East West SO is slowing me down!

Hi,

 

I'm working with a client who wants to use many instances of the East West SO Platinum Plus PLAY plug in to create an orchestra. I find that after even a few instantiations in an 3.2 8-core with a ton of ram, Logic really starts to slow down!!!

 

I'm talking about EVERYTHING from track deletion to plug selection. And when there are 5 or more... well forget it! I tried it on another CPU -same thing.

 

I've never used this soft synth before, so I'm asking those who do use it regularly to help me with some strategies to help my client.

 

Are there special settings within the plug. Are there ways to make it more efficient in Logic. I'm going to bed now but I hope to see some lively answers when I wake up!

 

I edited this post to include the PLAY version info .. Thanks to Brent for pointing that out!

 

Thanks in advance for your help!

 

Steve H

Edited January 8, 2009 by steveH

Hey Steve,

 

What version of SO are you using? You say Platinum but are you running it through Kontakt or the newer Play version? By nature, it is a beast and is really only happy when it has as much RAM to eat as possible. I use it quite a bit for indie film and commercial use, often times having to either freeze tracks or bounce them out upon completion. That's the Kontakt version.

 

For what it's worth, you are approaching it the right way based on their documentation of using it in Logic: multiple instances rather than multi-out instruments. That's supposed to help.

 

I also have the upgraded Play engine that East West developed themselves but haven't had the time to install and check it out yet so I don't know how much more efficient that version is, though I've heard it makes major strides both in efficiency and ease of use compared to the Kontakt version.

 

Not a lot of help I know, but I don't know that there's too much that you can do. I'd be interested in any other suggestions people might have on how to maximize its use as well.

 

Lastly, their forums are pretty helpful as well. Lots of decent folks over there willing to help out. Their support is generally good too, but I don't know how much support they are offering on the Kontakt versions of things anymore.

 

http://www.soundsonline-forums.com

 

Hope some of that long-windedness is helpful!

 

Brent

Oh... It's the PLAY version.

Oh... It's the PLAY version.

 

Ha! Well, then I guess my diatribe really wasn't of any help...LOL! If you do figure it out outside of here, please post your findings. It'll be nice to know what to look out for once I get around to the Play version.

 

One question: are you using the 24 or 16-bit versions of the samples? I would assume that'd have some sort of impact.

 

EDIT: This thread of working setups looks like it could be useful. Lots of talk of problems with various versions, streaming settings, etc.

 

http://www.soundsonline-forums.com/showthread.php?t=15584

Hi,

 

I'm working with a client who wants to use many instances of the East West SO Platinum Plus PLAY plug in to create an orchestra. I find that after even a few instantiations in an 3.2 8-core with a ton of ram, Logic really starts to slow down!!!

 

I'm talking about EVERYTHING from track deletion to plug selection. And when there are 5 or more... well forget it! I tried it on another CPU -same thing.

 

I've never used this soft synth before, so I'm asking those who do use it regularly to help me with some strategies to help my client.

 

Are there special settings within the plug. Are there ways to make it more efficient in Logic. I'm going to bed now but I hope to see some lively answers when I wake up!

 

I edited this post to include the PLAY version info .. Thanks to Brent for pointing that out!

 

Thanks in advance for your help!

 

Steve H

Hi.

 

I started a thread about the same issue - slow track deletion and GUI generally. But unfortunately this has nothing to do with EastWest - it is related to ALLE sampler plugins it seems - both Kontakt, Play and instruments using Kontakt players (like anything from EastWest not using Play, and stuff from Native Instruments). It turns out that the more samples you load, the slower the GUI of Logic 8 gets. This is an extremely lame bug (or issue if you want to call it that), but seeing how Apple is not in contact with their users regarding Logic, and the fact that Logic hardly ever gets updated anymore, I don't think this will ever be resolved. I did a test and loaded the same plugins+samples in Logic 7 and Logic 8 - Logic 7 remained snappy, Logic 8 became really slow.

 

However, my GUI doesn't become so slow that I will call Logic useless - which your post seems to indicate. But a deletion of a track takes 2-3 seconds when I have loaded, say, 1,5 GB of samples.

Edited January 8, 2009 by Simon R.

Re. slowdown : same problem affects Kontakt 3, huge GUI sluggishness that increases as the no. of instances increases. According to NI tech, they think that something changed in the 8.0.2 update that causing this, and they were trying to work it out with Apple - I would suspect it's a similar issue here.

 

Most of the people i know doing heavy duty orch work with PLAY & Logic are using it standalone with the IAC/soundflower combo, or on another machine.

