Optimal computer configuration for gigastudio

[Kenn159]

Hello Giga People
I would like to start this thread to find out from user feedback what computer speed is fast enough to run giga studio, effects and a sequencer of choice. Last july I bought a pentium 3 450 ,and at the time I thought it would be fast enough for the next Nemesys release [I was even told that by Nemesys] But now I see my 450 is sady enemic and not fast enough to run a complete workstation with sequencer, giga etc. This time before I make the leap I want to be sure before I spend the money.This is not a thread about AMD verses Pentium . I feel a 800 AMD is fairly close to a Pentium 800 in workstation ability. First of all we have to decide what we expect are computer to do before we decide which speed will do . Lets figure a exteme recording session so we wont have to worry about it ,so well be totally covered in any situation. Ok lets say 12 24/96 tracks [in cakewalk or what ever] ,with 12 direct x plug ins and 16 different sounds in giga studio,with 8 of those 16 sounds being 1 gig each and the other 8 sounds are at 20 megs each . And also for each of those 16 sounds in giga studio to have a different NFX giga studio native effect .Any idea\'s anyone , would anyone with giga studio and a sequencer etc care to max out there system to the point of locking up and tell us what there configuration is and what kind of performance they got ? thanks , Ken

[Simon Ravn]

You\'ll probably need a 2ghz Athlon with fast SCSI drives to achieve that....

So, what you should do instead. Since you\'re already planning on getting an Athlon, and Athlon uses different mobo\'s than Pentiums. You should keep your P2 450 for HD-recording (although it might be a little slow for what you want - a P3 800 would be better). And assemble a dedicated Gigastudio setup with the Athlon (or a P3). In my opinion there\'s no way you\'re gonna be able to stream so much data on/off your HD as well as using DX + NFX effects on ONE single computer at the moment. Maybe with that 2GHz system with fast SCSI drives, but not today.

Regards,
Simon

[Kenn159]

thanks for the reply , I just have a couple questions . What are different mobo\'s . Also if I got a second computer ,what would the best way to sync them both together be and can they share my Darla 24? thanks , Ken

[Cool7s_Dad]

Hey Kenn:

I\'ve just been through this, so maybe I can help. Prorec has an excellent article on building a DAW:
http://www.prorec.com/prorec/articles.nsf/files/E674C87E2991AA3F862568E9006D7D10 (\"http://www.prorec.com/prorec/articles.nsf/files/E674C87E2991AA3F862568E9006D7D10\")

If you follow their advice, you can get a mean machine cheaper than you probably would otherwise.

At any rate, here\'s what I\'ve been doing:

I have a PIII 700, all Ultra160 SCSI, and a Gina card. I also have a PII 266 with an SB Live! This is the Giga machine.

I use the PII 266 for all sequencing and master take recording. In other words, I do the master recording of the GigaSampler performance, along with my other external synths, with the PII 266.

When I\'m done doing the master take of the MIDI stuff, I move the ProAudio .BUN file to the PIII 700. *Then* I can start doing live recording, mixing, etc. If I only do small stuff, I can add other sequenced tracks here too.

This mode of working is fine for me, but it may not work for you. However, you can probably find some variation of that that makes sense for you.

One more thing, you should investigate overclocking the processor you have before you spend too much money. There are a vast number of pro\'s and con\'s to doing this, but it just might get you where you need to be.

Peace,
Tim
http://www.elithic.com (\"http://www.elithic.com\")

P.S. To PaPa and Worra: The BiggaGigga samples on the Nemesys sound sample CD\'s are outstanding and making me really covet your library (the French Horn is the very best I\'ve ever heard). As soon as I recover from all the money I\'ve just spent...

[Lougheed]

I plan to use two computers (systems) shared between one keyboard, one mouse and one monitor via a switch box. Dave of Nemesys has posted about this approach. For my method of working, and studio ergonomics this is THEE way to go. All that\'s holding me back at this point is (a) lack of spare cash, and (b) I want to finish my current project - a CD of my original music, before making any changes in the studio.

Lawrence

[David Abraham]

I think the homerun for Integrated DAW+Gigastudio will happen if and when Gigastudio become Win2k compatible. Then we\'ll be able to run 2 800Mhz processors and dedicate one to each app, along with dual hardisks and dual monitors. In essence two machines in one, but with the potential benefits of integrated/interprocess communication.

Let\'s hope that the Audio related issues with Win2k/WDM get resolved in the next year or so, so this dream can happen

-david

[This message has been edited by David Abraham Fenton (edited 05-28-2000).]

[SCARBEE]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Lougheed:
[B]I plan to use two computers (systems) shared between one keyboard, one mouse and one monitor via a switch box.

Here is a link to belkin switchbox ($219,99)
http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Merchant_Id=1&Section_Id=56&pcount=&Product_Id=12930&Section.Section_Path=%2FRoot%2FPeripheralSharing%2 FKVMSwitches%2F# (\"http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Merchant_Id=1&Section_Id=56&pcount=&Product_Id=12930&Section.Section_Path=%2FRoot%2FPeripheralSharing%2 FKVMSwitches%2F#\")

Seeems very cool - thanks for the tip

Thomas

[SCARBEE]

hey Busch...

You wrote: \"I use the two computer, one switch box approach.\" Is it the \"Belkin (2-port) OmniView™ SE\" switch box?

How long does it take to switch - like changing windows (ex.go from Cubase to Audio-edit program)or does it take longer?

