GPO4: DFD by default? Upgrade to ProjectSAM?

[marce]

Hi, some questions after reading the online manual of GPO4:

Is the DFD mode the used by default in ARIA?
I understood that you can limit the use of ram from 128-512mb, so the rest is streamed from disk? Is not loaded entirely in ram like with KP?

In the manual also is refered that you can upgrade the Sam Brasses with an special price for gpo4 owners?
Will this upgrade also work in ARIA?
Any link?

Thanks!

[Garritan]

Hi, some questions after reading the online manual of GPO4:

Is the DFD mode the used by default in ARIA?
I understood that you can limit the use of ram from 128-512mb, so the rest is streamed from disk? Is not loaded entirely in ram like with KP?

In the manual also is refered that you can upgrade the Sam Brasses with an special price for gpo4 owners?
Will this upgrade also work in ARIA?
Any link?

Thanks!Marce,

The library has a small footprint and most can load a full orchestra with a gig of RAM, so DFD is not an issue either way,

We are still working with Project SAM to provide an upgrade path and will post something when ready. The upgrade will be Kontakt-based.

Best,

Gary

[marce]

Thanks the quick answer Gary! Im not worry about the DFD, only wanted to know, thinking in how it works when loading some heavy external sfz files (thinking to load some of the Sampletekk pianos converted to it)

Good to know about the ProjectSam upgrade.

[rbowser-]

...The library has a small footprint and most can load a full orchestra with a gig of RAM, so DFD is not an issue either way...
Hi, Gary - I'm not clear on how things are working now in Aria, I'm surprised at myself, but there it is. I recently had trouble rendering a track using Aria, getting not clicks and pops, but "bumps" in the audio, even when recording at real time speed.

I was told the problem was that my computer wasn't chasing the DFD info fast enough to make a good recording. I've changed an option in Sonar so that my multiprocessor is temporarily turned off during rendering, but I haven't done enough recording recently to know if that's totally fixed the problem.

But this answer I got about the problem made it seem that instead of instruments being loaded in RAM like in the previous GPO, that they were being read straight from disc - ? All I know is that previous to this, I never had a problem getting a good recording from GPO, even when keeping the "fast bounce" option in Sonar on. - ? -

Randy

[Haydn]

Maybe we need an option to disable DFD in ARIA for either a whole library or per sound. I noticed I've been getting more pops lately and I'm thinking it's caused by too many different libraries and sample engines using DFD at the same time. With 64 bit apps I have plenty of memory to have GPO load totally in memory.

Jim

[rbowser-]

Hi, Jim - Your post is echoing the kind of problem I had - And I'm still confused. Gary is talking about GPO loading in RAM and DFD not being an issue - but--When we render tracks, it's all DFD action isn't it--?

Randy

[David (plogue)]

ARIA always streams unless the samples are very small... you can raise the pre caching time in the settings tab, before loading ANY sound.

With regards to Sonar, Ive said it before, there are THREE modes to render audio, use Fast, or SONAR doesnt TELL aria its rendering! Aria needs to know when its doing a bounce in order to read the samples differently than in "real time". If it doesnt get that info, (it changes according to the mode), then it will skip audio, as any library that has a fine tuned system of streaming its own audio.

ARIA doesnt have a user-selectable RAM ONLY mode, because people would try that with steinway and break the 2GB barrier. (you can specify whole libraries to behave RAM ONLY thought, but its not enabled in GPO4)

DFD is NI's terminology.

[marce]

All I know is that previous to this, I never had a problem getting a good recording from GPO, even when keeping the "fast bounce" option in Sonar on. - ?

Hi Randy. Just remember that ARIA is a newborn baby compared with the older Kontakt... it just need grow a little and that will take some time.
I havent upgrade yet, but i believe that is a good thing that ARIA have a DFD mode. If you are working exclusively with GPO it´s fine to load all in RAM, but what about if you are working with others libraryes as well, that use several GB of samples?
DFD if working right, must not give you problems when rendering. Looking the Kontakt demo i see that it allow the user to load the samples in DFD mode or in RAM, you choose. That can be a good idea for ARIA in advanced mode or so.

Well, please tell us how this issues are going about the DFD mode, i would like to know.


Edit: Hi David, sorry i post at same time than you, im reading just now your post.

