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Thankfully, hard drive prices are coming down rapidly of late, and to the point that for the first time, I no longer worry about the external storage space implications of my additional library purchases for BFD and VSL (my two biggest hogs -- EWQL runs a distant third, and everything else way behind those three).

Good point about the ever-increasing library prices outweighing anticipation of VE3 price increases. At least we may get some discounts after 15 July when the loyalty program switches to pre-standalone (i.e. Kontakt sample library) customers to VI customers.

I notice they have changed their website today, with a beautiful new splash/introductory page, and a not-so-beautiful announcement of a 15% price increase for Brits due to the falling Sterling.

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Hard drives! Of course. I will need a few of those as well. Frodo, I suppose you started out with the "older" VSL samples (like me). What am I supposed to do with the samples from the PRO edition? They are divided in 5-6 HDs in the PCs. They were 16 bits, and the new ones are 24 bits, so I assume I can just reformat them and use them for the new VSL?

I was thinking 2 HDs per instrumental family (one for solos and small ensembles, and the other for the sections). So that would be 8 HDs... what do you think?

Surely they're not that big?

I now am bought into VSL about 60-70%, and am sharing a 1 TB hard drive with every available BFD library (including third-party) and EWQL (although the arrival of Chamber I-II means EWQL may have to move to another drive finally).

I will only buy 1 TB drives at this point. I have one 750 GB drive and two 1 TB drives -- all of them purchased since September 2007 and with prices falling by the week. They have proven quite reliable and they get beat on pretty heavily (one is my backup drive, one is data and smaller libraries, and the third is my "big library" drive). I'm using newertechnologies V3.

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MhSchmieder:

I've always wondered about this:
How many samples can you stream off a regular 7200 RPM HD?
IOW, at what point will it begin choking?

So far, it seems I've never reached that level with HDs, because I've always run out of RAM before the HDs even have a chance to complain, but now it seems it's going to change a bit...

I know it has to do a lot with seek time, etc., but how much is too much for them to handle? The sample distribution I was talking about is not so much for storage issues, but for performance ones.
Or do you think a single regular 7200 RPM HD would suffice for an entire family?

I ask because if I have to spend all this money, then I will certainly not want to even have to think about or worry about performance issues. I want to be able to have everything on-line, ready to use, and be able to write freely and with abandonment (as opposed to now, because I have to keep thinking about how to overcome my current system's limits-which are very big limits- at every step of the composition/orchestration process)

mhschmieder wrote:Thankfully, hard drive prices are coming down rapidly of late, and to the point that for the first time, I no longer worry about the external storage space implications of my additional library purchases for BFD and VSL (my two biggest hogs -- EWQL runs a distant third, and everything else way behind those three).

Yes- HD prices are not only more within reach, but major configs don't have to be done so often-- ie: an eSATA host card or HD capacities or 1TB or more.

But here's my strategy (I think):

1. Since using EW Platinum XP in Kontakt has been a lesson in futility anyway, I'll dump that library and keep Gold XP in Kontakt 2 (just in case). Since Plat Plus PLAY has full Gold and Full Platinum, it creates only one overlap. 170GB of storage saved.

2. Take some advantage of VSL's current discounts for a couple of their libraries but don't install them yet. These can be registered right away without installing the samples. In fact, I think they need to be registered *before* full install can begin. This means that I can hold off a while longer to get the eSATA config I really need without feeling completely pressured by VSL's and EW's price hikes and purchase deadlines.

mhschmieder wrote: Good point about the ever-increasing library prices outweighing anticipation of VE3 price increases. At least we may get some discounts after 15 July when the loyalty program switches to pre-standalone (i.e. Kontakt sample library) customers to VI customers.

This is indeed taking more pragmatic thinking than usual. If I were to do everything I wanted to do now, I'd be out over $10k for software upgrades alone! That figure goes up if adding an 8-Core is to be considered.

We know that everything costs money, but it's trying to do everything at once that adds to the damage. It *would* be very helpful to know what the new upgrade paths are sooner than later. I mean, we already have the bad news about the price increases. How much worse can the news get?

I wonder what will happen to those (like me) that have the entire Cube and "then some". Newcomers will reap benefits, but longstanding users could see diminishing benefits as more of the top-line collections are added that give VSL less motivation to offer specials to those who got in on the ground floor.

mhschmieder wrote: I notice they have changed their website today, with a beautiful new splash/introductory page, and a not-so-beautiful announcement of a 15% price increase for Brits due to the falling Sterling.

Grr. A sad sign of the times.

I just don't want all of this to feel like a money pit where the rate of price increases for software upgrades are out of line with my production costs. For me to tack on 15% would send many of my clients running for the hills!!

Ah, but what can one do but to plan carefully, upgrade frugally, and to do nothing gratuitously?

I do have some firsthand experience with DP 5.13 and VE3 to report. I'm running DP on a dual 2.5 G5 w/6.5G RAM and the slave machine is exactly the same. The two machines are connected via a gigabit ethernet switch.

Unfortunately, no amount of futzing could get VE3 working correctly in DP. At every buffer setting, audio would drop out and DP timing would "skip", for lack of a better word.

However, running Logic 8 on the master with the exact same setup (same sequence, even), VE3 works fine. Flawless MIDI and audio and works exactly as advertised.

Besides not working in DP, the real VE3 deal breaker for me is the fact that the slave machine reloads the sample set/project every time you open and close your project on the master machine. Since my workflow involves one cue per project with the same sample set on the slave machine, switching cues suddenly became unworkably slow. The Vienna folks report that a feature to prevent reloading is forthcoming.