When using it a plug-in, despite EW recommendation to use one instance per instrument i personally find that I get far more mileage out of it running it multi-timbral - keeps the no. of instances down - however, the PLAY GUI is really not designed for multitimbral use, and it's a real PITA to use like that...

 

Having said all that, once you get it all up and running, I find that the streaming engine is pretty efficient on the stock settings, haven't needed to tweak them yet.

 

HTH

But a deletion of a track takes 2-3 seconds when I have loaded, say, 1,5 GB of samples.

 

The above statement got me thinking... not that I have any experience with Play, but I'm thinking that maybe performance can be improved if you turn off automatic management of channel strip objects switched on (project settings). My thinking here is this: when you have a track assigned to a virtual instrument, and you delete that track (which is otherwise unused in your arrangement), the plug gets removed from the instrument channel strip and then the strip is deleted from the environment. And when this happens, perhaps Logic or the plug itself tries to purge the samples, and that's what's taking time.

 

That's the normal behavior (and the reason I never use automatic cs management). So my theory is that if you switch the automatic management off, deleting an unused track will leave the instrument intact, samples and all; if samples aren't getting purged, performance of routine things like deleting unused tracks won't take a hit.

 

Just a theory, but perhaps worth a try?

Ski, unfortunately I don't think that theory is right, but I'll test it. Because it's any track that takes "forever" to delete. A standard MIDI track also takes 2-3 seconds.

 

EDIT: As it turns out, I already have that option disabled.

OK, just a theory then.

Hos about VSL... is it a hog too?

It shouldn't be, since it doesn't load its samples inside Logic but in its own external server-application.

Thanks for your help.

Hos about VSL... is it a hog too?

 

Consider VSL for EXS.

 

Virtually unlimited even on my puny old 2/2.

These issues with Kontakt and Play are the reason Kirk Hunter's DIamond for the EXS 24 is my "go to", supplemented by others.

 

While those whose first concern is how "real" they think a library sounds (and that is illusory, because NONE of them sound real) my concerns are:

1. Does it inspire me emotionally when I play it?

2. Can I make it sound good relatively quickly?

3. How stable is it in my system?

Yes, I recommend VSL for EXS too (if you can find it). Much more programmable than the VSL player itself. But I think (not sure) it's only available with 16-bit samples (again, if you can find it). Personally I don't find that a problem tho.

just quickly:

 

the reason everything is slowing down is because if you have more than 5 Gb of RAM the mmap trick will kick in for exs which robs logic of 512 Mb for the rest of its plugs. this is why LLP7 remains snappy.

 

either remove RAM from your machine to bring it under 5 Gb or load the third party plugs in a third [party host and rewire it into logic.

 

i will try to post more detail if you are interested, but in essence it is the same problem as running low on memory (white screens, crashes, sluggishness etc) on which i have posted quite a bit here.

i will try to post more detail if you are interested, but in essence it is the same problem as running low on memory (white screens, crashes, sluggishness etc) on which i have posted quite a bit here.

 

stevenson,

 

Since you offered, I would like to learn details of this as well, and, if you wouldn't mind, details on how to work with au lab (maybe a separate post?)

Yes, I recommend VSL for EXS too (if you can find it). Much more programmable than the VSL player itself. But I think (not sure) it's only available with 16-bit samples (again, if you can find it). Personally I don't find that a problem tho.

 

Are you referring to the VSL Opus Horizon series which includes the performance tool?

just quickly:

 

the reason everything is slowing down is because if you have more than 5 Gb of RAM the mmap trick will kick in for exs which robs logic of 512 Mb for the rest of its plugs. this is why LLP7 remains snappy.

 

either remove RAM from your machine to bring it under 5 Gb or load the third party plugs in a third [party host and rewire it into logic.

 

i will try to post more detail if you are interested, but in essence it is the same problem as running low on memory (white screens, crashes, sluggishness etc) on which i have posted quite a bit here.

 

Thanks Stevenson, I am totally interested! Please, more detail!

Are you referring to the VSL Opus Horizon series which includes the performance tool?

 

Not sure...The copy I have is an EXS-24 native version that didn't come with the performance tool.

just quickly:

 

the reason everything is slowing down is because if you have more than 5 Gb of RAM the mmap trick will kick in for exs which robs logic of 512 Mb for the rest of its plugs. this is why LLP7 remains snappy.

 

either remove RAM from your machine to bring it under 5 Gb or load the third party plugs in a third [party host and rewire it into logic.

 

i will try to post more detail if you are interested, but in essence it is the same problem as running low on memory (white screens, crashes, sluggishness etc) on which i have posted quite a bit here.

 

Very interesting indeed. That would explain why I can get far more than 5 instances of SO and it's killing Steve. 10 is about my limit, but I'm also working on an "ancient" machine, but am using LP7.