[rbowser-]

Thanks for the replies, David and Marce - OK, so DFD Is a much bigger issue in Aria than it was/is in KP2. I've just been trying to understand how GPO4 fits in with the previous concept that RAM was where samples were loaded - That isn't the case now, the samples are streamed, and so RAM isn't as critical as it was before--Am I understanding correctly?

Hmmm, something I'm not getting from your post, David, is you're saying we Should bounce in "fast" mode in Sonar otherwise Aria won't understand the task being asked of it. But that causes more problems than when I record in real time speed - ? -

I need to keep doing more projects to be able to report what happens with the most consistency. My interest in this topic is because in my first Aria project, I had, for the first time, a real heck of a time getting an unflawed audio track out of the Bass string ensemble patch. I ended up having to use a volume envelope to drop the volume down during the glitches, and have a KP2 rendered track of the same instrument fill those gaps. - I'll just keep an eye/ear on how things go as I make more music via Aria.

Randy

[marce]

Hi Randy. I remember when you helped me because i have problems rendering the GPO Piano in KP2. It sounded OK played in realtime but when rendering, notes were skipped. I uncheck the "Fast bounce" like you suggested and it solve the situation.
Now appear that what we have learned must be forgotten.The "Fast bounce" is checked by default in the Sonar render dialog, so point for ARIA, because it is working ok with the sonar factory settings.

Anyway, if what David pointed to you dont solve the situation, meanwhile you can use what i used to solve my old KP2 issue: a free and nice plugin that record in realtime the output of Sonar to a Wav file, exactly like you hear it.
It´s called "TapeIt" and is here, can help:

http://www.silverspike.com/Download/TapeIt.zip

Edit: You need to put it in your Master Channel, after any other fx plugin you have there.

[David (plogue)]

Hi

I just spent a few moments with Sonar, rendering our infamous Rachmaninoff.mid test file under various scenarios:

Sonar 8 renders:
Method / Go? / Why?
----------------------------------------------------
export audio / YES /(streaming is done offline)

freeze synth
(FAST BOUNCE on) / YES /(streaming is done offline)

freeze synth
(FAST BOUNCE OFF) / NO /(streaming is done LIVE, as if played though MIDI)

(audible or not in fast bounce off doesn't make a difference,
its bad in both cases)


I think "fast" needs to be explained It doesn't mean "cheap" or botched, it means as fast as your computer can render
without any real time constraints.

So if you have a 10 minute piece that normally plays at around 10% CPU usage, in theory you could have 90% more juice right?
Fast mode does just that, it takes all cpu to do it as fast as it can, in this case in a minute for the whole 10 minute piece.

If you don't use fast bounce, aria doesn't get any warning that Sonar will be doing lots more I/O
(by playing other DAW tracks and recording audio), so its actually takes more resources to play ARIA pieces than under normal playback.

To make a story short, to be a 100% sure that there is no audio dropout from aria (due to disk activity) is to use fast bounce, or export audio. Then ARIA reads all the data thats needed from disk and doesn't "let go" of the cpu until its read! It forces Sonar to wait until it has all thats needed to do a good job , in other words. Now whether or not K2 used/liked this method or not is something i don't know.

Now... if you say you are getting sound problems THEN, then its a bug i'm unaware of.
In that case i would love to have your example files and settings.

Note: How to make sure aria knows its doing a bounce (this applies for any ARIA platform) ? Just have the "settings" tab (in GPO4) or about (Steinway) shown
and look to see if the Disk meter is moving. if its moving, it means aria is not aware of a bounce.

[rbowser-]

Hi Randy. I remember when you helped me because i have problems rendering the GPO Piano in KP2. It sounded OK played in realtime but when rendering, notes were skipped. I uncheck the "Fast bounce" like you suggested and it solve the situation.
Now appear that what we have learned must be forgotten.The "Fast bounce" is checked by default in the Sonar render dialog, so point for ARIA, because it is working ok with the sonar factory settings.

Anyway, if what David pointed to you dont solve the situation, meanwhile you can use what i used to solve my old KP2 issue: a free and nice plugin that record in realtime the output of Sonar to a Wav file, exactly like you hear it.
It´s called "TapeIt" and is here, can help:

http://www.silverspike.com/Download/TapeIt.zip

Edit: You need to put it in your Master Channel, after any other fx plugin you have there.
Thank you very much, Marce - ! I'll keep "TapeIt" in reserve if it turns out I need a work around. I want to believe it was just a strange case that won't come up again, when I had trouble rendering that one track - neither fast or slow bounce worked perfectly.

