Sonic Control.TV » Computers and Recording

ADK Pro Audio Vienna Instruments System

Peter Alexander — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 20:45:34 +0000

In our first video review, we look at the ADK Pro Audio Vienna Instruments System, the Vienna Instruments, the Vienna Ensemble 3, and finally, the Vienna Suite. The purpose of these videos is not only to review the ADK Vienna Instrument system, but to also teach you what you need to know about digital audio workstations, and the differences between a custom system and a “store bought” system.

ABOUT ADK PRO AUDIO
ADK (Advanced Design Kentucky) is a privately held company located just outside of Cincinnati, OH. Founded in 1998, the company has established itself as a leading developer of computer workstations for both digital audio and video. The company is also an authorized Macintosh reseller and so is able to offer professionals complete production studios on either or both platforms.

Read about ADK Pro Audio’s system building and warranty plans.

The ADK Client List

THE VIENNA INSTRUMENTS
The Vienna Instruments are high quality 24-bit orchestral samples for each orchestral instrument housed in the proprietary Vienna Player. With the Vienna Instrument, there is only one learning curve because once you’ve learned it, it works the same for all the other instruments in the family. Click the picture once for a larger view of the Vienna Player.

The Vienna Instruments cover all the instruments of the orchestra along with additional libraries like the Appassionata Strings 1 and 2, Special Brass, Special Woodwinds, Soprano voices, Saxophones and others.

You can read about them here.

The Vienna Ensemble
The Vienna Ensemble is a proprietary virtual mixing board designed today for the Vienna Instruments. On the ADK Vienna System, the Vienna Ensemble 3 has been installed. With the VE3, you can stream both audio and MIDI from the Vienna System into your main digital audio workstation, whether Mac or PC. Sometime in 2009, Vienna has announced that the Vienna Ensemble 3 will also work with virtual instruments from other companies. Click on the picture once to bring it to full size. Click a second time for an expanded detailed view.

The Vienna Suite
The Vienna Suite is more aptly named the Vienna Effects Suite because it comes with eight high quality plug-ins that can be used on either the Mac or PC. In 2009, a ninth plug-in will be added, Reverb. Once the ADK Vienna System is setup and running, we’ll add the Vienna Effects Suite to both the Vienna System and our Mac System using Logic 8 since the Vienna Suite will work with any sequencing or digital audio program on the Mac and PC. Click on the picture once to bring it to full size. Click a second time for an expanded detailed view.

Vienna Suite currently includes eight plug-ins:

Equalizer – for silky smooth highs and deep and powerful lows – includes an integrated 120 band spectrum analyzer. Extremely low CPU usage.

Master Equalizer – provides 3 filter types on 5 bands and additional high and low shelf filters with 2 filter types. The use of 4x oversampling makes internal calculations extremely precise. The weapon of choice for delicate sonic mastering tasks.

Limiter – with real-time input/output waveform display and auto-mode for transparent maximization.

Compressor – featuring modern and vintage algorithms and a real-time input/output waveform display.

Multiband Limiter – offering 4 bands with transparent crossover filters and an additional full-range brickwall limiter at the final output stage.

PowerPan – for powerful stage positioning of instruments, featuring real-time audio angular analysis.

Exciter – offering 4x oversampling, tone-color sliders for mixing odd and even harmonics, and a high frequency FFT spectrum analyzer.

Analyzer – featuring a 120 band analog modeled spectrum analyzer, a fast and accurate display of bass frequencies, an auto mode for automatic range management, and a loudest frequency note display.

Vienna Instruments Computer Stress Tests

Sonic Control — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 18:27:50 +0000

VIENNA COMPUTER STRESS TESTS
Soon after the Vienna Instruments were released, the Vienna Symphonic Library (VSL) published a series of stress tests demonstrating the efficiency of this new product line on a variety of systems. The most advanced system at the time was the P4 and the Mac G5. Here are their published system results.

Source: www.vsl.co.at -> Forums –>Vienna Instruments->First Vienna Stress Tests Results on PC
First Vienna Instruments Stress Test Results on PC

We have tested the Vienna Instruments on various computers and doublechecked on similar machines. All computers are fully equipped DAW´s that are used in everyday studio work, no additional tuning.

More tests are in the works, with different processors and hosts. Our tests with Sonar, FX Teleport, Chainer, Plogue Bidule, Forte showed the same results, the Vienna Instruments behave the same way as in Steinberg Cubase SX or Vstack.

The test results for Audio Units on Apple will follow as soon as possible.

Please bear in mind, that the RAM available is also used by the hosts (around 300 MB) and Windows (another 300 MB), which is why the limit of RAM usage is 1.3-1.5 GB for the Vienna Instruments in a computer equipped with 2 GB RAM.

The testing routine: Play a (really stressy!) stress test song with different loading options (more instruments, less RAM, and the other way around). All instruments are playing all the time, using all kinds of matrices and patches, and of course including additional MIDI data like ModWheel and different assigned sliders.

You always see the maximum Vienna Instruments possible in the given setup without any sonic trouble.

