V-rack feature in DP9? I always assumed that the v rack acted as DP's built in VEP. Are there instances that you would use both VEP and the v rack on projects mostly comprised of kontakt orchestral libraries? Thanks
Good question. The Vrack feature is great. But, it's not the same as VEP, because it uses DP's memory space and CPU allocation.if you've got a heavy orchestral template I recommend VEP because all of those sample libraries and instances of Kontakt (or whichever sample engine you use), will begin to bog down DP (or any DAW), at some point. My orchestral/film score template in VEP, when fully loaded takes up to 72GBs of RAM or so, before final optimization. Any DAW would freak out trying to manage that. VEP handles it with ZERO problems because it really has no other overhead, and it's well written for multicore CPU usage (so is DP, but it has a lot more responsibility). But, yes I do sometimes leave synths, piano libraries and some other sample libraries in DP or in VRacks while everything else is in VEP. Keep in mind that Vracks isn't so much DP's VEP, as it is a way to keep instruments loaded into RAM as you switch sequences (Chunks). That way, for example, if you've created a Song in DP, or used the Chunks window as a playlist in a live situation (which some users do specifically), that's where Vracks shines because it keeps VIs in RAM as the sequences switch. Hope that answers your question!
Steve Steele Nice. I've been wanting to make the switch from logic to either cubase or DP. My focus is film and video game scoring (with DP being big in the film world but cubase and logic dominating the video game world). It's a tough decision.
No reason you can't master two DAWs. I use Logic and Cubase on occasion. Although I know DP inside and out, the other two not so much but I'm functional. IMO, can't beat DP for film. The Chunks feature and it's great integration with VEP make it outstanding. Good luck moving forward.
2 questions please, 1. how do you get the percentage of your cpu on the top right corner which was showing 70 % and you brought it right down? 2. you said you were going to get into the maximum voices in kontakt, but you never spoke about it again, what exactly do we do with the voices and what does it mean? Thank you in advanced.
anton mclouglin Sorry Im just now seeing your post. It went from 70% down to 30% after going through the entire optimization process. Basically, for Kontakt, after choosing the update sample pool option. And for VI Pro, selecting optimize. Then, on a Mac, in the Terminal typing "sudo purge", Enter and password. That's clears out all unused memory. I never made a video about voices because for most people these steps are so complete that lowering voice count in unnecessary. Basically in Kontakt every instrument's preset voice count is set much higher than it needs to be just to make sure you don't run out of voices. Some sample libraries you can lower the voice count a lot, some you can't. Maybe I'll revisit this topic at some point.
I believe I was using something like Memory Diag before. Now I have iStat Menus which I highly recommend - bjango.com/apps/ Now I use that and a 2nd monitor that just displays Activity Monitor, Terminal and a loudness meter. If you’re using macOS, download Memory Diag for free on the macOS App Store or pay for iStat Menus which is on sale right now on their website for $3.99. Don’t buy iStat Menus from the App Store. On the App Store its a slightly different version. Get it from the developer.
Hi Steve! Very nice video,thanks for the tips. I am Win10 user i would like to build my machine for orchestral projects -Kontakt (now own i5 2500k 8gigs of ram) So i have a couple of questions. First of all i would like go for Ryzen 7 (8 cores 16 threads) The frequency of ram matters ? I will see any difference beetween 2400 mhz or 4000(in future after some fix on platform)? Its better to buy ssd m2 pcie nvme 960 (pro maybe) or make an raid 0 from standard ssd with dedicated pcie controler? I heard nvme get temperature and slows down badly its is true? If i get scenario with raid 0 i should buy more than 32 gigs of ram? My daw and other stuff Presonus studio one + zoom uac 2+komplete ultimate+8dio lacrimosa Thanks again for tut!:)
Here are my opinions based on experience. 1) Get as many cores as you can afford. PERIOD. Xeons are best, unless you're always single threading. But it you use a modern DAW, VEP and Konatkt, they are MADE for multiprocessor support. I know Xeons are expensive! But apps developed for Xeons (most DAWs, VEP and Kontakt) spread across the many CPU cores for best performance, and don't spike the single main core. High core count i7s are good, but you're stuck with one CPU. But to answer you're question, (even though I haven't looked into the AMD CPU, I'm sure it's great). Just do it right the first time. Get as many cores in one CPU that you can afford. Do they make a 10, 12 or 14 core that doesn't lower the GHz speed to0 much and doesn't cost a whole love more? If so, depending on money, go for the balance of cores and speed. For example an 8-core CPU (with hyper-threading), running at 3.0GHz, is about equal to a 2.65GHz 12-core. If the price of he two were the same, I'd get the 8-core maybe. (I'm a core freak). Hope that helps. 2) The speed of the RAM matter some, but not TOO much. However the difference between 2400 MHz and 4000MHz is a big leap and might really be something. Get the 4000MHz IF YOU CAN. 3) m.2 NVME 960s blow the doors off of SATA type SSDS even in the PCIe Bus. Only buy m.2 SSDs. Yes, they get hot alright. This slows down the write speed considerably but not the read speed too much. That said, 1) keep the room cool, run fans inside you computer fairly high when you don't need silence. I do, and it doesn't bother me in the slightest. When I render, I've got fans BLASTING on the CPUs and the m.2. Also, attach some small heat sinks to your m.2 chips. It's worth it! Trust me. Easy to.. Don't skimp. I have (4) ACHI Samsung SM951s in a RAID 0 in my 16-lane PCIe bus and they read at almost 6GB/s. Yes, the SIX GIGABYTES a second, or 6000 MB/s. Everything but m.2s are dead. However, (and this is tough to explain), is you have a lot of RAM, (between 48GBs and 96GBs of RAM (Yes, 16GBs is a JOKE), and you Batch Re-Save your sample library collection in Kontakt - I should make a video, (try to look it up), the load times decrease dramatically for some libs and the massive speed gains of m.2 is somewhat wasted. However, not all sample libs let you run all samples from RAM. Most ALWAYS stream from disk some. Get m.2s if you can afford it. But don't freak out if you can't. 4) Yes, m.2 get hot and slow down but mainly in writing which you won't be doing. STILL, keep them cool! 5) My policy about RAM, NEVER buy less than 48GBs (RAIDs or not). Try to get 64GBs and above. For my 12-core two Mac Pros running at 3.46GHz, I have 64GBs of RAM in each, (wish I had 88GBs), and that massive m.2 RAID 0. ZERO BOTTLENECKS. That's the key. Don't starve the CPU. Feed it and feed it fast but using.2 SSDs to load samples into lots of RAM so the the CPU just has to pull samples from RAM (which is the fastest storage on any computer). The advantage to having a lot of RAM with RAIDs is that the RAIDs will load the samples quickly into a lot of RAM. The CPUs then mostly only have to deal with the RAM (which is the fastest storage on your computer). S0, yes to "If i get scenario with raid 0 i should buy more than 32 gigs of ram?", but maybe not for the reasons you'e thinking. 6) Studio One is good and you're other stuff is decent too. For MIDi composing we don't the most high end DACs. We just want low latency (USB-C, Thunderbolt 3, etc instead of USB 2). But most of your bottlenecks will be mismatches in CPU, RAM amount and sample drives. Therefore, get the most balanced, fastest and reliable CPUs, RAM and m.2s and you will be happy for years. Maybe an 8 or 10 core, 64GBs or RAM, and a couple of 256 or 512 m.2 SSD for sample storage, plus HHDs for audio bounces and backup. That's your system! I'm still using 2009 Mac Pros (heavily modified), but they and well balanced and are monsters. Faster than most current MacBook Pros. Hope that helps! Good luck! Sounds like you understand what you're doing. Please consider donating to my Patreon campaign (in the description). It's about to be launched. Free private one on one advice, help with template and computer setups and optimization are some of the perks. Near 24/7 support. Steve
Sorry I didn't address the Ryzen 7 CPU. That slipped by me. Sounds good. A real dual 8-core. No HT nonsense. 1) The frequency of RAM matters some yes. It depends on how big the jump is. 1066MHz to 1333MHz for example is barely measurable. But 2400 to 4000? Yeah, that will be noticeable. 2) Tough one. SATA SSDs with a hardware PCIe RAID controller is pro-level. Nothing wrong with that. The m.2 SSDs do heat up for sure. But it seems to affect write times more than read times and all you'll be doing is reading from these drives. Put four m.2s in a PCIe RAID card and stripe it, then watch them fly at 6000MB/s or more. For the heat, glue a tiny heat sink on the chip. That's what most of us are doing. I'm still running some old 2010 12-core MacPros that have 6 fans in them. I keep them turned up most of the time when I'm not tracking or doing final mixes. It keeps everything cool and it doesn't bother me at all. It probably would bother some people and would be a no no in a pro studio unless they're in an air conditioned closet (which they should be). I REALLY like the speed of the m.s SSDs so I'm ok with the heat sinks and fans. If you're not ok with that, perhaps the SATA SSDs with hardware RAID card might be best. 3) Get no less than 64GBs of RAM. Period. You'll want the headroom so that you're OS doesn't even think about paging to your boot drive. I would have 128GBs of RAM (which I can on these machines), but I'm holding off until I buy a new system. I know someone that just got a custom PC with 256GBs of RAM. It seems ridiculous but sample libraries are growing growing growing with all these mutilple mic libs.
Sam Kelly You're going to have to get the most out of your sample libraries. Maybe use some modeling VIs like PianoTEQ or WIVI. For sure though, save instruments with all of their articulations unloaded so when you open your template nothing loads into RAM until you need it. Optimize to the max. And be realistic. You're not going to be able to get lifelike mockups with 8GBs of RAM. So, don't try to go for realism. Go for good composing and orchestration. If you use Sibelius get NotePerformer for $129. It sounds great and doesn't take up much RAM. I don't know what sample libraries you use but you'll have to minimize which articulations you load. Try to make a sustain patch play all of the other articulations (staccato, legato, etc). If you're doing orchestral mainly, use cheaper lower quality libraries for instruments that aren't heard as clearly (woodwinds, cymbals, bass drum, and save the RAM for strings and horns. That's the best answer I can give you without knowing what your template is like. Good luck. Save money and buy a cheap slave Mac or PC. Look into buying a used 2009 MacPro. You can buy them for $500 and they're highly upgradeable. I use two massively upgraded 2009 MPs. But I took my time upgrading them. They're more powerful than the current trash can 12-core MacPro when you swap CPUs and add m.2 SSDs.
I have a RAID 0 of four Samsung SM951 m.2 SSDs in a PCIe carrier board. It streams (read speeds), at around 5000MB/s or more. It's actually rated at 5700MB/s but the heat slows it down a bit. If you have a Mac Pro or a PC with PCI slots, I highly recommend using ACHI m.2 SSDs in your PCIe slots for sample drives. If you have optimized Kontakt well, and you have plenty of RAM them it's not as important but the read speeds these m.2 SSDs can achieve can really help out if your sample libs are heavily relying on DFD.
As of now my libraries stream from a standard internal SATA drive. I have a MacPro (2008). 24 GB RAM. I'm running DP9.02 and Kontakt 5. For smaller sessions, the SATA is no problem. But now getting into larger arrangements, I'm finding my Processor meter in Digital Performer spiking. LASS (LA Scoring Strings) I think is the culprit. It must run heavy on the CPU. I did order a RAID housing tower for my video streaming setup but will look into an SSD rad for my sample libraries. Not gonna be cheap :) BTW, I'm @wonder from Motunation.