There does seem to be confusion over DFD usage and RAM usage in Aria - I don't think I was alone in thinking it was still primarily using RAM for storing its samples. I thought the literature still said that, maybe I'm wrong. It would help especially the more technically oriented users to understand better just what's going on when Aria is used, so they can have the info they need for trouble shooting.

I've done only a very few things with Aria so far. Like I said earlier, I'll just keep listening carefully to tracks to make sure there aren't glitches. It would be kind of a drag to need to use a plugin to help record in Sonar, but of course I'll do whatever I have to!

Thanks again.

Randy

[marce]

Hi Randy... i have the impression that you posted and you didnt see the helpfull post from David... (happens when posting at same time) Just in case you dont noted it.

Best REgards.

[rbowser-]

Thank you, Marce - You're right, I didn't see David's new post - I can see he was writing at the same time as me.

David - That's great, thanks for running the tests in Sonar. Things are much more clear to me.

Previously, in the Kontact Player, here's what those of using Garritan Libraries became accustomed to:

GPO, JABB and CMB could be bounced in "fast" mode successfully (most of the time).

The Strad, The Gofriller had to be bounced with fast Un-checked, or there would be drop outs in the renders.

Recently this was confirmed on a thread, that those Libraries, along with The Steinway (in its previous version of Aria) didn't do well to be bounced in Fast mode - dropped notes would invariably show up.

Now with GPO4 in the new Aria, we need to reverse our thinking - Fast mode is preferred over "slow" mode, as per your explanation.

I'll go about working with my projects in this way, and keep checking the results. They all will involve a combination of KP2 and Aria, since so many instruments I tend to use aren't available in Aria yet - hence the hybrid nature of my projects, at least for the present.

I appreciate your time and help on this, David!

Randy

[David (plogue)]

Hi



Recently this was confirmed on a thread, that those Libraries, along with The Steinway (in its previous version of Aria) didn't do well to be bounced in Fast mode - dropped notes would invariably show up.


Hum which thread was that? I expect both Steinway and GPO4 to react the same under Sonar bounce modes. The ARIA engine is what drives everything, and if you have GPO4, then Steinway uses the latest aria too. In fact the tests i just posted were running Steinway with the latest ARIA from GPO4.

[rbowser-]

Hi - Hum which thread was that? I expect both Steinway and GPO4 to react the same under Sonar bounce modes. The ARIA engine is what drives everything, and if you have GPO4, then Steinway uses the latest aria too. In fact the tests i just posted were running Steinway with the latest ARIA from GPO4.

Hello again, David - As usual, I can't get my hands on the thread I want - the one I was thinking of. But you missed that I was saying it was in the first version of The Steinway, in the previous version of Aria, where there would be dropped notes when bounced in Fast mode. I know that's not jibing with your information here, except Aria is substantially different than it was 1 1/2 years ago when The Steinway came out.

On a number of occasions people would post about having the dropped note problem when bouncing a Steinway track in Sonar, and invariably they'd have success when they un-checked Fast bounce.

But I understand what you're saying - that we need to reverse our thinking now. Fast bounce is what we want to use for all Aria tracks. That's what I'll be doing!

Also, according to the Sonar Help files, there can be problems bouncing with the multiprocessor engine on, so there's a line in the Aud.ini file to change so that multi is turned off temporarily while bouncing. I've done that as per those instructions.

Randy

[David (plogue)]

Hello again, David - As usual, I can't get my hands on the thread I want - the one I was thinking of. But you missed that I was saying it was in the first version of The Steinway, in the previous version of Aria, where there would be dropped notes when bounced in Fast mode. I know that's not jibing with your information here, except Aria is substantially different than it was 1 1/2 years ago when The Steinway came out.

That is true to a good extent, but if things have changed its really in the VST layer that talks to ARIA and interprets Sonar's wishes. I think in 1.0 of Steinway, using Sonar's Fast bounce we were not warned (i would need to relook at old logs), which would make things worse than all the other render modes (since it tries to render faster)

So i think we are finally on the same page!

Regards

[rbowser-]

...So i think we are finally on the same page!"
Lol--Yes, I think we are! This really has been extremely helpful, David. You can see how after all this time of often needing to avoid Fast bounce due to drop outs, it didn't occur to me and probably other people, that now with Aria, the Fast bounce is what we Should use. Easy adjustment to make. I have confidence that my projects will go fine now.

Randy