A question to a great forum.

[Not Dudley Simpson]

ooooooooooooooo

[A_Sapp]

1 meg of ram isn\'t very much. =)

[Scott Cairns]

1meg ram<font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">- Can you even turn your computer on? images/icons/smile.gif

Seriously though, you only list one H.D. that will be a HUGE bottleneck. You\'ll be luck to stream more than a dozen instruments like that.

You need one H.D. in your system that is a sample drive ONLY. Leave another drive for your sequencer, app\'s, operating system.

Try doing some searching through this thread and hardware as it has been discussed many times.

If you set up one machine properly you will be amazed just how far you can push it.

Scott.

[greatzed]

\"A sampled contrabass clarinet? Really? Oh good! When?\"

No kidding!!

[Chadwick]

In terms of streaming audio from a hard disk, partitioning doesn\'t help, in fact it may slow things down. Even with partitioning, you still have only one stylus jumping back and forth trying to reach all the info. At least with two disks you get two stylii images/icons/wink.gif

When you\'re streaming from a disk, you don\'t want to interrupt that flow with application calls or anything else, that\'s why people generally suggest keeping your apps on a separate drive. Some also suggest that you use yet a third drive if you are also running a DAW-type app which will be recording and playing back standard audio tracks.

Whether you need to go to this extent depends on how hard you intend to flog the gear. I\'ve read many posts where guys talk about running their seqeunce, Gigastudio, favourite plugins, internet explorer and a few games - all apparently simultaneously - to their satisfaction. All I can surmise from that is that their requirements must be more modest than, say, those who are trying to stream 320 voices, 75 audio tracks and a bunch of virtual modular synths.

The number of instruments that you\'ll be able to stream depends partially on which instruments/libraries you intend to use. Older libraries generally use less samples than newer libraries - so you\'d be able to run more of them. A lot of my stuff is older Roland libraries, and I run out of 160 notes polyphony long before I run out of instruments, sample space, CPU or HD bandwidth. Sorry if this isn\'t a clear cut answer, but it\'s a bit of a balancing act - you can have more here if you take a little less there etc.,

Some newer libraries also want additional software installed so that you get enhanced voice control (legato, text reading etc.,) These will also impact slightly.

I\'m sure I\'ve heard of people talking about Absynth as a resource hog, but I suppose you\'ll be able to tell that the moment you pull it up.

[mike harper]

the delta 1010 drivers tends to get stressed out ( clicks+pops) somewhat under one PC \"multiclient\" circumstances. i got tired of dealing with it and got another PC

[Bill]

If someone custom built you a PC with Windows ME, best never to buy from them again.

[KingIdiot]

Experimenting is really the only way to know how much you can do.

Computers are finnicky

I can say taht Absynth is probably more CPU intensive than using simple Kontakt programs and giga for sure.

You should be able to get quite a few voices on a machine like that, even with one HD.

I\'ve known people that can hit 160 in giga with one HD.

Kontakt can be RAM based as well, so for smaller programs you can get more Poly there (but may get CPU issues using Absynth as well, as high poly counts will generate lots of CPU usage)

Dont expec tto load boatloads of big programs in Kontakt/Giga. Stuff like huge pianos will eat up alot of RAM no matter what. You can expect to get quite a bit of SAM loaded, and run that along side some synths.

plug away at it, let us know what you find.

Also search around here for the latest XP Tweaks that have been shared, and upgrade to 2GB of RAM. doing both of these should help.

[timzydee]

That\'s the first I\'ve heard of the Delta drivers being responsible for clicks and pops. Would it be better to just get a more high level card than a whole computer?

[Rich Pell]

Dudley,I have a similar set up to your only I`m using RME hammerfall for my soundcard....not to repeat whats already been suggested,but its true decicated drives and 2 gb of ram and you`ll be able to load TONS in kontakt.Ive ran giga piana and sam horns etc.etc..all at the same time with multiple instance of kontakt.U`ll be surprised what u can get away with..GL Rich

[keytar]

No offense, but if you are seriously looking to get into composing and purchasing libraries that cost $1000.00 or close to it (VSL) then I would think it\'s time to get some powerful machines, new sequencer, etc,etc,etc. Most serious users here have at least 2 machines, one for seq/audio and the other for sample playback. But then again, most of the REALLY serious composers have 4-6 machines. Check out the Easr West forum and read about users having 5-6 machines just dedicated to one library. Lurking for a few weeks here, it\'s amazing some of the $$$ investment the more serious guys have put into their craft.

[KingIdiot]

most of the serious guys get $$$ from the craft to images/icons/wink.gif

[folk prophet]

Originally posted by keytar:
No offense, but if you are seriously looking to get into composing and purchasing libraries that cost $1000.00 or close to it (VSL) then I would think it\'s time to get some powerful machines, new sequencer, etc,etc,etc. Most serious users here have at least 2 machines, one for seq/audio and the other for sample playback. But then again, most of the REALLY serious composers have 4-6 machines. Check out the Easr West forum and read about users having 5-6 machines just dedicated to one library. Lurking for a few weeks here, it\'s amazing some of the $$$ investment the more serious guys have put into their craft. <font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">I think you should edit that a bit to read something other than \"REALLY serious composers.\" There are a whole lot of serious composers I know who only use pen and paper. Serious sequencing, perhaps. Serious composing, no. Users was more appropriate.

Thats being nit-picky, isn\'t it? But I\'m one of those poor composers who can\'t afford that kind of investment yet. But I doubt there are any more \'serious\' composers than myself no matter how much money they\'ve spent on equipment. (Meaning that I take my composing VERY seriously.)