Steve - my experience has been that plugs like Kontakt and EW SO will slow things down a ton - I use all that stuff as stand alone plugs and have no trouble. I've also had great luck with AU Lab and launching the plugs out of there.

au lab is fantastic and would be my preference, but how are you getting the sounds back into logic? or aren't you? are you using audio jack?

 

the situation is definitely memory related. in my opinion, logic 8 is somewhat unfinished. i know that it is a partial re-write. maybe the big delay since the last update is because they are finishing the re-write? who know's, but i would be surprised and not a little disappointed if this issue (regarding memory) was not addressed.

 

at least the work around is relatively satisfactory. plogue bidule is ok although it is a little confusing to use - but that might just be because i am thick.

 

without a doubt, if you are using much in the way of third party anything - not just big sampler instruments - and you are running into problems, consider farming them outside of logic.

 

btw, for those of you latency conscious, latency seems to be better having the third party plugs in plogue as opposed to logic.

Are you referring to the VSL Opus Horizon series which includes the performance tool?

 

It may be a little sparse for you, however, especially if your expectations are similar to EW Platinum.

 

I agree with Jay Asher. I'm using Kirk Hunter Ruby with some of VSL Opus. It makes for a nice combination considering none of them do sound 'real'.

just quickly:

 

the reason everything is slowing down is because if you have more than 5 Gb of RAM the mmap trick will kick in for exs which robs logic of 512 Mb for the rest of its plugs. this is why LLP7 remains snappy.

 

either remove RAM from your machine to bring it under 5 Gb or load the third party plugs in a third [party host and rewire it into logic.

 

i will try to post more detail if you are interested, but in essence it is the same problem as running low on memory (white screens, crashes, sluggishness etc) on which i have posted quite a bit here.

 

Hey Stevenson.....Please explain! Thanks!

au lab is fantastic and would be my preference, but how are you getting the sounds back into logic? or aren't you? are you using audio jack?

 

 

I'm using Vbuses from Apogee as part of my symphony system - I think Soundflower from Cycling '74 does a similar thing and I've read that people on the forum have had great luck using it.

au lab is fantastic and would be my preference..

It's a nice concept but not reliable in my experience. I've got several crashes when trying to save and re-open certain configurations, especially with Kontakt and Reaktor.

ah yes. they have vbus for one computer and sbus over LAN for multiple computers. i'll bet its the business - i wish i had it.

 

steve,

 

its pretty much as i wrote. the issue is to do with low memory. the indicator for this is virtual RAM and NOT real RAM.

 

as mmap requires some internal memory for it to work, logic by default sets the amount it uses to farm out the samples from the exs instruments to 512 Mb. that is 512 from logics internal memory sapce which, as you know, is around 3.5 Gb.

 

i am willing to bet that your sluggishness is occuring as the virtual memory on your mac gets up to around 3.2 plus.

 

the problem with 3rd party plugs is that they reserve RAM from logics address space in blocks - quite large blocks sometimes, even if they are not loading samples, or are even sample instruments. but more importantly, the blocks have to be contiguous, so even though it may seem that you should have enough internal memory, it is actually a bit like having 1 slightly large car parking across 2 parking bays. there is enough room for 3 cars, but they won't fit because of the way the big car is parked. a crude image but its roughly right.

 

basically, mmap is supposed to dynamically allocate RAM. so it only farms out the samples to address space outside of logic when logics memory is full. but unfortunately, it doesn't seem to work that well in practice. what seems to happen is that after working for a while just with low level info such as cc's automation, tempi, regions, lots of tracks, and general guff you do in a song, logic starts to fall apart. first thing that happens is that it gets very sluggish, then you get the flashes of white screen and your cursor disappears. then you will get the memory message (if you are lucky) and you also get 'song cannot be saved - try saving it as "whatever~"? '.

 

i had my plist files adjusted by a developer friend who knows about such things so that mmap requires only 256 Mb to operate rather than 512 and it made a massive difference. suddenly logic was as sprightly as a spring lamb. it is apparently quite easy to do (to alter it).

 

never-the-less, i just feel that i would be constantly worrying about the RAM ceiling if i left everything in logic - therefore i have loaded my au plugs into plogue bidule running in rewire and rewiring the audio back into logic. i already am able to load up many many more au instruments and samples than i ever could in logic and not only does logic behave much more responsively but it only takes a fraction of the time to switch between songs.

 

3rd party plugs no longer need to be reloaded with each change of song. latency has improved. the only problem is, plogue bidule is not as straightforward to use as i would have hoped - but i got there. an au host is the only way to go for big templates and niceness with logic.

Thanks Stevenson.... great info. I'll check out Plogue Bidule.