Why please is it best to have GS on its own machine?

[Joanne Babunovic]

Hi,

I\'m custom building Windows XP PC from scratch for Cubase SX and Halion for sequencing and hard disc recording. PC can be configured as needed - any number/size of drives, and amont of ram, etc.

Is there any advantage to making the effort to install Gigasampler on this same PC or is it \"generally\" always better to run GS on a separate machine. And why please?

Thanks,
Joanne

[Scott Cairns]

Hi Joanne, obviously dedicating a machine solely to Gigastudio is going to give the best performance but that also means that each machine needs to have a half decent sound card and midi interface (or midioverlan).

I currently run two DAW\'s, the main one has Cubase SX, Kontakt, Gigastudio, and host of other VST\'s. My main machine is an Athlon 2000+ with 1 gig of ram. To lighten the load a bit I have put an Audiophile card into a PIII/550mHz with 446 ram. This is my second machine and solely runs Gigastudio.

To really answer your question though, you certainly can run one machine. Depending on your style of music, and the power of your machine, you will find that you might have to render your tracks to audio sooner than later.

I am surprised at how much my main DAW will handle. Of course, dedicating a seperate drive to samples is also the way to go.

If you have two or more computers, why not do both?

Hope this helps, Scott.

[Joanne Babunovic]

Thanks Scott,

Nothing is ever straight-forward in the land of gigasampler!

If I\'m understanding, you run GS on your main DAW with Cubase. You additionally have GS installed on a second machine. Is giga on your Sequencer PC on its own drive or does it share a drive with something else? What advantage do you acquire by having giga on both machines? Maybe less latency from the giga on the main PC?

Sorry if I am asking the obvious, and thanks,

[Scott Cairns]

Oops, double post. graemlins/tounge_images/icons/smile.gif

[Scott Cairns]

If I\'m understanding, you run GS on your main DAW with Cubase. You additionally have GS installed on a second machine.<font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">- that\'s correct. I run two instances of Giga.


Is giga on your Sequencer PC on its own drive or does it share a drive with something else? <font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">- Giga is on the C: drive along with Cubase and all other apps. I am not aware of any performance gain by sticking the application on its own drive.

I have a Western Star Digital hard drive (with an 8 meg buffer, most drives have a 2 meg buffer) that contains nothing but samples. The performance gain in streaming audio from a seperate drive is huge. So in other words, the application is on a \"shared drive\" (C:) but the samples that Giga reads are on their own hard drive. (In my case E:)


What advantage do you acquire by having giga on both machines?<font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">- just that sometimes a song you are working on becomes so big (especially orchestral) that it is best to spread it across multiple machines.

Some of the pro composers here have a setup something like this;

1. Machine running sequencer/VST\'s
2. PC/Giga running strings/woodwinds
3. PC/Giga running brass/percussion

Some have even more computers than that!

The thing to remember, and I didn\'t fully realise this when I started using Giga, is that in Gigastudio you dont just load up a violin patch, horn patch, etc. You are also loading up different articulations of the same instruments. E.g; Horns; staccato, swell, marcato, sustain, etc. Strings; sordino, sustain, spiccatto, pizzicatto

This is when Gigastudio really starts to fill up. Add this to the fact that your sequencer may be running VST\'s and doing effects processing (Effects processing will chew the CPU faster than anything). If you are also composing to picture that is digitised to the hard drive, there is another overhead.

So this is why it is useful to distribute the song across more than one machine.



Maybe less latency from the giga on the main PC?
<font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">- The primary cause of latency is going to be your soundcard and/or midi interface. Giga does an amzing job of streaming a huge amount of samples. Many people get away with PII\'s and PIII\'s as alternate DAW\'s



Sorry if I am asking the obvious, and thanks,<font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">- Not obvious at all! I have received a great deal of help and advice from the kind folk here. Just happy to be able to answer questions instead of asking them for a change! images/icons/wink.gif

If you have any more questions, feel free to ask. I spent a lot time researching the best sound cards, the best set-ups, libraries, capture devices, etc. If I can\'t answer someone else surely will.

Regards, Scott.

[Joanne Babunovic]

Hi Scott,

Thanks for all the info and the clear explanations. I\'m just starting the learning curve, and very much appreciate your help.

To your point, since I will be using Gigastudio for large orchestrals, I think I will stick with my original plan to load Gigastudio on its own machine. From what you say, it looks like I may have even two or three machines dedicated to giga. I suppose I should start playing the lottery to fund all this...

[Scott Cairns]

Hi Joanne, you can always go for stripped-down, bare bones systems for your extra DAWS.

When I build my third and fourth machines they may not even have a cd rom drive. I will network each machine.

Also, if you run a KVM switch box or remote desktop software you wont need an extra monitor or mouse. You will just need to stick a cheap keyboard on it to at least access the BIOS.

