Calling knowledgeable Mac people!

[stoney]

Hi RachelRead your post and thought I might add my two pennies!Unfortunately I think the problem lies with East West, which version are you using by the way (Silver, Gold Platinum)? In the manual for East West Platinum the recommended number of computers (yes I said computers) is 8 to run the full library! Granted the text was written pre the super fast macs but it still gives a clear idea of just how big East West is. I think your problem lies in the fact that the computer can't process and buffer the samples efficiently causing drop outs. Also I understand for Logic 8 on Leopard you may need new the Play engine not Kontakt. Problem is here not sure if the new Play engine supports Power PC macs???The issue of bouncing to audio is a solution, however I think this isn't practical for writing and arranging. An audio track cannot be changed or developed with out going back to the soft synth. A time consuming process that just doesn't cut it when you are working to deadlines.My advice would be to purchase VSL Special Edition, fraction of the price of EW. You'll still get high quality sounds without the same kind of processor issues that you will always suffer from on your mac. You can still use EW to beef things up once your music is written if you need that big Hollywood sound?Hope this helps

[mazz]

stoney: most folks here are on EW Gold with a few on Platinum (myself included). The reason to run 8 computers for Platinum is if you want/need to have all 3 mic positions loaded at the same time. Usually this isn't necessary, at least in my experience thus far. If I get to that point, I think computers will be fast enough so I'll need fewer.As far as Play goes, the orchestral libraries haven't been released for Play yet. But Play works with Power PC Macs because I'm using it on a G5 and it works just fine. Kontakt should work just fine in Leopard and G5 with East West. I'm using it on 10.4 and also on XP 64bit with East West no problem.I think, unless Rachel wants to buy a new Mac, her options are to get as much RAM as possible in the iMac and to freeze tracks. It's a bit of a pain but it's do-able. On the upside, it makes one really think about their arrangements and how to get a lot of mileage out of fewer tracks!Cheers,Mazz

[stick]

Side note: I bought VSL Special Edition. It's excellent. Running it on an old G5, but haven't really tried to push it yet. But, I've never tried the EWQL stuff at all.

[stoney]

Hi MazzThanks for enlightening me I think you'll also find 8 computers is recommended not just for the mic postions but for each section of the orchestra too, each one being on a separate drive. I mentioned this to give some idea of just how big the samples are, not to make a bold statement of my intimate knowledge of the programme. The reason for such a response from me was to suggest to Rachel that in my opinion this particular problem stems from the software being incompatible with the mac when a large orchestral sound is required, the computer sounds to me like it just can't cope with the load. I'm not sure if more RAM will completely solve the problem either but can't be sure when we don't know which EW version. 4 GB of RAM is the limit unless you run at a high bit rate. For me, on the issue of freezing tracks I find a waste of time. I use Logic and once a track is frozen composing effectively stops for that track. As a composer I need to be able to change and adapt to my clients requirements and if you have to keep unfreezing tracks to re-write your defeating the object of track freezing. It's something that I have just never used but that is just my personal taste. Cheers

[clanmorgan]

Im running a similar setup (G5 1.8 single with 2gig RAM) with Digital Performer 5 and I have found track count limitations using East/West and alot of processing reverbs. What works for me is making using the Freeze feature and setting up Aux tracks for the reverbs, etc.. For the most part I find that my lack of '2008' processing power comes at the cost of revising my workflow. I tend to compose the softsynths in sections and Freeze off the tracks so that when I need the processing power I have it available. SO for me the impact is on my workflow but only when Im running processor heavy app's.....

[rlcmusic]

Stoney/Clan Morgan,Thank you both for your posts. I've taken note of what everybody has said here and hopefully I'll find some way of improving work flow for these types of tracks. Thanks again and all the best,Rachel

[nickbatzdorf]

There are a few things going on here. One is that 2GB of RAM on any machine isn't really enough to run 16 EWQLSO instruments. Another is that EWQLSO is very demanding of both streaming and CPU requirements due to the number of voices; the recorded release trails are great, but they're not a free breakfast. Yet another issue is that as great as Kontakt and family is (EWQLSO uses a Kontakt player), it has a tendency to make computers snap, crackle, and pop.I think you'll find that you can run, say, six instruments, but at some point before 16 your machine will start to crap out.This is an issue I deal with all the time on my 2x2.5 G5 with Kontakt 2 and other NI players, by the way. They have a lot going on, especially in K2 when you start loading scripts. The only answer today is to use multiple machines. Not eight, but more than one iMac.People with 8-core/8+MB Mac Pros are still having problems too. Maybe OS X 10.5.3 will help by distributing the load better in Logic, but who knows.

[rlcmusic]

Hi Nick,Thank you very much for your post.Yes, I think there are a lot of things going on. I had a few days of being completely unable to run 1 instance of Kontakt with just a few instruments in (routed to midi channels) compared to now when things seem to be running 90% better (back in original project with circa 12 tracks with their own instances). As usual, I did nothing different and the machine has a mind of its own...It obviously doesn't help to read about bugs here there and everywhere when trying to narrow things down but it's very interesting to hear that Mac Pro owners have also experienced performance issues.Thanks again and best wishes,Rachel

[kouly]

Hi Rachel, I believe someone has mentioned drives but I want to bring home the point as I think this one fact gets neglected. That is the issue of drive speed. A faster drive speed equates to faster seek times and lessons this well known bottle neck. I found that by using the 10,000 RPM Raptors, I was able to remove the core audio overload messages that many a Logic user knows about. There are other advantages including higher track and instrument counts. Something to seriously consider when your machine is the only thing standing between you and that sucess story.

[nickbatzdorf]

I have Raptors on one of my Windows machines, and they do make a difference - but it's not as much as one might expect, unfortunately, and it doesn't solve the CPU problem.