Thomas

[Busch]

I use an inexpensive mechanical switch box. Maybe takes .5 secs to switch and for the monitor to adjust. Only small glitch is that the first character that I type once I switch is lost. It\'s sort of a wake up character for the keyboard. After that it works just fine.

[Busch]

Lougheed I use the two computer, one switch box approach. It works very well. I have a PIII 600Mhz mainly for GS and a PIII500 for PARIS, ACID and audio editing. They\'re tied together via Ethernet. Saves on space and money. Once you have GS setup to the performance you need, you can switch back to the audio computer for eveything else. GS works flawlessly in the \"background.\"

[Cool7s_Dad]

ATEN makes an excellent monitor switcher for about $100. You can either press the button on the unit to switch, or you can press the Ctrl key twice in rapid succession. I\'ve experienced no loss of characters and no time delay. I\'m running at 1800 x 1440 resolution with 32 bit color and I\'ve had no problems.

I use a PII 266 for my sequencing. This is hooked into an Opcode 128x patcch bay which is hooked into a Portman 4x4s which is in turn hooked into a PIII 700 that does the GigaStudio work. This is a great setup as far as I can tell. I haven\'t determined what my upper bound on polyphony is yet. I\'ve reached 100 voices without any problem. That\'s probably all I\'ll ever need... but you never know... some of these samples eat a lot of voices.

Peace
Tim
http://www.elithic.com (\"http://www.elithic.com\")

[gigaDiga]

What is the point of ditching my old hardware sampler when all you guys are saying I need to buy another big lump of hardware to run Gigastudio on? Where\'s the dream in that?

If Cool7s_Dad is getting 100 poly on a dedicated pIII 700 then even a pessimistic guess leaves us with around 50 poly on a system with both Gigastudio and a sequencer. This may not satisfy those amounst us who wish to turn their pen to orchestral scores but it certainly starts to look exciting. If we also discipline our practice and try to keep those tracks down to the minimum required. If we bounce down from time to time then I am optimistic that the bedroom composer with his one pc will be able to acheive similar composing feats as someone with multiple computers.

But this re-puts the question... what is the optimum setup? what is the optimum combination of soundcard, cpu, scsi drive, and ram that will enable the bedroom composer to do this? What is the actual maximum polyphony which the bedroom composer can expect from such a setup?

As I haven\'t yet upgraded my setup I would be most interested to find out.

[migo]

Interesting reading on this thread. I have a Roland VS 1680 digital recorder. So, I will probably only use my computer for Gigastudio. My VS is synched with my computer using the Logic VS software. I haven\'t received Gigastudio yet. I only hope that everything runs smoothly

[Kenn159]

Cool 7s
How are you getting that high a resolution on your monitor?
Im sure you must have a good quality monitor and video card to do that . The upper limit of my video is 1024 by 1280,But im only running it at 1024 by 768 because everything is to small if I go above that . I know in a past thread you said your eye site is not the best . So how do you get by with such small resolution.
I know there are some tweaks that you can do under control panel/video but alot of programs still run very small at the high res setting like giga sampler for instance. thanks , Ken

[IOComposer]

Just to throw in my \'me too\',
I use 2 600Mhz P3 machines switched with the Belkin OmniView. The switcher is expensive ($125 + about $100 for cables), but it is worth it. I blew through about 3 of those cheap knob switchers before I got the clue to just spend the money and get a good one. Now I\'m very happy. There\'s a keyboard command to switch between the 2 also, so I don\'t have to get up and open up the gear closet every time I want to switch between giga computers.

By the way...I don\'t have anything else on either of these machines except for Giga (I have sound forge on one of them for sample editing). No sequencers, no games, no internet access, etc. It\'s the only way I\'ve found to get Giga to run smoothly. And it certainly does!!

-IO

[Cool7s_Dad]

Hi gigaDiga:

When I said I was getting 100 voices of polyphony on my PIII 700, I didn\'t mean that was the most I could get. That\'s just the most I\'ve done so far. I could probably get the full 160. I just haven\'t tried that yet.

Peace,
Tim
http://www.elithic.com (\"http://www.elithic.com\")

[Cool7s_Dad]

Hi Kenn:

I use a Cornerstone 115/sf monitor. It is a 21\" monitor with a 20\" viewable area. It\'s 2 years old so the current model that most closely matches it is a Cornerstone p1500.

These are the finest monitors I\'ve ever seen. I paid $1300 for my 115/sf, but the p1500\'s are going for around $950 at buy.com (I just bought my dad one). I use a Matrox Millennium II in the old machine and a Matrox AGP card (I forget which model) in the new computer. Matrox has excellent support for higher resolutions and refresh rates.

The p1500 easily supports a resolution of 1800 x 1440. The kicker is the refresh rate. I get a 102hz vertical refresh rate at that resolution which is MUCH easier on my eyes than a 72hz refresh rate.

As far as things getting too small for me to handle with my bad eyesight, there\'s a simple answer: Thing\'s aren\'t small at that resolution. I choose \'Large Icons\' in the Display Settings and I choose \'Large Fonts\' in there as well. So the icons, fonts, menus, and so on are actually larger than they probably are on your machine. Even so, my left eye is still 20/20 even though I\'m legally blind in the right. That will probably deteriorate over time, but for now it\'s fine.

One other thing about running in this resolution: 10pt. type is still 10pt. type. Higher resolution just makes it smoother and more legible. So running sequencing, word processing, and scoring software is much easier to deal with.

HTH,
Tim
http://www.elithic.com (\"http://www.elithic.com\")