I'm back on VE2 and lightpipe for audio, with ipMIDI for MIDI over ethernet (works great: 1000x better than Apple's network MIDI).

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jstaczek wrote:
Unfortunately, no amount of futzing could get VE3 working correctly in DP. At every buffer setting, audio would drop out and DP timing would "skip", for lack of a better word.

However, running Logic 8 on the master with the exact same setup (same sequence, even), VE3 works fine. Flawless MIDI and audio and works exactly as advertised.

That doesn't sound very encouraging...

Could you find the reason as to why it didn't work in DP for you?

Hi Jason,

I was hoping we'd hear from you!

I tried the VE3 demo but also went back to VE2. There seemed to be so many unnecessary automated tasks even when I didn't want to use it. I'd start DP or Finale and then sat there while VE went through its paces for nothing.

I saw the thread on the VSL forum of someone begging for reload feature to be fixed...

... and speaking of getting fixed.... Apple really needs to do something about its MIDI Network feature-- to either update it for humans or remove it altogether.

FMiguelez wrote:.

jstaczek wrote:
Unfortunately, no amount of futzing could get VE3 working correctly in DP. At every buffer setting, audio would drop out and DP timing would "skip", for lack of a better word.

However, running Logic 8 on the master with the exact same setup (same sequence, even), VE3 works fine. Flawless MIDI and audio and works exactly as advertised.

That doesn't sound very encouraging...

Could you find the reason as to why it didn't work in DP for you?

Nope. I posted some in the VSL forums and noticed that some others were having the same issue with DP. Since it worked perfectly in Logic I figured VSL wasn't going to be much help, and I refuse to engage with MOTU tech support. My experience there has been a big time sink and I've found the attitude of support to be pretty cavalier when trying to diagnose issues affecting a working composer. Knowing what it's been like trying to get MOTU to acknowledge issues in their own software I had no stomach for trying to get them to work out issues with a 3rd-party plugin.

Decided just to move on to a setup that works and revisit VE3 with DP6 when it ships.

jstaczek wrote:Nope. I posted some in the VSL forums and noticed that some others were having the same issue with DP. Since it worked perfectly in Logic I figured VSL wasn't going to be much help,..

Hmmmm.... NOW I'm worried.

Also, this doesn't seem to help MOTU making new DP converts.
I don't know what I like less: the fact that it doesn't seem to work with DP, or that it doesn't work with DP BUT it WORKS with Logic

So, the way I see things:
DP + Waves= Iffy, at best.
DP + VE3= No go

DP6 + Waves= Who knows. Maybe another year of headaches
DP6 + VE3= Who knows

AAAARRRGGGGG!!!!!!

But I still LOVE DP, and trust these things will be ironed out.

Frodo wrote: ... and speaking of getting fixed.... Apple really needs to do something about its MIDI Network feature-- to either update it for humans or remove it altogether.

I couldn't agree more! I try it with each and every dot release of OS X and is unusable every time. In fact, Audio/MIDI Setup is pretty much dogmeat, too. That thing crashes 2 out of 3 times I try to use it, and always seems to "forget" about attached MIDI devices and suddenly rename them #2.

What does it take to get real work done these days?! There's too much futzing with all this stuff! I'll say it again. The time is ripe for someone to introduce a notation-based sequencer for working to picture. Not a DAW. Not a plugin host. Not a loop machine. A streamlined machine for writing music and making mockups. Something that knows how to intelligently deal with keyswitched instruments. I keep waiting for Sibelius to step up to the plate, but I don't think it's gonna happen...

Sorry for hijacking the thread with my rants!!! I just want to get some work done!!!!

jstaczek wrote:Since it worked perfectly in Logic I figured VSL wasn't going to be much help, and I refuse to engage with MOTU tech support..

Decided just to move on to a setup that works and revisit VE3 with DP6 when it ships.

FM wrote:DP6 + VE3= Who knows

I really believe that DP6 will make a world of difference with its "enhanced AU protocols". Lots of VIs will work better. Logic has been on top of this for some time-- and VI pre-rendering makes its MOTU debut in DP6.

I think there is much to look forward to very soon.

Jason, good feedback, and extremely useful information about your networking protocol for MIDI over Ethernet.

VE3 here is working perfectly fine. No issues at all. I have it only on one slave at them moment, but I plan to switch another of my PC slaves onto it.

The machines:
DP5.13 on 10.4.11 running DAE on harpertown 8 core, 14 gigs of ram.
Slave is a Quad core Xp64 running in 64bit with 8 gigs.

It also works perfectly running it on the DAW with VE outside of the DP, but until they give us the 64bit mac version, it doesn't make any sense to run it with the ram barrier is there.

Note: I am running RTAS version of VE3 under DAE, so that may have completely different results from MAS.

tripit@earthlink.net wrote:VE3 here is working perfectly fine. No issues at all. I have it only on one slave at them moment, but I plan to switch another of my PC slaves onto it.

The machines:
DP5.13 on 10.4.11 running DAE on harpertown 8 core, 14 gigs of ram.
Slave is a Quad core Xp64 running in 64bit with 8 gigs.

It also works perfectly running it on the DAW with VE outside of the DP, but until they give us the 64bit mac version, it doesn't make any sense to run it with the ram barrier is there.

My kind of post!
So there IS hope!!!

You write it runs perfectly, no issues. That's great news, indeed. Frodo posted a lot of links about this, and after reading them, it seems that there is room for a lot of things to go wrong. So it is obviously one of those things you need to touch with "gloves" for it to work (sorry, slang translation) . And patience.

So the fact that it works for some of you, and it doesn't for others, means there is hope for me