Hey @wonder. Motunation! I need to check in and see what's up. I haven't been around lately. What is your DP buffer set to? I'm sure you know this, but always keep it at 1024 or higher for large orchestral templates. Turn off Kontakt's Multiprocessor support and let DP and VEP handle that. Are you using the LASS ARC? LASS uses DFD a lot for its legato/port/gliss. If you're getting a big hit on the CPU when LASS is loaded in Kontakt, then try lowering the Instrument Preload Buffer Size in Kontakt to load more of LASS into RAM. That will take cycles off the CPU. The more LASS has to stream the harder the CPU has to work to make that happen. But if it's already in RAM the CPU has less work to do. Consider upgrading your RAM to 32GBs. Then configure Kontakt to make use of the extra RAM and that will take pressure off the CPU and the sample drive. I used to have a 2008 3,1 Mac Pro. It's still a strong workstation. I removed the optical drive and installed two SSDs in a RAID 0 by connecting them to the two extra SATA ports on the motherboard. If you're not using slot 2 of the PCIe bus, that could be an option for a nice m.2 SSD setup. Although slots 3 and 4 only have a 1GB/s throughput you could still install a 128GB SM951 and a carrier board for about $150 and I would guess you'd get about 900MB/s reads. The best setup is one where the CPU, the amount of RAM and the speed of the sample drives is balanced, limiting bottlenecks.
My buffer WAS 512 because I do a lot of live audio tracking. Doing this larger arrangement with MIDI, I had to move to 1024 and I turned multiprocessor support OFF after watching your video and it was a huge help. I have 1 PCIe slow used for my MOTU 2408 and I just bought a RAID enclosure with a PCIe card and will install that tomorrow for my RAID. I haven't the disks for an SSD raid but might do that as you suggested. I'm going to try the 2 bay SATA RAID for either video editing or VI libraries. Re: LASS, I'm not. I'm still on LASS 1. I do use the LPG patches, which I guess take up so much more energy than normal patches? But i do love the portamento effect so much.
LPG does require some extra work from the CPUs because of the excessive DFD between the three legato types. If LASS 1 has the ability to purge and load the port or glass samples, try switching them to Speed LT or Speed instead of DFD and see if that helps any. It will take more RAM but less CPU. Yeah, LASS has a very cool portamento sound. I really like LASS LS. I still use it all the time.
I have a piece I'm working on in logic. My session file is like 5 gigs what would cause that? I'm saving it in folder mode not package. It's all midi but I have over 30 kontakt instances open. What would cause that and is there a fix?
I don't use Logic. But in my Digital Performer project folder I also have folders for Audio Files, Bounces, Autosaves, Analysis Files and Undo. Those first three can grow quite large as DP autosaves and as I bounce stems. When I had Logic 9, I remember it also had similar folders. If you don't clean up your sessions they can grow to several GBs in size. Try this. Get info on the Logic project folder and see how many items are in that folder Go inside your project folder. Make sure you're in the Finder's list view. In the window, right-click or control-click and from the drop down menu choose Show View Options. Check "Size" and "Calculate All Sizes". Near the top of the window, click on the Size column. The Finder will list the size of all the files and folders from small to large, or large to small (if you click Size twice). Find which items or folders are taking up a lot of space. If it's a folder, go into that folder until you find what item or items are taking up that space. Sometimes if you save your projects incrementally like I do, (song 1, song 2, song 3, etc..), those files will add up (especially in your Project File Backups folder). Logic files store more than just MIDI data, although even a lot of them probably won't add up to 5GBs. So, more than likely there's a bounced audio file, or some other file that got saved with the Logic project files. I would also check to see if you have anything else saved in there like your VEP Server and instance data (although that defaults to the VSL Custom Data folder in Users/Shared/). If you find nothing that could be taking up that much space, use the Terminal to force the Finder to show invisible files and see if something else was placed in there. Google "macOS use the Terminal to show invisible files and folders" You'll figure it out. Let me know if that solves it.
Instances of Vienna Ensemble Pro or Kontakt? If your loading your Kontakt instances in Logic, (no VEP), load more instances of Kontakt with less instruments in each instead of one or two instances of Kontakt with a bunch of instruments loaded. Each channel in Logic (or any modern DAW) is assigned to one core of the CPU (it's actually a little more complicated than that, but I'm limited on space here). If you load one instance of Kontakt with a bunch of instruments, and conditions are right you run the risk of overloading that one core of your CPU, which in effect the same as overloading the entire CPU. You'll get pops and clicks. I'm assuming you have a 4 core i5 or i7. One core needs to be "protected" for the OS and for Logic. The best way to do this is to spread Kontakt across many channels. macOS, Logic and Kontakt will evenly spread themselves across the CPUs. As far as settings, this is a bit of a conservative guess depending on which CPU you have, but I'd start by setting Logic to 4 or 6 cores, and turn off Kontakt's Multiprocessor Support off. If you notice Kontakt clipping the CPU (the CPU display is at top right of Kontakt), try bumping Kontakt's Multiprocessor Support to 2. You can try move up from there depending on what the Activity Monitor is showing for core usage, CPU % and Threads. If you're using VEP, which is best, again load Kontakt across many channels. With your setup, try to use minimize the number of VEP instances you use. However, Logic users have the problem that AU only supports one MIDI port (and you have to use the Event Input plugin which is less efficient). I use Digital Performer, which can access up to 48 MIDI ports, which changes how I would do this. Anyway, depending on how many cores your CPU has (VEP counts physical and virtual cores, so a 4 core i7 has 4 more virtual cores for a total of 8 cores), balance the load across that number. For example, for 8 total cores (assuming you put all of your Kontakt instances in VEP and nothing in Logic), set VEP to 6 cores, Kontakt to off, and Logic to 4 cores. I know that adds up to more than 8 cores, but macOS can compensate for that. That's a starting point. To give you more precise settings I would need to know more about the template size and the libraries your using. I might lower core settings on VEP and set Kontakt's Multiprocessor Support to 4 cores in one scenario. Just remember that for each instance of VEP you add you need to half the number of threads used by VEP. Try those suggestions and get back with me. I'm going to post a new video with some more DAW/VEP/Kontakt setup and core setting tips soon. Also I'm about to announce that I'm offering a remote template setup service. Basically, you'd share your screen with me, and I'd help you set up your Logic and VEP template, then precisely optimize the settings for your setup.
WAW, thank you for writing all this.. much appreciated! I'm working on i7 2.5 and i'm using all sorts plugins and sample libraries including: EWQL Hollywood Strings+Brass, SP Albions + London Contemp. Str. and many more I've been experimenting with all sorts of settings but still cannot find the sweet spot :( LPX has an Auto option setting for CPU cores, I've been trying out ur suggestions with 4 -8 cores setting but don't seem to notice any difference.
NEPSOUND Without seeing your template and Logic setup. 1) Always set your buffer as high as it will go, (1024 or 2048). 2) Make sure you're RAM is not being filled up forcing the OS to use it's Virtual Memory- that is deadly). 3) Cut corners where you can. Don't use too many reverbs when you may only need 1, 2 or 3). 4) Unload or purge unused microphones in libraries like Spitfire and CS2. 5) is your OS and samples on the same 512GB SSD? If so, you're asking the OS to do way too much. When that happens it's your OS and CPU that are wasting cycles trying to make it all work. 6) don't use unnecessary instruments. (First chair string players for full sections at this point). 7) Save a copy of your instruments and multis with articulations turned off so they don't take up RAM as you load them. 8) Bounce stems separately and disable the stems not being used during the bounce. 9) When using VEP, use Logic for nothing other than MIDI tracks and returns with a final reverb and master bus. 10) With 16GBs of RAM you're going to have to optimize Kontakt before stems. 11) when working on a section, say the strings, disable the woods and brass in VEP. If you must here the other sections do a quick bounce of them before you disable them. 12) If you use MIR turn the cache down and set the buffer to 0. 13) you don't need every mic one to hear awesome multimic'd libraries at the composing stage. Save those room and stage mics for separate stems. Then import the string mics (close, room and stage), the brass, woodwind and percussion multimics don't need to be turned on until you bounce to stems. Then when Logic is your mixing host for mic stems you can hear them then. 14) use Ensemble patches when separate string patches take up to much memory. I used to use only a piano sample to compose entire parts, or ensemble patches. Then I would orchestra from there. 15) make sure that your CPU, SSDs and RAM are equally taking hits. This is key. Remember you settings in Kontakt, VEP and Logic make a big difference. For instance. Tell Kontakt to kill voices if you're in a pinch. Where is your CPU spiking? Logic, Kontakt or the activity monitor?
This is very informative. Thank you very much. I was wondering, if you know how well building an orchestral template in Ableton Live will fare with Kontakt? , I've tried and tried again with some success here and there. I'm working from a PC platform, Windows 10 64-bit - was wondering if you have a few tips for composers in a similar position as I.
Steve Steele I don't have VE Pro, but have heard many good things about it. Is it the better solution for orchestral templates within Live? I'm trying to Kontakt and it's some Komplete 11 libraries. I have a copy of Studio One Pro also if that's a better option in your opinion. Can't quite justify the jump to Cubase for now (which is my preference compared to Logic) since I only do orchestral stuff sometimes. But yeah, would appreciate the good workflow if I can get it running it Live. Currently having a conversation with another fellow TH-camr and he mentioned Live only used one thread (of a core) for every MIDI track, so using Kontakt Multis in Live is not quite efficient (still looking up on that).
