Just a couple of questions concerning CPU and Samplers!

M

mini_molko

Member
Joined
Mar 7, 2008
I've been studying a lot of tunes for ideas lately and have noticed most top producers like Spor, Noisia, Dirtyphonics, etc tend to have a lot of synth sounds layered throughout their tunes, which obviously gives their songs a rich, varied and interesting texture. Anyway, I wanna put this into practice, but it seems as though to achieve this result, I would have to have many VST's running at the same time playing different sounds and this would obviously overkill my CPU (Especially as my main synth of choice is Massive), so I just wondered what people's preferred method for doing this was.

At the moment, with my VST synth sounds, I'm having to work on one, then once I'm happy with it, convert to Wav and begin on the next, but this an extremely irritating, confusing and slow method if I wanna go back and edit that sound in midi, plus, it involves having to make loads of save files for just one synth line. Anyway, I know there must be an easier way of doing it... Is a sampler an essential tool for this? I've only recently come across utilising samplers for producing and didn't realise how much control it actually gave you over audio files (Attack, Decay, etc...), but Cubase doesn't seem to have a built-in software sampler, so I'm guessing I'm gonna have to find a VST. Anyone know of any free ones out there?

Anyway, thanks if you've managed to read this far, any help is greatly appreciated.
 
Sampling may be a good compromise, although check first as some samplers can chew cpu as well.
What daw do you use? as you should be able to 'freeze' tracks, which is basically a temporary render to audio which keeps the synth and fx disabled but you can undo it and go back and edit.


Edit: At the end of the day if you want to have realtime control (working with synth or effect) you're going to chew cpu.

I had this problem when working on a laptop, so I started rendering things and quickly ran out of memory (required to read audio off the disc)
There's nothing worse than being in inspired creative mode and your tune starts stuttering and popping as the computer labours away.
I went for the option of new computer and I'm glad i did now.
 
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Cheers dude, completely forgot about the freeze function. I'm using Cubase SX3 at the moment... I may just have to think about getting a new computer. Do you know of any free samplers out there, or is it worth paying for one??
 
short circuit is a free sampler i guess, never used it myself tho.

anyone know how to freeze in fl or even if its possible at all?
 
You have literally just described my problem lol im only just starting to render things down then save a new file an remember which of them i have used to make a noise so i can edit the notes n filters etc, its a very tedious way of doing shit, upside is you can get away with running it back through your fx an then bounce it down again for different layers etc but you'll end up with shit loads of edits to one song an it will fill your pc with unnecessary crap.
Best bet is to save for a new pc, 500quid can get you a tidy piece of kit an just fill it with ram go for the biggest like 8-10gig an it will take a lot more shit to make it crackle i had 6or 7 massives on the go, an about 15 channels on the fx, filled with other vst's n shit that was only just startin to crackle. (on a 6gig ram pc) im now back on the laptop an its useless, saving for a new one as we speak.....long! :rolleyes:
 
get a quad core PC mate and you can run whatever you like.

prices are pretty good at the moment for componants, consider building one yourself. you only need a screw driver to put it together and you'll have all the power you need bro
 
kemzino said:
get a quad core PC mate and you can run whatever you like.

prices are pretty good at the moment for componants, consider building one yourself. you only need a screw driver to put it together and you'll have all the power you need bro
Click to expand...
Yeah, I built mine. Knew nothing at all about pc's, spent a couple of months researching and buying parts.
A little bit stressful when it came to actually putting it together and I had hundreds of pounds worth of components in my hands, but it all went smoothly.
Quite satisfying too.
(quad core like Kemzino said, you'll forget about these sort of cpu issues pretty soon)
 
subprime said:
Yeah, I built mine. Knew nothing at all about pc's, spent a couple of months researching and buying parts.
A little bit stressful when it came to actually putting it together and I had hundreds of pounds worth of components in my hands, but it all went smoothly.
Quite satisfying too.
(quad core like Kemzino said, you'll forget about these sort of cpu issues pretty soon)
Click to expand...

its def the way to go eh, seeing as the prices drop for computer stuff almost weekly. you can get an external 1TB drive now for £65 in currys for eg, and RAM is very cheap now

i built mine about a month ago or so and its done me a world of good. its great to be able to run Reason in the sequencer and test out basslines with your plug ins on the fly for instance, or just record stuff straight in if need be, certainly couldnt do that before:) i havent tried to see how much it can handle without glitching, but im guessing it must be a proper heavy load as ive yet to run into into any cpu issues, and ive def had 8+ synths going with about 30 audio tracks with a whole multitude of effects and plug ins on all channels churning round doing there thing simiultaneously.
 
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