Advice Needed: Upgrading Studio

[jmc]

Hello,

I am looking for some advice from people who are much more technologically minded than I--which is almost everyone here. I am considering a major studio upgrade, but am faced with a couple of choices. I am looking at Kontakt2 (over MachFive2) because I am interested in using my existing Kontakt and Kompakt Player libraries (GPO, JABB, Silver, Stormdrum, RA), and I haven't found anything that reliably states they will import into MachFive. Besides the scripting capabilities seem pretty advantageous from everything I've read.

I am also looking at buying a new macpro, and maybe this is a dumb question, but would the fact that Kontakt 2 is intel compatible allow Stormdrum and RA (which aren't) to work on an intel mac?

Lastly, I am looking at a single machine, probably a dual quad-core, with DP, Kontakt and maybe one of the UAD bundles (if my budget allows). I primarily write orchestral music and also have my eye on the sonivox orchestral library. Would a single powerful machine be a good investment, or would I be better off getting two, say 2.66 dual-core macs? Thanks in advance for any advice you can offer.

[Chalfant]

I can only say this much.

Firstly, can't help you Mac wise, use PCs due to Gigastudio 3

If you get the Sonivox library you need a seperate computer.
The pro sample library choices out there today really require this.

Kontakt 2 is the main sampler out there, I use Gigastudio but will be changing or at least adding K2 to my PC racks. K2 offers tremendous scripting capabilities and is thus far more powerful than your current sampler, not to mention the amount of library choices that support K2.

My true belief for an effective orchestral setup, which I do also is at least 2 machines. I don't care what anyone says, if you want a few high quality sample collections, like Sonivox, you will need 2 at least.

I am getting the Vienna Instrument SE packages next month and will be adding a new PC just for that.

Good luck and let us know how you get along.

[steff3]

>>
I am also looking at buying a new macpro, and maybe this is a dumb question, but would the fact that Kontakt 2 is intel compatible allow Stormdrum and RA (which aren't) to work on an intel mac?
>>

If you have the UB version of Kontakt then yes .....


>>
uld a single powerful machine be a good investment, or would I be better off getting two, say 2.66 dual-core macs? Thanks in advance for any advice you can offer.
>>
Well, at the moment hosts cannot use more than 4 GB of RAM. on a Mac pro you can install 4 internal SATA-drives, which lets you use 2 at least solely for sample streaming.
You can run plugins outside the host to use more than 4 GB RAM, well, a bit like running them on multiple computers.
Currently I would use two Quads instead of on Octo I think. (I also think that not each host will support 8 cores ....)

hope that helps

best

[jmc]

Thank you both for the helpful advice.