The midiman Audiophile cards are great value as they have midi and sp/dif on them as well as having ASIO and GSIF drivers. THe other thing is that some complain about cheaper cards not having the best AD/DA converters but I actually render the wav files over the network, the sound card is more like a listening device than anything. This means the sounds are always digital even travelling from one DAW to another.

Regards, Scott.

[Joanne Babunovic]

Thanks again for the tips.

[pantonality]

One last thing. Midi interfaces are expensive and a source of latency. Many of us are using midi over LAN which will give you 16 midi ports (of 16 midi channels each), both in and out. For the cost of a network card (assuming your PC doesn\'t have a network connection) and $39 for the software and the time to set it up. It\'s cheaper and faster than using dedicated midi ports.

Go to http://www.musiclab.com (\"http://www.musiclab.com\") for more info.

disclaimer, I don\'t work for Musiclab nor will I benefit in any way from discussing their products here. I\'ve used them and they work well.

Steve Chandler
http://www.mp3.com/stevechandler (\"http://www.mp3.com/stevechandler\")

[mike harper]

i just built my second PC for dirt cheap- a p3-800 asus dual scci dual/ide. using the wavecenter adat to my delta1010 (adat option) . no more pops and clicks i was getting from time to time when recording to logic!! just got the MOL working fine as well.
hell i might get another one soon!

[Joanne Babunovic]

Thanks Steve and Mike. Great timing for your comments, as I\'m right in the middle of trying to figure the best link of the giga to primary daw. Like everything else, there are \"many\" alternatives. I am now officially a candidate for a padded cell. images/icons/smile.gif

[Scott Cairns]

I forgot to mention that I also have MOL.

Currently I only use it to create a local pipe. In other words to midi up two applications on the same machine.

I haven\'t noticed any significant latency with my Audiophile to warrant me climbing under the desk and pulling out cables!

But great advice from Mike and Steve, for the price of MOL you just cant go wrong.

Cheers, Scott.

[Jeannot Welter]

I actually went from a system using several machines ( with nothing but trouble ), to a single machine, and lived happily after. I guess it all depends.....
JW.

[Anders00]

Along similar lines, i\'m trying to figure out the best/cheapest way to add another PC to my rig. I\'m currently running a single P4 1.7 with ~780 megs rambus. there are 3 EIDE hard drives, one of which is dedicated to samples only (with 8 meg cache). My sound card is a Delta 66.

For anyone who\'s been in a similar situation and expanded their rig with an extra DAW...from what i\'ve read on this thread...should the new DAW send SPDIF to my Delta 66? (to avoid low-quality AD, DA conversion?) Should I use the current PC as a sequencer and add a more bare bones one just for GS?

Additionally, my current PC uses a networking card for my internet hookup. Should I add a second ethernet card for MidiOverLan?

For the bare bones machine...how \"bare\" can it be and still function well as a GS-only machine? And is the Midiman Audiophile the way to go?

Sorry for the long post, but any advice would be very helpful.

-Matt

[sporter]

Originally posted by Anders00:
Along similar lines, i\'m trying to figure out the best/cheapest way to add another PC to my rig. I\'m currently running a single P4 1.7 with ~780 megs rambus. there are 3 EIDE hard drives, one of which is dedicated to samples only (with 8 meg cache). My sound card is a Delta 66.

For anyone who\'s been in a similar situation and expanded their rig with an extra DAW...from what i\'ve read on this thread...should the new DAW send SPDIF to my Delta 66? (to avoid low-quality AD, DA conversion?) Should I use the current PC as a sequencer and add a more bare bones one just for GS?

Additionally, my current PC uses a networking card for my internet hookup. Should I add a second ethernet card for MidiOverLan?

For the bare bones machine...how \"bare\" can it be and still function well as a GS-only machine? And is the Midiman Audiophile the way to go?

Sorry for the long post, but any advice would be very helpful.

-Matt <font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">Getting the sounds from Giga into your sequencer is one of the downsides of running a seperate standalone machine. The spdif is a good choice, and you can transfer one track at a time into your sequencer. An ADAT card is better, but you\'ll need one on both ends. And of course, GS\'s capture to wave ***ntion is a convenient way to do it.

If you use the capture to wave funtion, networking the two will make life much easier since you can do your audio imports into your sequencer over the network.

As far as \"bare bones\" go, you need a big fast hard drive and lots of ram. Processing speed is less important. I\'ve used GS sucessfully on a 900mz processor.

Good luck

[sporter]

Originally posted by sporter:
GS\'s capture to wave ***ntion is a <font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">Check it out...I\'ve been censored. images/icons/grin.gif

The word should be \"function\"

I\'ll go wash my mouth out with soap now. images/icons/smile.gif

[Joanne Babunovic]

Sporter...did the mods put those little astericks in? How funny.

Re: hooking another daw, I have lightpipe and it seems to be OK.