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Having trouble with stability in DAW


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I think I know how to fix the problem, I just wanted a second opinion. For my orchestral sequencing I use EastWest Symphonic orchestra, but the problem is I have to use a lot of instances of it and it eats up ram. When I boot up my fell orchestra template it gives me warning messages about my ram and becomes unstable. If I start working on a project in this situation it usually gives me occasional noise spikes (it sounds like isolated static). My assumption is I need to have more ram (currently with 8gb ddr3 in my macbook pro non retina). Any thoughts? I think it could also be a word clock issue or a hard drive issue.

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Are you using multiple Kontakt instances or many MIDI Outs? I would opt for many MIDI Outs instead.

Depending on your DAW that might not be a good idea. For Logic Pro it's known to be better to use multiple instances due to the way Logic's engine works; if you use a single Kontakt instance it would clog up only a single core, ignoring the others.

More on topic; in my experience (also on a Mac) the Play engine is sometimes a bit cranky. It likes to complain early about lack of memory (earlier than Kontakt at least) and it's also quite greedy when it comes to using RAM. According to the interwebs it works better on Windows. I had the same situation as you, also with 8GB of RAM. I upgraded to more memory, and that solved a lot of these issues for me.

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Depending on your DAW that might not be a good idea. For Logic Pro it's known to be better to use multiple instances due to the way Logic's engine works; if you use a single Kontakt instance it would clog up only a single core, ignoring the others.

 

 

You can set the number of cores supported in Kontakt (VST as well), just fyi.

 

RTEmagicC_d1a01468a4.png.png

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If it won't interrupt your workflow too badly, you might consider freezing or bouncing tracks that you've already completed so the samples can be unloaded to free RAM. PLAY also has a feature to unload samples that haven't been triggered since the session start (or since hitting an associated reset button) that can help free up RAM from individual instruments without actually freezing/bouncing. It's found under Main Menu > Advanced Instrument Properties > Sample Purge. These might work at least as stopgaps until you get more RAM.

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You can set the number of cores supported in Kontakt (VST as well), just fyi.

 

RTEmagicC_d1a01468a4.png.png

 

Nothing you set inside of Kontakt affects how Logic's engine distributes processing. The DAW is what matters here, not the VST.

 

Think of a boss distributing work with a confidentiality and non-compete agreement. If the boss loads all the work onto one guy, he's screwed; can't contract or outsource any assistance (because company trade secrets or whatever, don't think too hard about the analogy). But if the boss hires more actual employees, he can distribute the work among them.

 

Of course this is different in a DAW like Studio One, which distributes multi-core processing load onto VST's.

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1. Make sure your PC/Notebook is not working on energy saving mode.
2. Tried an audio interface instead of a soundcard? >>> can make a much better performance of the DAW and minimizes the usage of CPU
3. Freezing tracks (DAW function for reversibly changing midi in audio tracks) might help a lot to increase the performance of the DAW as well
4. Close other programs (especially browsers - eat also some neceassary RAM)
5. Close or deinstall all firewalls and anti-virus/malware programs which are not a part of your windows system (can use a lot of RAM and CPU)
6. Set your ASIO buffer size at a higher value (maybe 2048 instead of 512 samples) - if it's too low it might crash your engine or create strange noises while playing
7. Maybe try other sound drivers for your DAW.
8. If all this doesn't help I guess you really have to increase the capacity of your RAM - with 16 to 32 GB RAM you should be fine, also with the greatest high-end-sample libraries
 

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