Flexstyle Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 (edited) MW, you might want to check the numbers in your comparison post. Pretty sure SATA3 is only 6 Gb/s, etc. So, Thunderbolt should be a 10 Gb/s connection, which is actually faster than SATA3. You should be able to run an SSD through Thunderbolt without much problem, if you really want to have an external drive. If you're going with a hard drive, Firewire 800 (which I'd assume your Mac has) would be plenty fast for that application. And sorry, I have to say from personal experience: my load times were cut by a factor of 10 (at minimum) once I switched from a 7200 RPM hard drive to my SSD for EWQLSO. I still stand by my recommendation for buying the biggest possible SSD you can find, and then making that your only drive in the Mac. So basically: 1. Buy as big of an SSD as you can. 2. Clone your current hard drive to this SSD, thereby making it your sole drive. CarbonCopyCloner makes this stupidly easy. 3. Copy the EastWest samples to the SSD. 4. Revel in blazing fast load times. Plus, keep in mind that EastWest will be doing a lot of disk streaming, since its libraries are just THAT huge. That's why they recommend the faster interface for their hard drive. The SSD will help a lot more with that, too. As far as limited lifetime on SSDs: you should be able to squeeze five years out of whichever one you get without much issue. With all the algorithms in place for cleanup, plus the fact that they do technically include much more storage than is quoted, you shouldn't have a problem at all. Or you could just build a custom Windows box with RAID0 and get tons of space and lots of speed for much less cost. There's that, too. Edited January 31, 2014 by Flexstyle Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MindWanderer Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 MW, you might want to check the numbers in your comparison post. Pretty sure SATA3 is only 6 Gb/s, etc.Whoops, yeah, missed the magnitude when I converted transfer bits to throughput bytes, for all but Thunderbolt. Fixed above. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moseph Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 (edited) I can't speak for what the Hollywood Gold libraries would be like, but I'm running the Diamond libraries from the CCC2 Pro USB3 drive, and load times are horrendous. Granted, I'm loading all four mic positions, which most people don't do, so that doesn't help matters. I clocked a cold load of one of the violin sections with four mics and most of the articulations at around a half hour. And it used up all the open RAM. And I have 16 gigs of RAM. They're hardcore libraries, is what I'm saying. I think my workflow is flexible enough to actually work around load times and patch size (I compose outside of the DAW and bounce individual tracks to disk), but I'm still setting up templates and I'll need to do a couple of projects with the libraries before I'm sure how things will work. There may have to be an SSD in my future. Keep in mind, though, that I'm not setting things up for real-time playback of the full orchestra since I plan to load only one instrument at a time then bounce to disk -- I could scale things way back and everything would certainly run better and load faster, but where's the fun in using a hardcore library if you don't push it to its limits? Edited January 31, 2014 by Moseph Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theshaggyfreak Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 I actually run a Thunderbolt drive for all of my data/samples, etc. It's a mechanical drive but it's blazing fast when loading up sample libraries and such. It's one of the Seagate Goflex desktop drives. The only major problem I've had with it is that it gets really hot. I set a small fan on top of it and that took care of that problem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flexstyle Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 Whoops, yeah, missed the magnitude when I converted transfer bits to throughput bytes, for all but Thunderbolt. Fixed above. Careful when converting. Byte = 8 bits, not 10 bits. Makes a small difference, at least. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkDjinn Posted January 31, 2014 Author Share Posted January 31, 2014 Moseph - I think after looking into it more I'm going to go with EWQLSO Gold instead of the more demanding Hollywood stuff or the CCC2. I think that should help out, my computer would probably laugh at me if I tried to go for the CCC2 Diamond editions. Flexstyle - I wasn't completely disregarding your advice about buying the biggest SSD I could find, but that Samsung Evo is an internal drive and opening my computer and putting things in it is scary. I guess maybe I should look around for someone in my area who can do it for me, because it certainly seems like the best idea. Trying to find an external Thunderbolt SSD that doesn't cost more than the samples themselves is not going to happen for sure. Thanks for all the advice again folks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkDjinn Posted January 31, 2014 Author Share Posted January 31, 2014 Also, since the EWQLSO Gold samples are only 33GB total, I think I'll just install them on my internal hard drive first to see if how it performs that way. Who knows, maybe I can get away with doing it that way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Argle Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 I've never had any problems running big samples off a regular hard drive. It's a separate hard drive from the OS. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkDjinn Posted January 31, 2014 Author Share Posted January 31, 2014 You know, there are so many variables, I'm just going to have to do SOMETHING, see how it works, and go from there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theshaggyfreak Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 For a number of reasons, I would suggest starting with Vienna Special Edition Volume 1. http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/VSE1Bun/ I have this and EWQL Symphonic Gold and I have gotten more milage out of the Vienna library. It helps that Vienna's sample player is a more usable piece of software than Play. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Argle Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 Vienna has a completely different sound then EWQL, they go well together because of that. Vienna might last you longer because you're not locked into "that" hall reverb. Getting an epic sound is easier with EWQL. Also, VSL SE pretty much never goes on sale, so that's a thing to consider. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flexstyle Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 If you don't want to open up your computer (although I guarantee there's an iFixit guide somewhere), then this external Thunderbolt to SATA adapter might just do the trick. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theshaggyfreak Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 Vienna has a completely different sound then EWQL, they go well together because of that. Vienna might last you longer because you're not locked into "that" hall reverb. Getting an epic sound is easier with EWQL. Also, VSL SE pretty much never goes on sale, so that's a thing to consider. That's pretty true. I tend to like Vienna because I'm able to use it for a bigger variety of things. With EWQL, you're kind of stuck with the big Hollywood sound. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkDjinn Posted January 31, 2014 Author Share Posted January 31, 2014 I'm cool with the big Hollywood sound for now, especially considering it's 280 dollars less for EWQLSO Gold than that Vienna collection. I don't mind spending that 400 now and upgrading later if I need more options. Now just to wait for tax refund time... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meteo Xavier Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 (edited) I'm cool with the big Hollywood sound for now, especially considering it's 280 dollars less for EWQLSO Gold than that Vienna collection. I was about to say the same thing. A near $700 Vienna library to START with? C'mon Shaggy, that's a really expensive and borderline elitist suggestion. Edit: Scrub the Kontakt suggestion, I'll just go into more detail here. I've had EWQLSO Gold on a computer that is probably 5-6 years old by now with not much fuss on it. I never built huge orchestral templates with it, but a lot of the infamy the program has with people calling it "for big Hollywood sounds" and being glitchy, problematic, etc. etc. are largely overblown. It can be a problematic piece of software, but I wouldn't say I've had larger issues with it than I have others. If you put some elbow grease into your MIDI orchestration, and you'll have to no matter what you get, EWQLSO Gold can be a starting AND end product. You can definitely make gentler orchestral tracks out of it, and I've heard EWQLSO used in commercial projects that sounded objectively pretty good and realistic that would hold up to quality today. Vienna's amazing, but it's the highest rank software out there and the price reflects it. It's like saying your first car should be a Jaguar. That rhymes. Edited January 31, 2014 by Meteo Xavier Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MindWanderer Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 Careful when converting. Byte = 8 bits, not 10 bits. Makes a small difference, at least.Yeah, but the data I was looking at, in multiple places, was using a factor of 10 for some reason. Not sure if that's because of a difference between transfer speed and throughput, or because the powers of 2 just work out that way (using SI units).Anyway, this is now off-topic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkDjinn Posted January 31, 2014 Author Share Posted January 31, 2014 (edited) My first car was not a Jaguar But my current guitar is indeed a Jaguar. That also rhymes. Edit: Forgot to actually respond to anything meaningful. Meteo Xavier, I'm glad to hear that what I was thinking is not wrong. I'm excited to purchase this and get started making some sweet tunes. Edited January 31, 2014 by DarkDjinn didn't finish message Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meteo Xavier Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 EWQLSO isn't the holy grail of orchestral software that people used to think of it as, but it's not the outdated, over-rated piece of crap everyone thinks it is today. It's good quality sounds with a somewhat difficult engine that requires some real work to get to use correctly. I'm not sure if it can handle really, really heavy, pro-quality orchestration templates without needing a slave computer or something, but I know you can do pro-quality work on a modern computer by itself without really needing a crazy amount of customization and workhorse power to it. If you needed a lot of processing power to use EWQLSO, that knowledge would come with the rest of the hype and infamy that gets tossed out on it now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moseph Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 (edited) VSL SE was my first orchestral library -- I'm not sure I'd recommend it as a starter library unless you have or are committed to developing very good production skills. Reverb is the big issue -- since they're recorded extremely dry, it's very difficult to place VSL libraries spatially in a mix, and it's the sort of thing where you likely won't hear problems unless you already know what you should be listening for (or it was for me, anyway). I also find that VSL stuff needs much more corrective EQ'ing than EastWest stuff. If you go with EWQLSO Gold (or VSL SE, for that matter), you ought to be just fine putting it on your main drive. Edited January 31, 2014 by Moseph Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theshaggyfreak Posted February 1, 2014 Share Posted February 1, 2014 VSL SE was my first orchestral library -- I'm not sure I'd recommend it as a starter library unless you have or are committed to developing very good production skills. Reverb is the big issue -- since they're recorded extremely dry, it's very difficult to place VSL libraries spatially in a mix, and it's the sort of thing where you likely won't hear problems unless you already know what you should be listening for (or it was for me, anyway). I also find that VSL stuff needs much more corrective EQ'ing than EastWest stuff. It helps that I was taking classes from Berkley when I purchased VSL. I do suppose it's true that you need a better understanding of how an orchestra works to use it to its full potential. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frederic Petitpas Posted February 1, 2014 Share Posted February 1, 2014 I want Vienna for a number of reasons. I'd get the cube and be done with it but I'll take the package you linked Shaggy. However, I figure the price varies just like EastWest (it's at what, 50% some days in the year right ?). I basically embrace the idea of having no reverb then use impulses. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garrett Williamson Posted February 1, 2014 Share Posted February 1, 2014 My first car was not a JaguarBut my current guitar is indeed a Jaguar. That also rhymes. hahaha no that's just the same word used twice, unless we're referring to "car" and "guitar" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkDjinn Posted February 1, 2014 Author Share Posted February 1, 2014 hahaha no that's just the same word used twice, unless we're referring to "car" and "guitar" "Car" and "jaguar", "guitar" and "jaguar". But seriously, not the point of the thread. I'm going to pick up EWQLSO and see what happens, and I'll come running back for help if it doesn't work like I hope. Maybe I'll keep that Vienna Library in mind for the future. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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