Bryan D Logic is macOS only, unless you’re thinking about getting a Mac that wouldn’t be an option for you. However, by a fairly large margin, the two most feature rich and efficient DAW’s for MIDI orchestration are Cubase and Digital Performer (both have Windows and Mac versions). Digital Performer has a few great features that Cubase doesn’t have (Chunks, sample accurate video sync, clippings and DP’s workspace is generally a version ahead of Cubase’s) , and Cubase has a few great features that DP doesn’t have, (Expression Maps, Note Expression, true VCA faders, etc..). However both DP and Cubase both have something that others don’t that keeps them ahead of the pack when used with VE Pro. DP’s MAS plug-in format supports up to 48 midi ports, and Cubase’s VST 3 supports up to 48 midi ports. Any DAW that relies on the Audio Units or VST 2 plug-in formats only supports 1 midi port. There is a workaround for this, but it’s not optimal. I can explain more if you want. Also, both DP and Cubase fully support multithreading (this is a full conversation all by itself but I’d be glad to explain the “one channel is one thread” issue). I use DP personally, but I like Cubase just the same. I’d be happy with either one. The Chunks feature in DP was the difference. If you’re going to build a large orchestral template you really need VE Pro because it can host huge sample library templates. My VE Pro template loads up to 100GBs of samples into RAM at one time and VE Pro has no stability problems or playback problems. Most DAWs run into CPU or buffer loading problems at around 30GBs or so (haven’t tested this in a couple of years so the number may have changed). Regardless, no DAW can handle hosting sample libraries like VE Pro. None. I’ve built a lot of film scoring and orchestral templates for Disney and other Hollywood composers and I’ve only seen four DAWs being used. Those are Digital Performer, Cubase, Logic and Pro Tools. If you’d like my advice, (depending on your budget), choose between one of those first three DAWs , get VE Pro and you’ll have a rock solid template that will be on par with anything else out there. I would also consider getting an iPad and adding TouchOSC or Lemur and possibly Metagrid (which is very nice with DP and Cubase), to your workflow. Studio One Pro is getting good pretty fast, but it’s still a few generations behind DP and Cubase. But that doesn’t mean you couldn’t use it by any means. I own a copy and I’ve worked with it. It’s very similar to Cubase (as you know). I’m sure you could get Live to work, but Live isn’t used much in the film/orchestral world so you’ll kinda be on a island. You don’t have to ditch Live. There’s no reason you can’t use one DAW for orchestration and Live for everything else. I use two different DAWs and two different notation programs almost every day. You can also use ReWire and use Live as a slave. I sometimes use DP as a host with Finale, Notion and Logic as ReWire slaves, all while DP is connected to VE Pro. Almost anything is possible. Also, I’m getting close to launching my website store. I’m selling completely built VE Pro templates, custom TouchOSC templates, Metagrid templates, all with complete support for the more popular sample libraries built in (Spitfire’s UACC, OT’s Capsule, VSL’s VI Pro, and others..). All the buyer will have to do is launch VE Pro and their DAW and everything will load up ready to go. I’ve literally taken care of every detail. I’ll be selling the complete package for a very low price and offering custom one-off builds as well. Hope that answered some of your questions. Feel free to ask more!
Oh shoot, I almost forgot, yes Logic is Mac only. And no, I won't be switching to a Mac anytime soon. The 48 midi port workaround you're mentioning. When you say 1 midi port, you are talking about 16 channels within 1 midi port yes? With regards to the "one channel, one thread" issue; I'll be reading more on it first before I drop any questions. As far as I know, Live has multicore/multiprocessor support and it supports hyperthreading (although it's off by default and must mess around with the Options.txt file). I'll be sure to look into VE Pro as my next build when I believe I'll be going down that direction more. (Orchestral stuff I mean) Thank you for the inside info regarding the DAWs you've built templates on. I'll be sure to look into Cubase. I like how you put it, me kind of being in an island. I was following a film composer who used Live, but he switched to Cubase recently and that kind of did leave me on an island. And yes I have no problems working on multiple DAWs so I can harness the pros of one and stay away from the cons of another. My only concern is really syncing up these multiple DAWs. I've tried my hand on ReWire a bit and I can't say if it's as stable enough for film composing work. Anyhow, I look forward to your website and future videos. Cheers.
Bryan D Right, so 48 Midi ports x 16 Midi channels per port = 768 potential ports. The reason that’s good isn’t because I’ll use all of those channels but it allows flexibility. I use VSL Winds, Berlin Brass, Berlin and VSL Percussion and Spitfire and Berlin Strings. I have a mixed, midi channel per articulation, keyswitching, CC switching and UACC based template, and being able to use VE Pro without compromise is the biggest key to efficiency. If you plan on hosting these types of huge multi-mic sample libraries to build a massive orchestra plus synths, extra percussion, etc., then a MAS or VST3 based DAW is great to have. Composer who used Live then switched to Cubase. That wouldn’t be Daniel James would it? I wondered when he was going to switch. There’s something to be said for a DAW that has a great community of users in the film and orchestral world who go out of their way to help each other out. If you don’t mind telling me, what are your main libraries right now? Btw, you can get a 30-day fully functional demo of Digital Performer from the MOTU website. Not trying to promote DP, it’s not for everyone, but you could at least play with it for 30 days and you don’t need a iLok or Steinberg key. If you do have a Steinberg dongle, you can also download a 30-day demo of Vienna Ensemble Pro. If you do demo VE Pro, and you give me a short list of the orchestral libraries you have now, I’ll put together a simple but effective template for you so you can test it with Live.
In this video I am. My main setup has another almost identical Mac Pro running as a VEP slave. However, I could get by with one computer with good optimization. I used one computer here to show how i would do that.
Peter Nicholls The problem with my headset is that it’s a condenser with a really small diaphragm. Wasn’t paying attention when I bought it. It just doesn’t behave for voiceover, IMO. For singing yes, my Bock large diaphragm condenser mics are of course perfect for that but for VO, I really need to get a large diaphragm dynamic. That’s just me though. Can’t get this thing to sound good and I’ve tried every position and combination of high end compressors, de essers, eqs. Will replace when I can.
Thanks Steve,
Paypal is Done
Ameer Gado Hey Ameer. Thank you for the donation! It’s much appreciated!
Steve Steele With my pleasure 🌹
You deserve it and more. Keep going and good luck always.
NI should probably include this video on their website.....that's how good it is. Thanks for sharing your knowledge and insights with us Steve. All the best!
Polar Bear Productions Ltd Thank you very much. Glad it helped.
Polar Bear Productions Ltd Thank you very much. Glad it helped.
WOW. This is gold right here. NI should be sending you royalties for this info. Big thanks.
That would be helpful. :) Thanks.
Wow. This very intense and deep. I should make some free time and make a coffee and setup everything and learn side by side. Great contribution Steve. Thanks.
Great! Glad you found the video useful.
Thanks for the excellent video and the valuable information. This answers so many of the questions I've had for a long time concerning Kontakt RAM and disc usage/management. Kudos!
And the cool thing, as old as this video is, the info is just as relevant in 2023 as it was in 2016 when it came out. I should make a slight update video because some of my conclusions have changed slightly, (not much, just a little as computers have advanced - more RAM, faster drives, and better CPUs, plus more advanced sample libraries, which affects how I might set some of Kontakt's prefs).
One of the best Kontakt videos. Thank you Steve!
awesome Steve! thanks! was having problems with notes cutting off... when I realized disk % was getting red right when notes were cutting off and with ssd drives and all!! didn't know what to do about it until... I watched this video and adjusted the Instrument Preload Buffer! solved! No issues about memory in my system... I have same computer here 2012... 2 X 3.48 s but with 96 gigs of ram so... I should be ok now... thanks again Steve!
Excellent! Glad I could help!
I don't know how many times I have watched this video! Every time I discover a new detail.
Thank you
Thanks Steve for this clear and Informative housekeeping video. I have a much small setup than you and using a PC, but it's given me places to look and keep in mind when I use Kontakt and my EW libraries.
for anyone having trouble listening to the mouth sounds watching at 1.25 speed cleared that up for me
ps sick video thank you so much
I put it at 1.75. lol
Excellent video! Thanks a bunch!
Wow! Very cool tips! Thank you very much!!
Steve Steele - this is the most useful Kontakt tips I have found on TH-cam. Thanks man.
You're welcome!
Thnx steve i learn more to go deeper into kontakt5 and yes im looking forward to part 2
Very useful tutorial, really clear and concise delivery, thanks.
Thanks for sharing your time and expertise here, Steve. VERY helpful tips.
Thank you for taking the time!!! Blessings.
David Tardy Your welcome.
Flipppin' Heck. You nailed it Steve. I will be watching this again and again, to hone down my system. Thanks for your research and communication. So much!
The Duke Of Wellington Shoreham-by-Sea You’re welcome. I have a follow up video put haven’t posted it yet.
Oh man, I just discovered your channel. I also just purchased VSL 7 and also upgraded to Kontakt 6... in your description you mentioned you will do an updated version of this video with the latest versions of the products I mentioned. I’d appreciate it a lot! Like I said, I just discovered your channel. Will look around more to see what you do... Cheers man!
That was a fascinating video. So many things I did not know about Kontakt. I have 48GBs of RAM and 2 X 2TB SSDs but still have trouble with Kontakt. I have been researching how to make it run better. I am glad I found this video. I'm keen to fire up Logic & Kontakt and make some music. Thanks and I wouldn't mind a part 2.
Francis Srečko Fabian Glad it helped. I saved a few extra tips for a part 2. Depending on the size of your template, and which CPU you have, consider upgrading to 64GBs of RAM or more when you get a few extra bucks. If you’re libraries have multiple mic positions and many articulations, part 2 will be for you.
Yay! Glad to see a VE Pro 7 How-to is in the works.
Thanks for your efforts and creating these great tutorials, explaining the combined setup in Kontakt and Vienna Ensemble Pro, aiming for CPU and RAM optimization in DAW template design. Wonderful overview and demonstration of the most important performance aspects. Donation rightly deserved. Looking forward to updates and new content.
So helpful! Thanks Steve!
Know this is older but it helps. Also, some libraries that have portamento available as a low velocity articulation can save you a ton of cpu if you turn it off.
Like LASS for example.
Great video Steve! Also of note is for folks to disable their Wi-Fi when using their DAWS. It helps to preserve CPU. Love your work man, Hot band too! Keep real music alive!
Kevin Grady Thank you very much Kevin. Great advise. I'll add to Kevin's tip that turning off User processes that take up a higher than average amount of CPU cycles is a very good idea for users of MacBooks and other single 4-core computers. Third party extensions (especially ones added to the menu bar in macOS) generally take up more User cycles than anything else and can easily be turned off. Also, web browsers are the worst if you have TH-cam pages or other media sites open because the browser multithreads like crazy.
Totally took your advice, and got a project I was working on that was like 28GB of ram down to like 8GB and now every time it loads, it STAYS at 8GB. I don't wanna jinx it but... I think this really solved the problem because before- even with SSDs, I was getting drops. Thank you so much!
Excellent. Glad to hear it. One thing, since I made the video more libs have come out with multiple mic positions. If you have libs like this and you use the extra mic positions, (spitfire, Orchestral Tools, etc...), turn on Multiprocessor Support on to the total amount of physical and virtual cores/threads you have. If you have an 8 core i7 for example, that has 8 physical + 8 virtual cores for 16. Turn Kontakt on 14 or 16. With multiple mic positions the voice count jumps up much higher and Kontakt’s internal engine just can’t handle it very well, (that’s just an indispensable fact). I’ll try and get a video out before the end of the year with the results of all the testing I’ve done the last few years.
@@SteveSteeleSoundSymphony interesting!! Wait so if my computer has 8 cores- it's a 2013 trash can.... I set it at 8 core or 16 cores? 🙃🙃 Thank you again!
@@TravisLohmannMusic 16. You’ve got 8 physical cores + 8 virtual threads, which is also called 16 threads, (a term that’s accurate but somewhat misused). Set it on 14 or 16 and leave it. The people who say that the host, in this case VEP or DP manages Kontakt’s cores are wrong. Only turn it off if it causes crashes, although that’s unlikely. It’s more likely you’ll need it with modern libraries. Enjoy! Oh, and look out for some great content on my channel in December!
@@SteveSteeleSoundSymphony thank you so much. And within Logic itself.... do i keep the
processing threads to 'Auto' and the Multithreading to 'Playback and Live'
@@TravisLohmannMusic Yes, that’s right. Although I use Digital Performer more than Logic, but when I do use Logic I set the processing threads near the highest number or Auto and Multithreading changes depending on what I’m doing. If I’m mixing then I set it for playback. If I am tracking and listening an orchestral mock up then I set it for Live and Playback.
