Computer chokes on German Grand

chunkdz · Post by **chunkdz** » Thu Sep 27, 2007 2:15 pm

Even with all tracks muted except piano track, the German Grand will stutter and hiccup when attempting to play (M5II as instrument in DP). I have played with the memory defaults in M5II, and DP 4.61, and can't get it to play through any section with substantial polyphony.

I've tried maxing out my ram (2G), I've tried putting the German Grand samples on their own external eSata drive, nothing seems to work.

I love what I've heard so far, but I wonder if my 1.67 G4 processor is simply too weak to handle streaming the German Grand.

Anybody had luck with large samples on a similar processor?

Shooshie · Post by **Shooshie** » Thu Sep 27, 2007 3:17 pm

More likely it's your hard drive. But big sampled pianos are just like that. It takes a VERY powerful computer to do more than the simplest song on a piano. For every keystrike, you've got at least three samples streaming or ready to stream -- the attack/sustain, the release, and the una-corda (soft pedal). There may be others as well. When you've got notes being held with the sustain pedal, they build up quickly. Some sampled pianos do not seem to distinguish between a sustained note and the same note repeated. That is, if you play 3 "C's" in a row with the sustain pedal down, some samplers seem to treat that as three different notes. Obviously it's the same note, and it would be nice if it didn't add those up, but simply replaced the stream of a sustaining note.

With that in mind, you can see that a sampled piano might soon be sustaining 200 notes, even though there are only 88 on the keyboard. And every time one comes to its end, it has to play the release sample of that note. Let go of the sustain pedal with 200 notes sustaining... does it attempt to play 200 releases? I don't know. I sure hope not! But you can see why this is TERRIBLY burdensome to a hard drive. Some samplers like Ivory have a "slow disk" light. Even with a WD Raptor, spinning at 10,000 rpm, I still get the slow disk light once in a while. (but rarely)

Shooshie

chunkdz · Post by **chunkdz** » Thu Sep 27, 2007 3:56 pm

If it is my drive that is choking, then I'll be really disappointed, as I just plunked down a chunk of lettuce for a 7200rpm eSata drive. I really thought this would help the performance, but actually there seemed to be little improvement when I moved all my samples over to the new drive from my internal.

As I watch the polyphony meter on M5II I see spikes into the 30's, occasionally in the 40's. Nothing like the 200 that you mention, (though I can certainly imagine 200).

Thinking hard about truepianos now...

3over3 · Post by **3over3** » Fri Sep 28, 2007 12:58 am

I get what you get with the piano - I've got a 7200rpm Firewire 400 drive and Pro Tools' disk activity monitor doesn't complain during the "choking".

My processor's an AMD 1.6GHz, and I've only got 1.25Gb RAM - maybe that's the problem, rather than the disk capacity? I don't seem to have streaming issues on other presets.

chunkdz · Post by **chunkdz** » Fri Sep 28, 2007 7:57 am

Yup, same here. I'm able to stream just about anything else, but when it comes to the German Grand, or even the Bosendorfer, my computer is like Mama Cass, and Mach V II is a big ham sandwich.

Is there an inexpensive way to upgrade processing power on my old aluminum powerbook, I wonder...?

bjornln · Post by **bjornln** » Sat Sep 29, 2007 12:05 pm

chunkdz wrote:Yup, same here. I'm able to stream just about anything else, but when it comes to the German Grand, or even the Bosendorfer, my computer is like Mama Cass, and Mach V II is a big ham sandwich.

Is there an inexpensive way to upgrade processing power on my old aluminum powerbook, I wonder...?

I seem to remember the German grand being around 7GB, so it's a handful for your computer.

You should probably think about retireing your PB and think about that new macbook you'd always wanted. There's a big difference...

/B

soundeziner · Post by **soundeziner** » Mon Oct 15, 2007 1:39 pm

Computer chokes on German Grand

Feed it smaller bytes

monkey man · Post by **monkey man** » Tue Oct 16, 2007 9:07 am

soundeziner wrote:
Computer chokes on German Grand
Feed it smaller bytes

LOL!

I was going to suggest maybe feeding it an Italian grand...

3over3 · Post by **3over3** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 6:41 am

Can't we split the grand into two 500s?

monkey man · Post by **monkey man** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 10:08 am

If we split it into 125s, it'd only be octave-sized chunks to swallow.
If they were Italian chunks, garnished with dressing and basil, for instance, I'd bet they'd slide down like... um... like... er... just like... um... er...
[Monkey strains brain too hard.]

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soundeziner · Post by **soundeziner** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 10:33 am

a pinao forte appetizer might help

utility531 · Post by **utility531** » Fri Oct 19, 2007 10:14 pm

The first time I tried to play the german grand it would not even load. I then set my cpu to HIGHEST in the energy saving prefs in OSX and it finally loaded. If I don't have the highest setting selected in the Sys prefs it will sputter.

I have a G5 Dual 2 Gig with 2 gig of Ram and 7200 drives.

I used to think the grand piano with M5 (version 1) was great but this new one is even better!

I must say the more I use the Upgrade to M5 the more I like it. Motu have done a great job on this.

cloudy house · Post by **cloudy house** » Sun Oct 21, 2007 9:00 am

yeah the german grand gives me problems, too...thinking about maxing out the ram in my machine...not sure if that'll do the trick, though...seems there are a couple notes on the keyboard that have clicks and pops...for instance playing the B note by itself(forget which one) at a medium velocity clicks everytime...playing it harder it goes away...very strange...great sample, i just wish I could use it
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bjornln · Post by **bjornln** » Sun Oct 21, 2007 12:24 pm

cloudy house wrote:yeah the german grand gives me problems, too...thinking about maxing out the ram in my machine...not sure if that'll do the trick, though...seems there are a couple notes on the keyboard that have clicks and pops...for instance playing the B note by itself(forget which one) at a medium velocity clicks everytime...playing it harder it goes away...very strange...great sample, i just wish I could use it
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I seem to remember the German grand being (around) 7 GB. That is more than OSX 10.4 can address for one App. Wait for Leopard and the upgrades for Mach 5v2 to be fully 64-Bit compatible (as well as you host DAW).
As of today your only choice is faster disks with faster seektime... Or slower playing...

/B

cloudy house · Post by **cloudy house** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 11:48 am

yeah that makes sense...good insight, thanks...is it more of an OS issue or a disk/processor issue? I'm guessing intel macs are having no issues with it
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