EXS 24 Logic Sampler Users Group

From: Sean McCoy <osr@...>

>the consensus seems to be that due to
>limitations in OSX and/or Logic, 3.5 Gb is the largest amount of RAM any
>one application can address.

I'm not even sure that's the consensus, Sean! It may be 2GB. Very confusing.

>One of the VSL team claims that EXS actually maxes out at 2 Gb of RAM, but
>another poster claims that this was an OSX limitation that was raised to 4
>Gb with the release of version 10.3. I hadn't previously heard anything
>about this. Can anybody confirm or refute this with regards to EXS?

It's certainly real. 32-bit programs can only access 4GB maximum, 
from what I understand. It's like the Nyqust limit at a given 
sampling frequency.

>But what about running Kontakt, as a standalone program,  simultaneously
>with Logic? Assuming that each program can address 3.5 Gb,

A pretty bold assumption!

>  and you can find
>a good way to get MIDI from Logic to Kontakt

That's easy: IAC. The other issue us how you're going to hear it, 
i.e. does your audio hardware have a multiclient driver that lets two 
programs access different outputs?

>, you could in theory take
>advantage of up to 7 Gb of sample RAM and still have a gig left over for
>the OS, Logic and such. This would be fantastic, as it would eliminate the
>need for a second computer. That is, until 7 Gb also isn't enough!

With VSL it already isn't!

>
>Any experiences or suggestions welcome.
>
>Sean McCoy
>Oregon Sound Recording

-- 
___
Nick Batzdorf
818/905-9101, fax -5434, cell 590-9101

At 07:43 AM 06/18/2004, Nick Batzdorf wrote:
> >  and you can find
> >a good way to get MIDI from Logic to Kontakt
>
>That's easy: IAC. The other issue us how you're going to hear it,
>i.e. does your audio hardware have a multiclient driver that lets two
>programs access different outputs?


I didn't know what IAC was until researching it today. Since I've never 
needed or used OMS, and would prefer not to, is there a non-OMS alternative 
to inter-program virtual MIDI routing under OSX? I have both a Unitor 8 and 
AMT 8, so it seems like it should be possible to handle this internally. 
But I've never looked into this so I have no idea.

As far as the audio goes, I'm not sure (as usual) what the MOTU driver will 
allow. But it seems Rewire might be the answer?

Sean McCoy
Oregon Sound Recording

>  >a good way to get MIDI from Logic to Kontakt
>  >
>>That's easy: IAC. The other issue us how you're going to hear it,
>>i.e. does your audio hardware have a multiclient driver that lets two
>  >programs access different outputs?

Sean McCoy <osr@...>

>I didn't know what IAC was until researching it today. Since I've never
>needed or used OMS, and would prefer not to, is there a non-OMS alternative
>to inter-program virtual MIDI routing under OSX?

Yes, CoreMIDI has IAC too. I wasn't even thinking of OMS.

>  I have both a Unitor 8 and
>AMT 8, so it seems like it should be possible to handle this internally.
>But I've never looked into this so I have no idea.

Irrelevant for this (other than the input your controller is plugged 
into). You're only concerned with routing MIDI inside the Mac.

>As far as the audio goes, I'm not sure (as usual) what the MOTU driver will
>allow. But it seems Rewire might be the answer?

It would be, for both audio and MIDI. But Kontakt isn't a Rewire slave.
-- 
___
Nick Batzdorf
818/905-9101, fax -5434, cell 590-9101

At 09:40 AM 06/19/2004, Nick Batzdorf wrote:

>Yes, CoreMIDI has IAC too. I wasn't even thinking of OMS.


Oops, my OS9-ness is showing!


> >As far as the audio goes, I'm not sure (as usual) what the MOTU driver will
> >allow. But it seems Rewire might be the answer?
>
>It would be, for both audio and MIDI.

Good!

>But Kontakt isn't a Rewire slave.

Bad!  I can't find information on multi-client operation for the PCI-424 on 
the MOTU website, so I've emailed them with the question. I'm sure they'll 
get back to me....eventually.

From: Sean McCoy <osr@...>

>MOTU got back to me surprisingly fast! According to Nathan at MOTU tech
>support, the PCI-424 driver is indeed multi-client, which he said he
>himself had tested and could verify. So, based on all the information I've
>gathered here and on the VSL forum, it is currently at least theoretically
>possible to run EXS with up to 3.5 Gb of samples loaded into RAM,
>simultaneously with Kontakt, either standalone or using a VST host, with
>another 3.5 Gb of samples loaded, doing all sequencing with Logic,
>triggering the Kontakt samples via Core Midi's IAC, with individually
>assignable outputs for the two samplers off of a single PCI-424.
>
>Anybody willing to test this out?  The problem is that for the cost of
>another 4 Gig of Mac RAM, you can buy a decent PC and eliminate the
>risk.  And even with a 2.5 GhZ G5, 7 gig of streaming samples could provide
>a serious test of CPU power, not to mention disk throughput.
>
>As obviously attractive as the idea of having that much sample playback
>power under one hood is, I think it's still not yet as practical as
>multiple machines.  Maybe once we're dealing with all 64-bit programming,
>but not now.

Interesting. The other advantage to running samplers outside Logic - 
either on PCs or on the same Mac - is that you can keep them loaded 
when you change Songs (or Logic crashes). Now the question becomes 
how you route those Kontakts back into Logic or wherever you mix. I 
guess a physical lightpipe-to-lightpipe connection is the easiest way.

There's probably an amount of RAM in a G5 that makes the most 
financial sense, most likely 4 or 4-1/2 gigs. I think that even a 
fully loaded G5 isn't going to be the single-machine solution we 
users of HUGE libs want. Right now I'm running two Windows machines 
in addition to my Mac (a G4), and it's not enough; that plus a G5 
might be almost enough.

***

Naaaah, not a chance!
-- 

Nick Batzdorf
818/905-9101, cell 590-9101, fax 905-5434