Very well done, thanks !!!!!
Some great tips in here. Cheers, Steve.
That was very well done, almost seems unreal to me. Thanks!
Dude love your vides but you gotta do something about that compression of your voice. I cant stand listening to your saliva every single sec. Drives me crazy :D
I understand. Your wish is my command. I just bought iZotope RX6 Standard (with Mouth De-Click and other lip smack and moisture sound clean up modules that work excellently). I've been using a headset mic because it's so much easier to use than any other (except a lavaliere which I don't own), but it picks up a lot of mouth noises. So, I'm now using a very high end studio condenser (a FET 47 type). The new voiceover is sublime. A new video on the iPad Pro vs the Macbook will be the first one will these upgrades. A dynamic would be best (RE20), but don't have the money for one right now. Anyway, all my future vids will be CLEAN!. You could pitch in a full bucks on my Patreon page to help offset the cost. Wink wink:) www.patreon.com/user?u=3793454
Thanks for taking the time to express your opinion.
Thank you so much for sharing this " precious " information !!!
Your welcome!
Fantastic info. Did I miss the update? It's now June 2019. If I missed it, can you link to it here please. Thanks again.
Great tutorial, thanks. Would love to see a part 2!
Music by Giovanni Rotondo Thanks! I’ve been saying for awhile now that I’d make a part 2, but I’m finally working on it now. I’ve been waiting for technology to catch up so everyone can use the advanced features of Kontakt properly. I think it will pretty much be the final word on Kontakt 5. I’m including all the good stuff in this one. Will be out within a month or two at the most.
Steve Steele awesome, I am subscribing to your channel so I don’t miss it!
you just changed my life, thanks
Wow! your narrator is very clear even english is not my native
it will be a perfect if you do some music theory especially in orchestration scoring music.
with that clear narrator and easy to understand.
I'm starting a series on music theory, composition and orchestration. I'm going to announcement it next week. Hope to see you!
Very cool tips dude, it will help me a lot ! Thank you very much !
Great Video Steve. The tweaks I've really been thinking about as I'm slowly replacing some of my Play (East West) Instruments for Spitfire Instruments at a hgher sample rate.
Benjamin Marcucci You’re welcome. I’ll have a major Vienna Ensemble Pro video out soon that shows many ways of taking advantage of Spitfire’s UACC within a DAW’s template.
Cheers Steve. I look forward to it.
Great and useful video!
Super great! Thank you for the video
Thanks alot for this. Been having issues with voice dropouts and other disk related issues, your tips fixed that.
precious... thanks Steve
Thanks for posting helped me A LOT!
Great tutorial. Thanks a lot!
Very good this video Bravo.
Thank you very much for this golden information
very professional well done thanks very helpful
imad Abeidoh Your welcome.
Thank you so much man!
Awesome vid, thanks man!
Great tips!
We're almost on the same setup, but If you could make a video on how do you set up your FinaleScore writing soft (rewiring ? ) with DP 9.... I'll be very glad to you. Thanks.
I could throw that in one of my next videos. There's not much to it, except for the best way to integrate it into the workflow. And it seems to be stable which is good. I can't get Notion to not crash with ReWire turned on. When Finale was asking users what features they wanted to see in this last release I yelled, "ReWire", and I was blown away that they actually added it. I'm really glad they did. Makes using Finale as DP's score editor a breeze and my life much easier.
I was on Sibelius, VEP & PT (for Avid PT compatibility, ( not true, but that's what I use to answer when someone ask me: Why? :) )), but I really want to come back to Finale. Now the final step. I'll try the demo to see if I can arrange it in a efficient workflow ( for me). I use to work not so much with tempo track ( conductor trk ) and I'm afraid I do need to change this bad habit.
+fabricks01 Basically you'll turn on ReWire in Finale. Quit Finale. Launch VEP, then your DAW then Finale. Finale will use VEP to host your sample libraries, but VEP's audio is sent back to Final, obviously. And because Finale on Mac uses AU (darn it! - no MAS, no VST3), you'll needs to use the Event Input for extra MIDI ports. Once Finale and VEP are all ready, set up as many stereo AUXs or Audio Tracks in your DAW as you need for each channel/Instrument/stave that you have in Finale (Command-K) brings up the score manager that will help you arrange all of this), then point and input those channels to those AUX or Audio channels you created in your DAW. That's it. I'll get back with you when I'm at my studio.
Just wanna say a big thanks
When you discuss the section about resetting markers, you missed the part where you will also purge any of the round robin samples that weren't triggered since your first playback. So, common practice would be to playback a few times before updating your sample pool and printing stems.
Thanks for your comment. But I purposely left it out of this video and several additional great tips for an upcoming part 2 video because many companies handle round robins, release samples, piano half pedaling samples and other additional samples used for realism (which i consider all to be the same topic), quite differently so that it really requires it's own video. Unless you don't want to hear RRs. However, my personal opinion is that except for some libs like Spitfire, OT, and Sonicculture and maybe some piano libs, I don't care much about purging round robins. I might just do a global purge of an entire Kontakt instance and save it that way for loading, while I choose reset markers/update sample pool on the other instances. That way I can knock it out all in one pass and let those libraries load empty. But you're right, it's a topic for discussion. Again thanks for commenting. Btw, part 2 is due in a couple of weeks. Thanks.
where is part 2? Been waiting :)
It's coming together. Really. I've been busy setting up a bunch of template lately. But it's given more ideas for a more complete video. I don't think there will be a stone left unturned. We'll see soon.
Do you use your template fairly often on gigs? I've come to find that I spend hours and hours on building a template only to find it doesn't work for the job I get. I end up scrapping a bunch of elements of it. Also, STEMS tend to change from gig to gig. It all depends on your mixing engineer and how much is recorded and how much will be samples.
excellent thanks
Thx Steve, so just to make sure I have this right...I need to purge all samples, then reset markers, run the sequence then update the sample pool?
Super helpful, thanks!!!
Very helpful, thank you.
YES!! These are excellent tips, this is the must useful Kontakt video I've found! Thanks Steve you're a diamond! :)
This Helped me a lot!!! Thanks
Great video! One question -- You suggested emptying the database, but you didn't explain the best way to do this. Could you briefly say how this should be done? Thanks!
richard emmet Open Kontakt's Preferences. Go to the Database menu. If there are any items in the Database window, select them all and click Remove. Close the Preferences window. You'll have to do this for the Standalone and each plugin type (AU, VST, etc..), individually. That's it. Glad you found the video helpful!
This was very helpful
Excellent Job Steve. This is really helpful and I will try out all the tricks when I get home :) I have used sudo purge before, as I work in IT so I am ok doing all that ;) But the multi-core and all that stuff was really helpful. Brilliant video and thanks a million :D
Just one more thing. If I have all my instruments setup in single instances of VEP, so I have about 50 tabs, how I would I distribute that over a quad i7 would you think? One thread or each? or two... Ok on my Mac Pro as it is a 12-Core same as yours though :)
You have one instance with 50 channels? If VEP6 sees 8 cores set it on 6, if it sees 4 set it on 2. And, just as a reminder VEP6 now let's you set the thread count for each tabbed instances independently. VSL says that one instance is more efficient than several, but most of their videos show multiple instances. IMO, when using either DP (MAS) or Cubase (VST3) on a Xeon based machine you can get away with almost anything. Only Logic users using the AU version of VEP have to use a little trial and error. Anyway, sounds like you've got it covered. Glad I could help.
Well, I haven't tried the 16 Port Multiport Template Song for Logic X PRO 10.1 so maybe the issues with the AU version of VEP6 are really history. Either way I'm glad each of the three DAWs (and Pro Tools) have their own native version of VEP. The Event Input used to really be such a pain. I still use it with Finale but it doesn't have to handle much.
I am not using one tab. As I am using Logic I have one instance of PLAY/Kontakt in each tab. So I have 50 instances of PLAy for my Hollywood Orchestra Diamond setup. And then on the Mac side I am using a mixture of Kontakt/PLAY and Synths. This is one of the reasons I was thinking about moving over to DP permanently. I really like the earch feature as well, for slimming down larger templates :D
Sadly the multiport issue is still there. VSL had said they tried out the feature, but Apple have not built the system correctly to produce the desired results yet. Who knows maybe it will come with Sierra or the next update Logic put out shortly after the macOS launch.
+Christopher Thake Good luck waiting on Apple. I looked at the developer page for AU and they've hardly done anything over the last 10 years or so. I can tell you that Digital Performer works great with VEP. The MAS version is excellent. And because DP is always in multitimbral mode, and the MIDI tracks don't hold VIs, DP takes very little CPU. I don't want to tell anyone what DAW to use. But I will say that DP and VEP seem like their made for each other. Very smooth. Just my opinion. You could actually use both DP and Logic then VEP, with DP as a ReWire master. I've done that before because I do like Logic for some things like synths, etc...
Damn, that mic was REALLY close to your mouth. Great video though!
Ever heard of a de-esser?
Steve Steele....Steve Steele! Max Powers! Griffin Griffindor, Bill Billard!
Brilliant!!
Hello
I have recently purchased a dell R610 server to use as a slave it has 96 gigs of ram. Has 2 intel Xeon 5650 2.66ghz 6 core processors (which give me 24 threads in VEPro)
The master computer is running cubase pro 9.5
And is an dual 8 core 2.93 with 48 gigs of ram.
Ssd system drive and ssd sample drives.
I used to run VEPro and cubase on one machine.
I now have the server and Mac connected with cat6 Ethernet via a gigabit switcher.
My template is very large has close to 30 instances of vep. Housing many kontakt instruments. And two instances that run about 3 omnisphere 2.
I have been testing it out and I am here what sounds like the cpu is maxing out even when just triggering one midi track. but when I watch task manager on pc it is low only at 30 percent.
I think I was getting better performance running all on one machine.
Is there something else this can be?
Sorry I'm just now replying. For some reason your comment got held for review and I just now saw it. I need more information before I can help you.
1). All the buffer settings across your system need to be set in accordance with each other.
2). You can run VE Pro on you Host and Slave. That's what I do.
3). I need to know more about your libraries and exactly how you have them laid out across the instances. 30 instances is A LOT! Why so many? You can use a CC to disable channels and instances that you aren't using to save on CPU and RAM resources. I run no more than 8 instances and usually 6 or 7.
4). There's so much that goes into a balanced system. Go to my website and email me. I'll reply with an email address. Send me a short screen movie of you setup, and I'll take a look.
Steve Steele I’m good
Hi Steve, excellent video! Do you Know how to purge memory in Cubase? (the sudo purge stuff) Thank you
cecilia rodriguez On a Mac, (can't help you if you have Windows but there should be a similar app and command), look in the folders Applications/Utilities/ then find and open Terminal. Purge is done there not in your DAW. Type "sudo purge" (no quotes). It will ask you for your user password. Before you do, open the Activity Monitor app which is also in the Utilities folder. Click the memory tab. Watch the area at the bottom where it says Total Memory, Cached Memory, etc.. As you type in you password into Terminal keep an eye on the Cached Memory and see how much is purged. It may drop 5GBs to 15GBs depending on your system and if you've been opening and closing apps. You might notice substantial savings. If you just turned on your computer, you won't. For Macs with low memory you want to eliminate Cached memory when using Cubase or any other DAW. Keep the Terminal app open in another desktop space (click on the green button st the top left of the Terminal and Activity Monitor windows and they'll go full screen in their own spaces! Easy. When VEP is running and it's loaded with samples, that's the Cached memory for VEP. Although not as helpful in that situation it might really help you in critical situations. Kontakt, Play and Vienna Instruments Pro will reload samples when it needs them. Even with 64GBs and 96GBs of ram in my Mac Pros I still purge almost daily during seasons.
