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I am thinking of upgrading my PC desktop with the latest Intel i7 CPU and load it with as many RAM as I can afford so as to use it as a slave for L.A.S.S. The PC will be connected to my Macbook Pro via Vienna Ensemble (since it's supposed to be cross-platform).

This is the best setup I can afford before my iMac or MacPro arrives.

Will this work well? Please guys, will need your expert opinions.

I swore off of Windows when Giga went belly up but I recently built an i7 machine for Vienna Instruments and LASS and I haven't had so much as a hiccup on my PC slave running 10 instances of VE PRO with around 8 GB of VSL and the whole 16 bit LASS library. To get the machine to sputter I have to basically arm 50 tracks and drop elbows on my controller. If I could afford to build another one I'd do it just to get the rest of my Kontakt libs off of my Macpro. The price tag for the system was around $1100, I can send over the parts list if you're interested.

hey roadrage, I'm also interested in the specs on your i7 - i'm going to do the same thing. My macpro 8-core 2.8 w 10g RAM is consistently maxed out with a pretty basic bidule template - I bring the system to it's knees in 2-3 string tracks...

I have a G5 dual 2.7 with 8GB RAM slaved to my quad core Mac Pro over ethernet. I run L.A.S.S and other large sample libraries that way and it all seems to work quite well for me.
Peace!

Here ya go:

Antec 300 Case

Asus P6T Motherboard

Intel i7 920

Crucial 1066 RAM (2X)

WD Caviar Drives (3X)

Asus Vanilla Video Card

Sony Optiarc DVD Drive

Corsair 650W PSU

Windows 7 64-bit HP OEM

I only use the slave for Vienna instruments and LASS all running under VE PRO. System and apps are on one drive, VSL is on one drive and LASS is on the other, it takes an awful lot for polyphony to even be an issue. Haven't had any issues with stability. This beast is louder than chopper fire though. I added a few 120mm fans and cranked em all the way up just to be safe, even though it's probably overkill. Doesn't bother me because it's in another room but if it was in my studio I'd definitely have to look at quieter cooling solutions.

I got most of this stuff in bundles and the grand total was $1100. This was the first system that I ever built and the whole build and setup only took a day. One word of warning, I use a separate monitor for my slave because I don't really like the idea of software solutions for that kinda stuff but if you plan on using any kind of VNC app to screen share cross platform I think you have to buck up for one of the commercial versions of Win7. May want to look into it if that's your plan.

Thanks guys for the assuring words. Sorry for the late reply as I've been away from the forum because of some distractions. Seems like this is the way to go if I want to run L.A.S.S. Man, $1100 for the i7 Windows machine!!!

Here's a PC from newegg that ships for under $1k - ready to go! The processor is only an i7 860 tho...not sure how much faster the i7 920 is.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6883241027" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

you guys are *REALLY MESSIN' WITH MY HEAD*!!!

I, like jroadrage, was using a slave, custom-built PC for running Giga. I, like jroadrage, was looking forward to swearing off (and "at") Windows after Giga died. And I'm just now at the point of trying to "concept" a new slave machine to run all of my Giga and Kontakt libraries.

But all along, I'd thought it would be a Mac. Simple reason, as I'm running DP on an Intel Mac, my slave machine would also be Intel Mac and I'm only having to get up-close-and-personal with one OS.

And now you're all talking about doing another Windoze machine?!
Ugghhhh....(many) more questions to follow....

williemyers wrote:you guys are *REALLY MESSIN' WITH MY HEAD*!!!

I, like jroadrage, was using a slave, custom-built PC for running Giga. I, like jroadrage, was looking forward to swearing off (and "at") Windows after Giga died. And I'm just now at the point of trying to "concept" a new slave machine to run all of my Giga and Kontakt libraries.

But all along, I'd thought it would be a Mac. Simple reason, as I'm running DP on an Intel Mac, my slave machine would also be Intel Mac and I'm only having to get up-close-and-personal with one OS.

And now you're all talking about doing another Windoze machine?!
Ugghhhh....(many) more questions to follow....

After all the hassles that I went through with Giga and XP, contemplating a reintroduction of more Wintel related ulcers into my studio wasn't something I looked forward to. I was white knuckled even hitting the confirm purchase button on newegg but It really has been very easy and MUCH cheaper with maybe even better performance than a comparably speced out Macpro.

That being said it is as single purposed a machine as you'll find running a very lite version of Win7 and two pieces of software from companies that have good support and maintenance and are still in business. If I wanted to try to run unconverted Giga libs on this thing I would add some pepto to the order.

I was faced with whether or not to get a Windows machine for the VE Pro slave computer or a Mac (much more expensive). I also run LASS and Vienna on the slave, along with Project SAM Brass, Omnisphere and others... I ended up getting the Mac because I realized that if I got Windows, being the slave machine would be pretty much all it would ever be good for around here.

If my setup changes, I can repurpose the Mac pretty easily (the slave is actually a much more powerful computer than the master is!). OTOH, the PC would likely become a doorstop.

That decision cost me for a few months, in that I couldn't run all 64 bit instances of VE Pro- I had to mix 64 and 32 bit. But now that Kontakt is 64 bit on the Mac, I'm good to go.