Hardly any samples, yet snap crackle and pop?

Macintosh software/hardware discussion and troubleshooting

Moderator: James Steele

Post Reply
hamburski
Posts: 93
Joined: Wed Jun 04, 2008 10:27 am
Primary DAW OS: Unspecified

Hardly any samples, yet snap crackle and pop?

Post by hamburski »

I don't know if this is the proper area for this question, but: Mac trashcan, 16GB memory, terabyte internal drive, samples and sessions on individual terabyte SSD drives in a Blackmagic enclosure, OS 10.9.5, DP 8.07, Kontakt 5.5.2.880. I have four instances of Spitfire Chamber Strings loaded into one instance of Kontakt, with just one microphone setting selected and "purge unused" selected (I know this is very sample-specific, but just in case) - point is, just four VI's loaded) and I'm getting a lot of gnarly digital interruption on playback. Yes, the buffer's set at 64 for doing input and it would sound ok if I went to 1024 for playback, but that's not practical for writing. It seems this shouldn't be such a problem...I have the host buffer multiplier at 1 and work priority at "high." I'll freely admit I've never really understood how those two setting work so before I start messing around with them, too, I thought I'd inquire here: is there something obvious I should be doing to make things smoother? Or, even with this system, do I have to suck this up if I want to use really detailed libraries at such a low buffer setting?
User avatar
Kurt Cowling
Posts: 384
Joined: Mon Oct 18, 2004 10:01 pm
Primary DAW OS: MacOS
Location: Milwaukee, WI

Re: Hardly any samples, yet snap crackle and pop?

Post by Kurt Cowling »

Use four instances of Kontakt instead of one, each with just one spitfire strings. Spreads the load across the multiple cores.
DP 11.1, Monterey, 2021 MacBook Pro M1-Max, 2017 iMac Retina 5K 27-inch, Omnisphere 2, Trilian, Stylus RMX, EZ Drummer 2, MachFive 3.11, Real Guitar2, Real Strat, Sample Modeling trumpet, saxes, trombone, Fr Horn/Tuba. Audio Modeling clarinets, double reeds, flutes, strings, Kontakt 6, Flux Pure Limiter 3, PSP Vintage Warmer, PSP MixPack, PSP StereoPack, PSP Impressor, Altiverb 7, Izotope RX8 Standard, Yamaha S-90ES, Yamaha MOXF-8, Yamaha MX60, Sibelius subscription, Adobe CC and Motion 5.
hamburski
Posts: 93
Joined: Wed Jun 04, 2008 10:27 am
Primary DAW OS: Unspecified

Re: Hardly any samples, yet snap crackle and pop?

Post by hamburski »

I see - well, I've heard of this before, but it seems I'd just end up with dozens of instances of Kontakt before was through with a typical project. Is this how you do it even when you've got a lot of instruments to handle?
User avatar
FMiguelez
Posts: 8266
Joined: Sun Oct 24, 2004 10:01 pm
Primary DAW OS: MacOS
Location: Body: Narco-México Soul/Heart: NYC

Re: Hardly any samples, yet snap crackle and pop?

Post by FMiguelez »

I think you need to do something to Kontakt´s memory management. Something needs to be tweaked so it doesn´t interfere with DP. There´s a recent thread about it.

I can load lots of instruments in Kontakt, spread into one or many instances, and everything is smooth as silk. I do host Kontakt in VE Pro, though.
Mac Mini Server i7 2.66 GHs/16 GB RAM / OSX 10.14 / DP 9.52
Tascam DM-24, MOTU Track 16, all Spectrasonics' stuff,
Vienna Instruments SUPER PACKAGE, Waves Mercury, slaved iMac and Mac Minis running VEP 7, etc.

---------------------------

"In physics the truth is rarely perfectly clear, and that is certainly universally the case in human affairs. Hence, what is not surrounded by uncertainty cannot be the truth." ― Richard Feynman
User avatar
Kurt Cowling
Posts: 384
Joined: Mon Oct 18, 2004 10:01 pm
Primary DAW OS: MacOS
Location: Milwaukee, WI

Re: Hardly any samples, yet snap crackle and pop?

Post by Kurt Cowling »

I think they heavily scripted instruments need to be in their own instance of Kontakt.
DP 11.1, Monterey, 2021 MacBook Pro M1-Max, 2017 iMac Retina 5K 27-inch, Omnisphere 2, Trilian, Stylus RMX, EZ Drummer 2, MachFive 3.11, Real Guitar2, Real Strat, Sample Modeling trumpet, saxes, trombone, Fr Horn/Tuba. Audio Modeling clarinets, double reeds, flutes, strings, Kontakt 6, Flux Pure Limiter 3, PSP Vintage Warmer, PSP MixPack, PSP StereoPack, PSP Impressor, Altiverb 7, Izotope RX8 Standard, Yamaha S-90ES, Yamaha MOXF-8, Yamaha MX60, Sibelius subscription, Adobe CC and Motion 5.
Post Reply