Ok thank you very much!
That's a really great tutorial. Currently using multiple instances on 2 slaves and the whole setup is struggling. Gonna try the 1 instance way instead.
Also, what's the little tool name you are using to monitor your memory in the taskbar?
Thanks for sharing this. Really helpfull.
iStats Menu. It's on the App Store. I only use the memory and CPU sensor temp functions, whereas most people seem to leave most of it on. The only features I find necessary are the memory percentage, and the CPU temps (with fan controls). When the CPU temps are getting high I turn all the fans on full blast for a minute or two and everything cools down to startup temps, including the m.2 drives (which slow down as they overheat). Hope that helps.
Hey Steve, I watched many many video till now about optimisation etc... but one of the best deep details information and understandable video. Great thanks about it. If suitable for you may i ask something about hardware of software ?
Sure. I'll try. What do you need to know?
Thank you. Now i am already working on single Pc ( Asus Rampage V extreme motherboard-Intel i7-5960x procc.- 64 Gb 2800mhz Corsair Dominator
Memory- 4 Tb samsung SSD etc...
Main host win10 pro and C 2TB Samsung Evo,
Daw Cubase 9 pro, mixing protools 12.8, arranging specially high-end kontakt libraries + EWQL
composer cloud plus member and many other high-end libraries...
All is latest updates ready.I can explain my process:
EWQL set in SSD libraries, Kontakt %30 inside of SSD %70 16 TB G-technologhy Raid0 HDD. I did batch
resave %90 libraries but i am not save ))
I am adding for each single instruments "one insturments track on cubase" . I've never use midi track or etc. I'm not set any templates for arranging on cubase.
I mean each project ican work different instruments from several libraries.Of course i've not enough SSD or memory. Sometimes system specially memory and disk so slow working.
Someone suggest disable track one of the best option but if i want to hear at the same tiime all tracks but hardware not enough...
I will try to use " Render in Place " convert instruments track to audio and disable instruments track and i can listen my partion and i can continue project...
Bye the way if i am working just vst instruments and more than 250 track orchestral music, if not enough information for you please ask me more ...
Main question hardware how could be better ?
Q1:Do i need multiple computer and VEP ? If yes 2 or more ? which proccecors, motherboard, memory ?
Q2: Dual processor must be or high-end single processor enough for me ?
Q3: Vienna Instruments pro working just vienna seris they told me that kontakt or other libraries not support. But your video if i right you are using with kontakt ?
Take care...
Onur Eltutmaz Onur, I'm sorry I didn't reply. My TH-cam comments are getting sent to different email boxes and sometimes they get routed to cyber oblivion. Did you still want me to answer your questions? Again, my apologizes.
Steve Steele hi, thank you for your kindly response. Yes I need advice for 1 master 2 slave computer with VEpro6...i have to work on windows this is for your info. I need any advice about hardware specially dual Xeon ' motherboard ram etc... thank you. If I can reach more suitable platform please inform me
Thank you
Amazing video! I have exactly the specs you gave in your example, 3.4ghz quad-core i7, 32gb RAM, 2 internal SSD with all my libraries. I'm on Yosemite, I do lots of film scoring (DP user as yourself and proud of it) and also write epic stuff for TV, so sessions can get pretty big. I sometimes also use a hackintosh with VEP but I try to make it work mostly with my iMac, so my following questions are considering my iMac alone:
1- Should I use 108kb as a starting point (as you suggested in the video) and just see how my computer performs? For example, should I open a usually problematic large session and test it with that setting?
2- If any adjustments need to be done, how can I decide if I go left or right? Considering my specs, should I only go more and more to the right?
3- What's a good stopping point? At what point should I know that's the best possible place for that setting to be? What's a good reference?
THANKS A LOT!!
MILO COELLO Sorry for the slow reply. Your post got sent to the wrong inbox.
So, the goal in adjusting the buffer preload setting is to get the best performance balance between your CPU, the SSDs and the RAM. The problem occurs because Kontakt loads some, but not all, of the samples into RAM while keeping the rest on the SSDs, (which is called DFD). This is a bit of a leftover from the 32-bit days. Hopefully Kontakt 6 will include simple modern controls for allowing systems with 96 or 128GBs of RAM or higher a way to bypass DFD altogether without having to go into each instrument and disabling it. But with modern systems that have a lot more RAM with 64-bit DAWs you can “preload” more of a the samples into RAM. This has two benefits. One, the samples are already in RAM and the system won’t have to rely on the SSDs to stream the samples fast enough. The other reason is that when the system has to stream samples from the SSDs it’s the CPU that has to perform that which puts more strain on the CPU.
So, if you where to move the slider all the way to the right most of the samples will be loaded into RAM and the CPU won’t have to work as hard. Depending how large your template is you might be able to set it at its highest setting. Try it. Btw, I have 64GBs of RAM on one Mac Pro and 96GBs on the other Mac Pro. So I can do this with no problem. 32GBs might not quite be enough.
So a good setting might be somewhere around 160KBs or so. Btw, as I mentioned earlier there’s a way to completely turn off DFD so that everything loads into RAM but I generally don’t mention this in my videos because if you don’t have enough RAM and you have a big template it can turn out to be a hassle if you’re unsure what you’re doing. It’s called Sampler mode but with 32GBs of RAM don’t use it.
To answer your question. With 32GBs of RAM try to set it so that no more than 24GBs gets loaded in so that you’ll have RAM left over for the OS and so your system won’t start paging. (Look in Activity Monitor under the Memory tab at the bottom for Swap Used. If it’s using more than 0 bytes you run the risk of slowing down you’re System a lot by forcing data into Virtual Memory unnecessarily).
Then if you’re following my advise about purging Kontakt, you should just make sure your CPUs aren’t overloading and that you’re not using more than 80% of the total amount of RAM and that will end up being a good balance for your system.
Good luck!
Around 3 mins where you refer to the threads-per-instance you mention you're just using one instance in this example. in other videos you have more. Is it more efficient resource-wise to use multiple instances, or do you just do that to keep the sections organized and bussed separately? Thanks!
dan wool As a general rule of thumb It’s more efficient to spread out your libraries (in terms of voices and CPU usage %) across cores. However, the need to be efficient depends on how many libraries you’re hosting and what model CPU you have. Currently I’m using 6-8 instances (one for each section of the orchestra plus others), across two 12-core Mac Pros. Hope that helps.
I went ahead and organized my current largish project as you describe. I'm on one 12core MP - no slaves - but it seems extremely efficient. I think the tip about thread-distribution really helps. The project is lot less glitchy and prone to spikes than running the same project all from within DP 9.51. Plus, as I mentioned in the comments on one of your other videos, no long Save time! ...Thanks again for these videos. They're super helpful!
dan wool You’re welcome. I’ve been promising to make a part 2. However most of what I have left is situational. If you’re using Kontakt and have any multi-mic position libraries (like the Spitfire symphonic or Albion libs, or any of the OT’s Berlin Series), let me know. I have a few tips that I use in the VE Pro templates I build for people that I could share with you.
Very interesting video!! Thanks a lot!
I have a question though... I can't get the multi output to work in Cubase through VEP6... I don't really understand how it works...(It works with Kontakt only though... It's just don't get the routing... Could you explain it to me? I gave a look on google but couldn't find a clear answer...
Thanks a lot!
Jeremie.
I'm not sure what you're trying to do. Are you trying to route MIDI or audio to, or from VEP to Cubase? Do you mean setting up multi-timbrel outputs from Cubase to VEP? Or do you mean the multi outputs from Kontakt going into VEP back too your Cubase? Tell me what you're trying to do and I'll give you a full explanation.
I'd say the last option is the right one... From Kontakt, even from vsts like Superior Drummer 2.
Thanks a lot mate!
So Kontakt or Superior Drummer 2 in a channel in VEP, you want multiple outputs routed back to Cubase? I'll go with that. No problem. A lot of the VEP templates I build for people, and myself have this. It's a topic that's planned for my next VEP video but it seems like you could use the answer sooner than later. Could you send me an email, either through Google or via my website? I'll reply with info.
Yes that's it! I'll send you an email! Thanks a lot!! :D
I'm curious... What is going on at 8:49 with your drives? You are peaking at 76% on DFD use even though you seem to run with maximum sample buffers and very high latency setting (1024). Is everything working like it should? I never get that kind of stuff on my much lower budget SSD setup.
MkdrNet There’s no problem here. That’s a spike that lasted a few milliseconds. That large tutti chord had to load a lot of samples from the multi-mic Spitfire Brass libraries in that very short time. It’s also early in the video. There are several steps I took and there are steps I could take to eliminate DFD spikes altogether, including using sampler mood.
Thanks a lot!
i have 8 gigs on my pc XD how many ram i need to make orchestral music ina basic daw like cubase on windows 10?
That was outstanding. So i have a 24 core mac pro and i have six instances, would the optimal setting be 3 cores per instance and the set log to 4 cores which leaves 2 cores for the OS?
Ariel Mann Yes, exactly. Although I don't know what you mean by "set log to 4 cores".
Sorry I meant Logic. Under preferences
Ariel Mann Ah, ok. I use Digital Performer. Does Logic have a dynamic allocation setting (Logic chooses automatically)? Or does it force you to make a choice?
Either way, if you're only using Logic to host the VEP server interfaces, then 4-8 cores should be fine. When you play back your Logic/VEP template watch the Activity Monitor and look at the CPU% number and thread count. Also look at Logic's CPU monitor. Starving Logic of CPU resources would be problem.
If your four VEP instances are not evenly balanced, you can set the number of cores each instance uses individually under the Edit menu in Project Settings. Then give back some cores to Logic or other VEP instances.
I should probably update this video and my Kontakt video. Maybe this week I'll make one that covers both and compares the performance of different thread count settings.
For guys wanting to get into making score-like music production, what would some of you more experienced guys say is needed as far as processors go these days? (Quad, 6, 8 core etc)
Frederick Kitt As many cores as possible. You’re hear some TH-camr’s say CPU speed is much more important than number of cores. For major DAWs, (Digital Performer, Cubase and Logic), Vienna Ensemble Pro and Kontakt this is absolutely wrong! These apps are very much multiprocessor aware and take advantage of sending different threads to multiple cores. 8 cores is minimum. 12-16 core is better even if they are a half a GHz slower than the 8 core. Xeons are better then i5/i7s although there are some good i7s/i9s. I use two Mac Pros with 12 core Xeons in each and 128GBs of RAM in each. I may make a cores vs speed video at some point to show once and for all that cores matter for film scoring apps.
Is your preference to have several instruments loaded in one instance of Kontakt, or a single instance for each track?
