How hard can you push mach five?

[Akai96]

I'm about to receive a G5 dual 1.8,and I was thinking I would buy about 2 Gigs of ram.
How far will this let me push the machfive at
about..say A Buffer setting of 256?I Play alot of parts when programming,anyways worst case scenario I could track each part if the CPU starts to get bogged down,anyways..PLEASE GIVE ME SOME FEEDBACK

[chrispick]

Originally posted by Jason Gaines:
I'm about to receive a G5 dual 1.8,and I was thinking I would buy about 2 Gigs of ram.
How far will this let me push the machfive at
about..say A Buffer setting of 256?I Play alot of parts when programming,anyways worst case scenario I could track each part if the CPU starts to get bogged down,anyways..PLEASE GIVE ME SOME FEEDBACK

It all depends on the size of the samples you use, of course (some are much more RAM-intensive than others), but I'd say you should be able to run quite a few at once. All other variables aside, I'd think your set-up should work well for you.

[Akai96]

Do you think I should buy more ram?
I mean,Im talkin about 120 parts sometimes.

[chrispick]

Originally posted by Jason Gaines:
Do you think I should buy more ram?
I mean,Im talkin about 120 parts sometimes.

Whoa.

If you're running that many parts simultaneously, you should have at least 3GB of RAM (I believe DP can only address 3GB of RAM) -- and run your parts off the fastest secondary hard drive you can afford. Consider 10k external SCSI-3, if you can swing the price.

But, moreover...

A number that high leads me to believe you're doing orchestral scoring work (or something similar). Most folk doing orch-score-for-pay work use more than one computer to handle the sample load. It's common, for instance, to find someone running Gigastudio on a PC, using their Mac and DP as the MIDI source / record app.

If all of this is too daunting, try to figure out a method for creating a "low-rez" arrangement pass that, once completed, you can use a template for a "high-rez," instrument-at-a-time-convert-to-audio final pass.

For example: I'll use the Giga version of Big Fish Audio's Orchestral Collection (via Mach Five) to arrange. Then, I substitute the up-front instruments with Gigasampler VSLs I have (also via Mach Five) -- a sort of mix-and-match approach. This works okay for me, given that I don't score full orchestral scores for film.

Of course, if you don't do score-for-picture work, never mind -- although I'd love to know what other musical arena demands that many simultaneous samples.

<small>[ April 25, 2005, 07:20 PM: Message edited by: chrispick ]</small>

[Akai96]

Thanks for the feedback,I am doing several generas of music.Soundtrack Fxs,Complex Pop Arrangments,is mostly what I am talking about.
Please tell me more about that external hard drive
you where refering to.

[chrispick]

Originally posted by Jason Gaines:
Thanks for the feedback,I am doing several generas of music.Soundtrack Fxs,Complex Pop Arrangments,is mostly what I am talking about.
Please tell me more about that external hard drive
you where refering to.

Sorry, I meant to type SCSI Ultra320 before -- although I suppose Ultra160 would work well too, if you can find a card.

And, it's not crucial, I guess, that they be external really. I think for drive cooling purposes, though, that's preferred (you don't want too much hot stuff in your main box).

Anyway, the important thing is to seek out drives that spin as fast -- or are in an array that allows for large enough data through-put -- as you need.

Seagate's Cheetahs are popular hard drives that run at 10k ( www.seagate.com ). And Medea make popular media arrays, some that handle up to real time HD streaming ( www.medea.com ).

Now, these disks may prove cost-prohibitive to you, but they are optimized for heavy-duty media storage and playback.

Most DAW users, if they even have a second drive, end up get 7200 RPM SATAs which are much cheaper than the above options. You should consider this option first. You don't want to spend premium cash on an overkill item.

However, if you really need constantly reliable high speed and wide bandwidth, then check the above out.

<small>[ April 25, 2005, 11:25 PM: Message edited by: chrispick ]</small>

[Akai96]

Thanks,Ill Check this stuff out

[mr miyagi]

My friend John Massari uses Mach Five and he said it starts to crap out after 3 full instances of it - but he's using big orchestral files. I recently started using it in combo with Spectrasonics (Stylus RMX, Trilogy, Atmospheres) stuff and my UAD-1 but I haven't really "maxed out" on it, and t we're both on 2.5 GHZ G5s with 4G RAM.

read this article on the MOTU site:
http://www.motu.com/newsitems/atnewsitem.2005-02-03.7108286223

[Akai96]

Originally posted by mr miyagi:
My friend John Massari uses Mach Five and he said it starts to crap out after 3 full instances of it - but he's using big orchestral files. I recently started using it in combo with Spectrasonics (Stylus RMX, Trilogy, Atmospheres) stuff and my UAD-1 but I haven't really "maxed out" on it, and t we're both on 2.5 GHZ G5s with 4G RAM.

read this article on the MOTU site:
http://www.motu.com/newsitems/atnewsitem.2005-02-03.7108286223

What do you mean when you say instances?

[mr miyagi]

3 instances - 3 Mach Five consoles which have 8 instruments each = 24 separate instruments

[Akai96]

Originally posted by mr miyagi:
3 instances - 3 Mach Five consoles which have 8 instruments each = 24 separate instruments

Oh'thats not to bad