It's better to spread instruments out over multiple instances of Kontakt than it is to load more than 5 or 6 libraries into one Kontakt channel, especially if the instruments have multiple mic positions, large numbers of layers, or your track is going to consume a large number of voices over time. By overloading a single Kontakt instance it's possible to spike a physical CPU core, which basically brings the entire system to its knees no matter how many cores you may have. Even if you have a 28/56 core Xeon, if the first CPU core spikes, the other cores can do nothing to help recover and you're system will temporarily come to a halt. Spreading Kontakt out will help assure good multithreading practices.
Other sample players are starting to leave Kontakt in the dust. VSL's Synchron Player is extremely efficient. If Spitfire, Orchestral Tools and East West are successful at optimizing their sample engines, you'll see much better performance soon.
Thanks Steve for the video! What app do you use to see in realtime the percentage of your cpu on the top right corner ?
This is an old video, but currently I use macOS Activity Monitor and iStat Menus. If set up properly, iStat Menus is a must have. You can buy it on the Mac App Store and maybe from the Bjango.com website. If you buy it contact me. I'll show you the best way to configure it if you go to my website and email me.
Hey man great video! really helped me optimize my kontakt since i use it outside Reason 9 in Standalone mode. I have 24G memory and one SSD would it be best to move all my contact libraries to a separate SSD drive ? unfortunately i can use the pcie for SSD because of my UAD cards so regular sata SSD's. also what about the buffer size in kontakt ?
WHITELIONMUZIK PRODUCTIONZ Hey there. Sorry for the delay. I've been away due to the hurricane that just hit us. Yes, it would be best to store your sample libraries on a separate SSD. The access times, DFD and latency will improve. However, if you have a utility that shows you your current SSDs I/O read and write throughput, and you're not maxing out the bandwidth, you might be fine as is. If you set Kontakt's pre-load buffer size high (which will use more RAM so be careful), you might be able to load most of your library into RAM and reduce Kontakt's streaming needs. The standalone latency size? The more you raise it the longer the delay between when you play a note and when you hear it. But setting at 1024 saves a lot of CPU resources compared to lower numbers such as 128 or 64. I keep mine at 1024 because I generally don't mind the short delay. However if i was performing with Kontakt, I would set it as low as I could get away with. Are you using a Mac or PC?
do you think is always better loead multiple instances of kontakt or just one with more instrument inside kontakt to save ram?
Miss Controllerism It depends on the context. All things being equal I would use more instances of Kontakt so they spread threading across CPU cores. I get this question all the time and I really need to make a video about it. There's more to it than most people realize. There are other times I would load a lot of multis in a few instances of Kontakt. What are your computer(s) specs (CPU, RAM and how many SSDs)? How big is your template? What are your main libraries? If your libraries have multiple mic positions, do you only use the mix mic or do you use all of the mics (when printing stems)? For instance, if you're mocking up orchestral music what libraries do you use for your winds, brass and strings? If you can tell me this I can give you a precise answer.
Great Video
I see in your VEP template you have loads of tracks in one instance and you are on a Mac. How are you doing this because (at least in Logic) there is only one Midi Port as standard. How do you get each track to have its own channel in your DAW?
In Logic the only way to have independent control over track volume, FX/Bus Sends and Midi FX is using a separate Software Instrument track for each instrument which means a separate VEP instance for each track.
Is this different in Digital Performer?
Yes, it's different in Digital Performer. VSL, thankfully, makes a MAS plugin version of VEP (that's DP's homegrown plugin format, although it can use AU and VST2 as well). MAS has up to 48 ports available for each instance. Cubase's VST3 has either 32 or 48. And, yes Logic has 1. I like Logic for some things, but the way Apple has ignored the AU spec in OS X over the years has been tragic. Plus, DP and VEP were made for each other, IMO.
Hey Steve Im a composer wanting to run large template sessions like this.. Im about to get a Mac Pro as an upgrade from a macbook pro.. Should I spec it out with a 3.0ghz 8 core or 2.7ghz 12 core processor? Only Ive heard a higher clock speed could be more favourable over more cores for this type of thing.. or is that bullshit. haha cheers!
Go for the 12-core. For what we're doing, the 12-core is better suited for all the multithreading that takes place in these types of templates. And load that baby up with RAM (get the large DIMMs from OWC if you can afford it- either the 16GB Modules (1866MHz) or the 32GB Modules (1333MHz). You can max out your Mac Pro at 128GBs, but somewhere between 64GBs and 96GBs should be the right balance.). Also, don't forget about hyperthreading. With a large template it's more about having more cores to process all of those Konatkt and reverb threads, then having a slightly faster CPU with, in this case, 8 less cores (4 physical and 4 virtual). The big 3 composing DAWs (Digital Performer, Cubase and Logic), plus Kontakt and Vienna Ensemble Pro are VERY good at mutilprocessing. Kontakt and VEP both have settings to manage CPU threading, but your DAW, VEP and macOS will actually take care of the multiprocessing. The virtual hyperthreading cores are seen by the apps, and they do get used but not as much as they might with other tasks (video rendering). Still, with all of the instances of Kontakt, and reverbs, etc, etc, each using up their own thread, you'll realize that 2.7GHz vs 3.0GHz isn't that much faster, but the addition of 4 physical and 4 virtual cores will more than make up for it.
Bottom line, the apps we use, more often than not, benefit more from having more threads than they do a having a slightly faster single thread. Hope that settles it for you. Enjoy your new Mac Pro! Let me know how it goes.
Thank you.
Thank you !!!
Do you still recommend using VEPro with the V-rack feature in DP9? I always assumed that the v rack acted as DP's built in VEP. Are there instances that you would use both VEP and the v rack on projects mostly comprised of kontakt orchestral libraries? Thanks
Good question. The Vrack feature is great. But, it's not the same as VEP, because it uses DP's memory space and CPU allocation.if you've got a heavy orchestral template I recommend VEP because all of those sample libraries and instances of Kontakt (or whichever sample engine you use), will begin to bog down DP (or any DAW), at some point. My orchestral/film score template in VEP, when fully loaded takes up to 72GBs of RAM or so, before final optimization. Any DAW would freak out trying to manage that. VEP handles it with ZERO problems because it really has no other overhead, and it's well written for multicore CPU usage (so is DP, but it has a lot more responsibility). But, yes I do sometimes leave synths, piano libraries and some other sample libraries in DP or in VRacks while everything else is in VEP. Keep in mind that Vracks isn't so much DP's VEP, as it is a way to keep instruments loaded into RAM as you switch sequences (Chunks). That way, for example, if you've created a Song in DP, or used the Chunks window as a playlist in a live situation (which some users do specifically), that's where Vracks shines because it keeps VIs in RAM as the sequences switch. Hope that answers your question!
Steve Steele
Nice. I've been wanting to make the switch from logic to either cubase or DP. My focus is film and video game scoring (with DP being big in the film world but cubase and logic dominating the video game world). It's a tough decision.
No reason you can't master two DAWs. I use Logic and Cubase on occasion. Although I know DP inside and out, the other two not so much but I'm functional. IMO, can't beat DP for film. The Chunks feature and it's great integration with VEP make it outstanding. Good luck moving forward.
2 questions please,
1. how do you get the percentage of your cpu on the top right corner which was showing 70 % and you brought it right down?
2. you said you were going to get into the maximum voices in kontakt, but you never spoke about it again, what exactly do we do with the voices and what does it mean? Thank you in advanced.
anton mclouglin Sorry Im just now seeing your post. It went from 70% down to 30% after going through the entire optimization process. Basically, for Kontakt, after choosing the update sample pool option. And for VI Pro, selecting optimize. Then, on a Mac, in the Terminal typing "sudo purge", Enter and password. That's clears out all unused memory.
I never made a video about voices because for most people these steps are so complete that lowering voice count in unnecessary. Basically in Kontakt every instrument's preset voice count is set much higher than it needs to be just to make sure you don't run out of voices. Some sample libraries you can lower the voice count a lot, some you can't. Maybe I'll revisit this topic at some point.
thank you
how'd you get the ram percentage to show? :)
I believe I was using something like Memory Diag before. Now I have iStat Menus which I highly recommend - bjango.com/apps/ Now I use that and a 2nd monitor that just displays Activity Monitor, Terminal and a loudness meter. If you’re using macOS, download Memory Diag for free on the macOS App Store or pay for iStat Menus which is on sale right now on their website for $3.99. Don’t buy iStat Menus from the App Store. On the App Store its a slightly different version. Get it from the developer.
Hi Steve! Very nice video,thanks for the tips.
I am Win10 user i would like to build my machine for orchestral projects -Kontakt (now own i5 2500k 8gigs of ram)
So i have a couple of questions.
First of all i would like go for Ryzen 7 (8 cores 16 threads)
The frequency of ram matters ? I will see any difference beetween 2400 mhz or 4000(in future after some fix on platform)?
Its better to buy ssd m2 pcie nvme 960 (pro maybe) or make an raid 0 from standard ssd with dedicated pcie controler?
I heard nvme get temperature and slows down badly its is true?
If i get scenario with raid 0 i should buy more than 32 gigs of ram?
My daw and other stuff
Presonus studio one + zoom uac 2+komplete ultimate+8dio lacrimosa
Thanks again for tut!:)
Here are my opinions based on experience.
1) Get as many cores as you can afford. PERIOD. Xeons are best, unless you're always single threading. But it you use a modern DAW, VEP and Konatkt, they are MADE for multiprocessor support. I know Xeons are expensive! But apps developed for Xeons (most DAWs, VEP and Kontakt) spread across the many CPU cores for best performance, and don't spike the single main core. High core count i7s are good, but you're stuck with one CPU. But to answer you're question, (even though I haven't looked into the AMD CPU, I'm sure it's great). Just do it right the first time. Get as many cores in one CPU that you can afford. Do they make a 10, 12 or 14 core that doesn't lower the GHz speed to0 much and doesn't cost a whole love more? If so, depending on money, go for the balance of cores and speed. For example an 8-core CPU (with hyper-threading), running at 3.0GHz, is about equal to a 2.65GHz 12-core. If the price of he two were the same, I'd get the 8-core maybe. (I'm a core freak). Hope that helps.
2) The speed of the RAM matter some, but not TOO much. However the difference between 2400 MHz and 4000MHz is a big leap and might really be something. Get the 4000MHz IF YOU CAN.
3) m.2 NVME 960s blow the doors off of SATA type SSDS even in the PCIe Bus. Only buy m.2 SSDs. Yes, they get hot alright. This slows down the write speed considerably but not the read speed too much. That said, 1) keep the room cool, run fans inside you computer fairly high when you don't need silence. I do, and it doesn't bother me in the slightest. When I render, I've got fans BLASTING on the CPUs and the m.2. Also, attach some small heat sinks to your m.2 chips. It's worth it! Trust me. Easy to.. Don't skimp. I have (4) ACHI Samsung SM951s in a RAID 0 in my 16-lane PCIe bus and they read at almost 6GB/s. Yes, the SIX GIGABYTES a second, or 6000 MB/s. Everything but m.2s are dead.
However, (and this is tough to explain), is you have a lot of RAM, (between 48GBs and 96GBs of RAM (Yes, 16GBs is a JOKE), and you Batch Re-Save your sample library collection in Kontakt - I should make a video, (try to look it up), the load times decrease dramatically for some libs and the massive speed gains of m.2 is somewhat wasted. However, not all sample libs let you run all samples from RAM. Most ALWAYS stream from disk some. Get m.2s if you can afford it. But don't freak out if you can't.
4) Yes, m.2 get hot and slow down but mainly in writing which you won't be doing. STILL, keep them cool!
5) My policy about RAM, NEVER buy less than 48GBs (RAIDs or not). Try to get 64GBs and above. For my 12-core two Mac Pros running at 3.46GHz, I have 64GBs of RAM in each, (wish I had 88GBs), and that massive m.2 RAID 0. ZERO BOTTLENECKS. That's the key. Don't starve the CPU. Feed it and feed it fast but using.2 SSDs to load samples into lots of RAM so the the CPU just has to pull samples from RAM (which is the fastest storage on any computer). The advantage to having a lot of RAM with RAIDs is that the RAIDs will load the samples quickly into a lot of RAM. The CPUs then mostly only have to deal with the RAM (which is the fastest storage on your computer). S0, yes to "If i get scenario with raid 0 i should buy more than 32 gigs of ram?", but maybe not for the reasons you'e thinking.
6) Studio One is good and you're other stuff is decent too. For MIDi composing we don't the most high end DACs. We just want low latency (USB-C, Thunderbolt 3, etc instead of USB 2). But most of your bottlenecks will be mismatches in CPU, RAM amount and sample drives. Therefore, get the most balanced, fastest and reliable CPUs, RAM and m.2s and you will be happy for years. Maybe an 8 or 10 core, 64GBs or RAM, and a couple of 256 or 512 m.2 SSD for sample storage, plus HHDs for audio bounces and backup. That's your system!
I'm still using 2009 Mac Pros (heavily modified), but they and well balanced and are monsters. Faster than most current MacBook Pros.
Hope that helps! Good luck! Sounds like you understand what you're doing.
Please consider donating to my Patreon campaign (in the description). It's about to be launched. Free private one on one advice, help with template and computer setups and optimization are some of the perks. Near 24/7 support.
Steve
Sorry I didn't address the Ryzen 7 CPU. That slipped by me. Sounds good. A real dual 8-core. No HT nonsense.
1) The frequency of RAM matters some yes. It depends on how big the jump is. 1066MHz to 1333MHz for example is barely measurable. But 2400 to 4000? Yeah, that will be noticeable.
2) Tough one. SATA SSDs with a hardware PCIe RAID controller is pro-level. Nothing wrong with that. The m.2 SSDs do heat up for sure. But it seems to affect write times more than read times and all you'll be doing is reading from these drives. Put four m.2s in a PCIe RAID card and stripe it, then watch them fly at 6000MB/s or more. For the heat, glue a tiny heat sink on the chip. That's what most of us are doing. I'm still running some old 2010 12-core MacPros that have 6 fans in them. I keep them turned up most of the time when I'm not tracking or doing final mixes. It keeps everything cool and it doesn't bother me at all. It probably would bother some people and would be a no no in a pro studio unless they're in an air conditioned closet (which they should be). I REALLY like the speed of the m.s SSDs so I'm ok with the heat sinks and fans. If you're not ok with that, perhaps the SATA SSDs with hardware RAID card might be best.
3) Get no less than 64GBs of RAM. Period. You'll want the headroom so that you're OS doesn't even think about paging to your boot drive. I would have 128GBs of RAM (which I can on these machines), but I'm holding off until I buy a new system. I know someone that just got a custom PC with 256GBs of RAM. It seems ridiculous but sample libraries are growing growing growing with all these mutilple mic libs.
how about if all you have is a macbook pro with 8 gigs of ram and a usb 3 drive?
Sam Kelly You're going to have to get the most out of your sample libraries. Maybe use some modeling VIs like PianoTEQ or WIVI. For sure though, save instruments with all of their articulations unloaded so when you open your template nothing loads into RAM until you need it. Optimize to the max. And be realistic. You're not going to be able to get lifelike mockups with 8GBs of RAM. So, don't try to go for realism. Go for good composing and orchestration. If you use Sibelius get NotePerformer for $129. It sounds great and doesn't take up much RAM. I don't know what sample libraries you use but you'll have to minimize which articulations you load. Try to make a sustain patch play all of the other articulations (staccato, legato, etc). If you're doing orchestral mainly, use cheaper lower quality libraries for instruments that aren't heard as clearly (woodwinds, cymbals, bass drum, and save the RAM for strings and horns. That's the best answer I can give you without knowing what your template is like. Good luck. Save money and buy a cheap slave Mac or PC. Look into buying a used 2009 MacPro. You can buy them for $500 and they're highly upgradeable. I use two massively upgraded 2009 MPs. But I took my time upgrading them. They're more powerful than the current trash can 12-core MacPro when you swap CPUs and add m.2 SSDs.
what disk(s) are you using to house/stream your VI samples? Maybe you said it in the vid but i missed it if so.
I have a RAID 0 of four Samsung SM951 m.2 SSDs in a PCIe carrier board. It streams (read speeds), at around 5000MB/s or more. It's actually rated at 5700MB/s but the heat slows it down a bit. If you have a Mac Pro or a PC with PCI slots, I highly recommend using ACHI m.2 SSDs in your PCIe slots for sample drives. If you have optimized Kontakt well, and you have plenty of RAM them it's not as important but the read speeds these m.2 SSDs can achieve can really help out if your sample libs are heavily relying on DFD.
As of now my libraries stream from a standard internal SATA drive.
I have a MacPro (2008). 24 GB RAM. I'm running DP9.02 and Kontakt 5.
For smaller sessions, the SATA is no problem. But now getting into larger arrangements, I'm finding my Processor meter in Digital Performer spiking.
LASS (LA Scoring Strings) I think is the culprit. It must run heavy on the CPU.
I did order a RAID housing tower for my video streaming setup but will look into an SSD rad for my sample libraries. Not gonna be cheap :)
BTW, I'm @wonder from Motunation.
Hey @wonder. Motunation! I need to check in and see what's up. I haven't been around lately.
What is your DP buffer set to? I'm sure you know this, but always keep it at 1024 or higher for large orchestral templates. Turn off Kontakt's Multiprocessor support and let DP and VEP handle that. Are you using the LASS ARC? LASS uses DFD a lot for its legato/port/gliss. If you're getting a big hit on the CPU when LASS is loaded in Kontakt, then try lowering the Instrument Preload Buffer Size in Kontakt to load more of LASS into RAM. That will take cycles off the CPU. The more LASS has to stream the harder the CPU has to work to make that happen. But if it's already in RAM the CPU has less work to do. Consider upgrading your RAM to 32GBs. Then configure Kontakt to make use of the extra RAM and that will take pressure off the CPU and the sample drive.
I used to have a 2008 3,1 Mac Pro. It's still a strong workstation. I removed the optical drive and installed two SSDs in a RAID 0 by connecting them to the two extra SATA ports on the motherboard.
If you're not using slot 2 of the PCIe bus, that could be an option for a nice m.2 SSD setup. Although slots 3 and 4 only have a 1GB/s throughput you could still install a 128GB SM951 and a carrier board for about $150 and I would guess you'd get about 900MB/s reads. The best setup is one where the CPU, the amount of RAM and the speed of the sample drives is balanced, limiting bottlenecks.
My buffer WAS 512 because I do a lot of live audio tracking.
Doing this larger arrangement with MIDI, I had to move to 1024 and I turned multiprocessor support OFF after watching your video and it was a huge help.
I have 1 PCIe slow used for my MOTU 2408 and I just bought a RAID enclosure with a PCIe card and will install that tomorrow for my RAID.
I haven't the disks for an SSD raid but might do that as you suggested.
I'm going to try the 2 bay SATA RAID for either video editing or VI libraries.
Re: LASS, I'm not. I'm still on LASS 1. I do use the LPG patches, which I guess take up so much more energy than normal patches? But i do love the portamento effect so much.
LPG does require some extra work from the CPUs because of the excessive DFD between the three legato types. If LASS 1 has the ability to purge and load the port or glass samples, try switching them to Speed LT or Speed instead of DFD and see if that helps any. It will take more RAM but less CPU. Yeah, LASS has a very cool portamento sound. I really like LASS LS. I still use it all the time.
I have a piece I'm working on in logic. My session file is like 5 gigs what would cause that? I'm saving it in folder mode not package. It's all midi but I have over 30 kontakt instances open. What would cause that and is there a fix?
I don't use Logic. But in my Digital Performer project folder I also have folders for Audio Files, Bounces, Autosaves, Analysis Files and Undo. Those first three can grow quite large as DP autosaves and as I bounce stems. When I had Logic 9, I remember it also had similar folders. If you don't clean up your sessions they can grow to several GBs in size.
Try this. Get info on the Logic project folder and see how many items are in that folder Go inside your project folder. Make sure you're in the Finder's list view. In the window, right-click or control-click and from the drop down menu choose Show View Options. Check "Size" and "Calculate All Sizes". Near the top of the window, click on the Size column. The Finder will list the size of all the files and folders from small to large, or large to small (if you click Size twice). Find which items or folders are taking up a lot of space. If it's a folder, go into that folder until you find what item or items are taking up that space. Sometimes if you save your projects incrementally like I do, (song 1, song 2, song 3, etc..), those files will add up (especially in your Project File Backups folder). Logic files store more than just MIDI data, although even a lot of them probably won't add up to 5GBs. So, more than likely there's a bounced audio file, or some other file that got saved with the Logic project files.
I would also check to see if you have anything else saved in there like your VEP Server and instance data (although that defaults to the VSL Custom Data folder in Users/Shared/).
If you find nothing that could be taking up that much space, use the Terminal to force the Finder to show invisible files and see if something else was placed in there. Google "macOS use the Terminal to show invisible files and folders" You'll figure it out.
Let me know if that solves it.
All good.
How would u normally setup 'instances' inside LPX 10.3.1? I'm on a MBPR (mid 2014) 16GB Ram 512 SSD. Thanks!!
Instances of Vienna Ensemble Pro or Kontakt? If your loading your Kontakt instances in Logic, (no VEP), load more instances of Kontakt with less instruments in each instead of one or two instances of Kontakt with a bunch of instruments loaded. Each channel in Logic (or any modern DAW) is assigned to one core of the CPU (it's actually a little more complicated than that, but I'm limited on space here). If you load one instance of Kontakt with a bunch of instruments, and conditions are right you run the risk of overloading that one core of your CPU, which in effect the same as overloading the entire CPU. You'll get pops and clicks. I'm assuming you have a 4 core i5 or i7. One core needs to be "protected" for the OS and for Logic. The best way to do this is to spread Kontakt across many channels. macOS, Logic and Kontakt will evenly spread themselves across the CPUs. As far as settings, this is a bit of a conservative guess depending on which CPU you have, but I'd start by setting Logic to 4 or 6 cores, and turn off Kontakt's Multiprocessor Support off. If you notice Kontakt clipping the CPU (the CPU display is at top right of Kontakt), try bumping Kontakt's Multiprocessor Support to 2. You can try move up from there depending on what the Activity Monitor is showing for core usage, CPU % and Threads.
If you're using VEP, which is best, again load Kontakt across many channels. With your setup, try to use minimize the number of VEP instances you use. However, Logic users have the problem that AU only supports one MIDI port (and you have to use the Event Input plugin which is less efficient). I use Digital Performer, which can access up to 48 MIDI ports, which changes how I would do this. Anyway, depending on how many cores your CPU has (VEP counts physical and virtual cores, so a 4 core i7 has 4 more virtual cores for a total of 8 cores), balance the load across that number. For example, for 8 total cores (assuming you put all of your Kontakt instances in VEP and nothing in Logic), set VEP to 6 cores, Kontakt to off, and Logic to 4 cores. I know that adds up to more than 8 cores, but macOS can compensate for that.
That's a starting point. To give you more precise settings I would need to know more about the template size and the libraries your using. I might lower core settings on VEP and set Kontakt's Multiprocessor Support to 4 cores in one scenario. Just remember that for each instance of VEP you add you need to half the number of threads used by VEP.
Try those suggestions and get back with me. I'm going to post a new video with some more DAW/VEP/Kontakt setup and core setting tips soon. Also I'm about to announce that I'm offering a remote template setup service. Basically, you'd share your screen with me, and I'd help you set up your Logic and VEP template, then precisely optimize the settings for your setup.
WAW, thank you for writing all this.. much appreciated! I'm working on i7 2.5 and i'm using all sorts plugins and sample libraries including: EWQL Hollywood Strings+Brass, SP Albions + London Contemp. Str. and many more
I've been experimenting with all sorts of settings but still cannot find the sweet spot :(
LPX has an Auto option setting for CPU cores, I've been trying out ur suggestions with 4 -8 cores setting but don't seem to notice any difference.
NEPSOUND Is there a particular issue you're experiencing? CPU clipping? Running out of memory? Voices dropping? Uneven load on the CPU?
I often get CPU clipping which causes everything to lag followed by a system crash.
NEPSOUND Without seeing your template and Logic setup. 1) Always set your buffer as high as it will go, (1024 or 2048). 2) Make sure you're RAM is not being filled up forcing the OS to use it's Virtual Memory- that is deadly). 3) Cut corners where you can. Don't use too many reverbs when you may only need 1, 2 or 3). 4) Unload or purge unused microphones in libraries like Spitfire and CS2. 5) is your OS and samples on the same 512GB SSD? If so, you're asking the OS to do way too much. When that happens it's your OS and CPU that are wasting cycles trying to make it all work. 6) don't use unnecessary instruments. (First chair string players for full sections at this point). 7) Save a copy of your instruments and multis with articulations turned off so they don't take up RAM as you load them. 8) Bounce stems separately and disable the stems not being used during the bounce. 9) When using VEP, use Logic for nothing other than MIDI tracks and returns with a final reverb and master bus. 10) With 16GBs of RAM you're going to have to optimize Kontakt before stems. 11) when working on a section, say the strings, disable the woods and brass in VEP. If you must here the other sections do a quick bounce of them before you disable them. 12) If you use MIR turn the cache down and set the buffer to 0. 13) you don't need every mic one to hear awesome multimic'd libraries at the composing stage. Save those room and stage mics for separate stems. Then import the string mics (close, room and stage), the brass, woodwind and percussion multimics don't need to be turned on until you bounce to stems. Then when Logic is your mixing host for mic stems you can hear them then. 14) use Ensemble patches when separate string patches take up to much memory. I used to use only a piano sample to compose entire parts, or ensemble patches. Then I would orchestra from there. 15) make sure that your CPU, SSDs and RAM are equally taking hits. This is key. Remember you settings in Kontakt, VEP and Logic make a big difference. For instance. Tell Kontakt to kill voices if you're in a pinch.
Where is your CPU spiking? Logic, Kontakt or the activity monitor?
What app allows you to show the % at the top right corner?
Yeppy 01 iStats Menu on the App Store.
Thanks!!
Jay's Museum ur welcome
This is very informative. Thank you very much. I was wondering, if you know how well building an orchestral template in Ableton Live will fare with Kontakt? , I've tried and tried again with some success here and there. I'm working from a PC platform, Windows 10 64-bit - was wondering if you have a few tips for composers in a similar position as I.
Bryan D Do you have Vienna Ensemble Pro?
Steve Steele I don't have VE Pro, but have heard many good things about it. Is it the better solution for orchestral templates within Live? I'm trying to Kontakt and it's some Komplete 11 libraries. I have a copy of Studio One Pro also if that's a better option in your opinion. Can't quite justify the jump to Cubase for now (which is my preference compared to Logic) since I only do orchestral stuff sometimes. But yeah, would appreciate the good workflow if I can get it running it Live. Currently having a conversation with another fellow TH-camr and he mentioned Live only used one thread (of a core) for every MIDI track, so using Kontakt Multis in Live is not quite efficient (still looking up on that).
Bryan D Logic is macOS only, unless you’re thinking about getting a Mac that wouldn’t be an option for you. However, by a fairly large margin, the two most feature rich and efficient DAW’s for MIDI orchestration are Cubase and Digital Performer (both have Windows and Mac versions). Digital Performer has a few great features that Cubase doesn’t have (Chunks, sample accurate video sync, clippings and DP’s workspace is generally a version ahead of Cubase’s) , and Cubase has a few great features that DP doesn’t have, (Expression Maps, Note Expression, true VCA faders, etc..). However both DP and Cubase both have something that others don’t that keeps them ahead of the pack when used with VE Pro.
DP’s MAS plug-in format supports up to 48 midi ports, and Cubase’s VST 3 supports up to 48 midi ports. Any DAW that relies on the Audio Units or VST 2 plug-in formats only supports 1 midi port. There is a workaround for this, but it’s not optimal. I can explain more if you want. Also, both DP and Cubase fully support multithreading (this is a full conversation all by itself but I’d be glad to explain the “one channel is one thread” issue). I use DP personally, but I like Cubase just the same. I’d be happy with either one. The Chunks feature in DP was the difference.
If you’re going to build a large orchestral template you really need VE Pro because it can host huge sample library templates. My VE Pro template loads up to 100GBs of samples into RAM at one time and VE Pro has no stability problems or playback problems. Most DAWs run into CPU or buffer loading problems at around 30GBs or so (haven’t tested this in a couple of years so the number may have changed). Regardless, no DAW can handle hosting sample libraries like VE Pro. None.
I’ve built a lot of film scoring and orchestral templates for Disney and other Hollywood composers and I’ve only seen four DAWs being used. Those are Digital Performer, Cubase, Logic and Pro Tools. If you’d like my advice, (depending on your budget), choose between one of those first three DAWs , get VE Pro and you’ll have a rock solid template that will be on par with anything else out there. I would also consider getting an iPad and adding TouchOSC or Lemur and possibly Metagrid (which is very nice with DP and Cubase), to your workflow. Studio One Pro is getting good pretty fast, but it’s still a few generations behind DP and Cubase. But that doesn’t mean you couldn’t use it by any means. I own a copy and I’ve worked with it. It’s very similar to Cubase (as you know). I’m sure you could get Live to work, but Live isn’t used much in the film/orchestral world so you’ll kinda be on a island.
You don’t have to ditch Live. There’s no reason you can’t use one DAW for orchestration and Live for everything else. I use two different DAWs and two different notation programs almost every day. You can also use ReWire and use Live as a slave. I sometimes use DP as a host with Finale, Notion and Logic as ReWire slaves, all while DP is connected to VE Pro. Almost anything is possible.
Also, I’m getting close to launching my website store. I’m selling completely built VE Pro templates, custom TouchOSC templates, Metagrid templates, all with complete support for the more popular sample libraries built in (Spitfire’s UACC, OT’s Capsule, VSL’s VI Pro, and others..). All the buyer will have to do is launch VE Pro and their DAW and everything will load up ready to go. I’ve literally taken care of every detail. I’ll be selling the complete package for a very low price and offering custom one-off builds as well.
Hope that answered some of your questions. Feel free to ask more!
Oh shoot, I almost forgot, yes Logic is Mac only. And no, I won't be switching to a Mac anytime soon. The 48 midi port workaround you're mentioning. When you say 1 midi port, you are talking about 16 channels within 1 midi port yes?
With regards to the "one channel, one thread" issue; I'll be reading more on it first before I drop any questions. As far as I know, Live has multicore/multiprocessor support and it supports hyperthreading (although it's off by default and must mess around with the Options.txt file).
I'll be sure to look into VE Pro as my next build when I believe I'll be going down that direction more. (Orchestral stuff I mean)
Thank you for the inside info regarding the DAWs you've built templates on. I'll be sure to look into Cubase.
I like how you put it, me kind of being in an island. I was following a film composer who used Live, but he switched to Cubase recently and that kind of did leave me on an island.
And yes I have no problems working on multiple DAWs so I can harness the pros of one and stay away from the cons of another. My only concern is really syncing up these multiple DAWs. I've tried my hand on ReWire a bit and I can't say if it's as stable enough for film composing work.
Anyhow, I look forward to your website and future videos. Cheers.
Bryan D Right, so 48 Midi ports x 16 Midi channels per port = 768 potential ports. The reason that’s good isn’t because I’ll use all of those channels but it allows flexibility. I use VSL Winds, Berlin Brass, Berlin and VSL Percussion and Spitfire and Berlin Strings. I have a mixed, midi channel per articulation, keyswitching, CC switching and UACC based template, and being able to use VE Pro without compromise is the biggest key to efficiency. If you plan on hosting these types of huge multi-mic sample libraries to build a massive orchestra plus synths, extra percussion, etc., then a MAS or VST3 based DAW is great to have.
Composer who used Live then switched to Cubase. That wouldn’t be Daniel James would it? I wondered when he was going to switch. There’s something to be said for a DAW that has a great community of users in the film and orchestral world who go out of their way to help each other out.
If you don’t mind telling me, what are your main libraries right now? Btw, you can get a 30-day fully functional demo of Digital Performer from the MOTU website. Not trying to promote DP, it’s not for everyone, but you could at least play with it for 30 days and you don’t need a iLok or Steinberg key. If you do have a Steinberg dongle, you can also download a 30-day demo of Vienna Ensemble Pro. If you do demo VE Pro, and you give me a short list of the orchestral libraries you have now, I’ll put together a simple but effective template for you so you can test it with Live.
Steve you are doing all this from one computer?
In this video I am. My main setup has another almost identical Mac Pro running as a VEP slave. However, I could get by with one computer with good optimization. I used one computer here to show how i would do that.
what is your DAW please?
Digital Performer. In this video I'm using version 9.
Brilliant. But please don’t record your voice with such a close mic
Peter Nicholls Got a RE-20 or SM7 you can donate to the cause?
Just hang your mic on some string if need be. You won’t get the proximity boom effect either
Peter Nicholls The problem with my headset is that it’s a condenser with a really small diaphragm. Wasn’t paying attention when I bought it. It just doesn’t behave for voiceover, IMO. For singing yes, my Bock large diaphragm condenser mics are of course perfect for that but for VO, I really need to get a large diaphragm dynamic. That’s just me though. Can’t get this thing to sound good and I’ve tried every position and combination of high end compressors, de essers, eqs. Will replace when I can.
Noted. :)
@@SteveSteeleSoundSymphony
2:01 Multiprocessor Support Setting
Yes?
your resolution is so high i cant read the text