TEST COMPUTER 1
Processor: Pentium 4, 3.2 GHz, Ram: 2 GB Data storage: internal SATA Host application: Cubase SX3 Soundcard: RME HDSP Multiface Latency at 512 Samples (12ms) / 1.2 GB Ram usage Maximum Vienna Instrument instances: 24 (CPU 75%) Maximum polyphony: 200 stereo voices / (CPU 75%) Latency at 256 Samples (6 ms) / 1.3 GB Ram usage Maximum Vienna Instrument instances: 20 (CPU 70%) Maximum polyphony: 200 stereo voices / (CPU 75%)

TEST COMPUTER 2
Processor: Pentium 4, 3 GHz, Ram: 2 GB Data storage: Firewire 400 Host application: Cubase SX2 Soundcard: RME DIGI 9652 Latency at 1024 Samples (24 ms) / 1.3 GB Ram usage Maximum Vienna Instrument instances: 24 (CPU 50%) Maximum polyphony: 200 stereo voices / (CPU 60%) Latency at 512 Samples (12 ms) / 1 GB Ram usage Maximum Vienna Instrument instances: 18 (CPU 50%) Maximum polyphony: 200 stereo voices / (CPU 60%) Latency at 256 Samples (6 ms) / 1.2 GB Ram usage Maximum Vienna Instrument instances: 14 (CPU 60%) Maximum polyphony: 180 stereo voices / (CPU 65%)

TEST COMPUTER 3
Processor: AMD 2.6 GHz, Ram: 2 GB Data storage: Firewire 400 Host application: Cubase SX3 Soundcard: Creamware Pulsar & Luna Latency at 13ms / 1.3 GB Ram usage Maximum Vienna Instrument instances: 20 (CPU 70%) Maximum polyphony: 200 stereo voices / (CPU 70%) Latency at 7 ms / 1.2 GB Ram usage Maximum Vienna Instrument instances: 16 (CPU 65%) Maximum polyphony: 174 stereo voices / (CPU 60%)

TEST COMPUTER 4
Processor: Pentium 4, 2.8 GHz, Ram: 2 GB Data storage: internal SATA Host application: VSTack Soundcard: RME DIGI9632 Latency at 512 Samples (12ms) / 1.4 GB Ram usage Maximum Vienna Instrument instances: 16 (CPU 70%) Maximum polyphony: 180 stereo voices / (CPU 70%) Latency at 256 Samples (6 ms) / 1.4 GB Ram usage Maximum Vienna Instrument instances: 8 (CPU 55%) Maximum polyphony: 160 stereo voices / (CPU 70%)

TEST COMPUTER 5
Processor: Pentium 4, 2.4 GHz, Ram: 1.5 GB Data storage: Firewire 400 Host application: VSTack Soundcard: Steinberg VSL 2020 Latency at 512 Samples (12ms) / 1 GB Ram usage Maximum Vienna Instrument instances: 16 (CPU 60%) Maximum polyphony: 200 stereo voices / (CPU 80%) Latency at 256 Samples (6 ms) / 1 GB Ram usage Maximum Vienna Instrument instances: 14 (CPU 60%) Maximum polyphony: 200 stereo voices / (CPU 80%)

TEST COMPUTER 6
Processor: Laptop Pentium M, 2 GHz, Ram: 2 GB Data storage: Firewire 400 Host application: Cubase SX3 Soundcard: RME HDSP Multiface Latency at 512 Samples (12ms) / 1.2 GB Ram usage Maximum Vienna Instrument instances: 14 (CPU 65%) Maximum polyphony: 160 stereo voices / (CPU 65%) Latency at 256 Samples (6 ms) / 1.1 GB Ram usage Maximum Vienna Instrument instances: 10 (CPU 55%) Maximum polyphony: 150 stereo voices / (CPU 65%)

TEST COMPUTER 7
Processor: Pentium 3, 1 GHz, Ram: 2 GB Data storage: Firewire 400 Host application: VStack Soundcard: RME DIGI 9632 Latency at 512 Samples (12ms) / 0.6 GB Ram usage Maximum Vienna Instrument instances: 5 (CPU 70%) Maximum polyphony: 90 stereo voices / (CPU 65%)

First Vienna Instruments Stress Test results on Mac OS X
So here they are, the first official test results with the new Vienna Instruments as Audio Units on Mac.

As on the PC platform, we have tested the Vienna Instruments on various computers and doublechecked on similar machines. All computers are fully equipped DAW´s that are used in everyday studio work, no additional tuning.

More tests are in the works, with different processors and hosts. Test results for the Quad will be released as well, we expect more Vienna Instruments to be loaded with maximum amount of RAM.
The limit of RAM usage is about 2.8 GB for the Vienna Instruments in a computer equipped with 4 GB RAM, that translates to 47000 samples.

The testing routine: Play a (really stressy!) stress test song with different loading options (more instruments, less RAM, and the other way around). All instruments are playing all the time, using all kinds of matrices and patches, and of course including additional MIDI data like ModWheel and different assigned sliders.

You always see the maximum Vienna Instruments possible in the given setup without any sonic trouble.

TEST COMPUTER 1
Processor: G5, 2 x 2.5 GHz, Ram: 4 GB OS 10.4.2 Data storage: Firewire 800 Host application: Logic 7.1.1 Soundcard: RME HDSP MADI with 648 MADI Interface Latency at 512 Samples (12ms) / 2.5 GB Ram usage Maximum Vienna Instrument instances: 24 (CPU 90%) Maximum Samples loaded: 45000 Maximum polyphony: 300 stereo voices / (CPU 70%) Latency at 256 Samples (6 ms) / 1.74 GB Ram usage Maximum Vienna Instrument instances: 23 (CPU 70%) Maximum polyphony: 200 stereo voices / (CPU 75%)

TEST COMPUTER 2
Processor: iMac G5 single, 1.8 GHz, Ram: 2 GB OS 10.4.5 Data storage: Firewire 400 Host application: Logic 7.1 Soundcard: Built in Audio Latency at 512 Samples (12ms) / 1.08 GB Ram usage Maximum Vienna Instrument instances: 11 (CPU 85%) Maximum Samples loaded: 17400 Maximum polyphony: 250 stereo voices / (CPU 80%) Latency at 256 Samples (6 ms) / 1 GB Ram usage Maximum Vienna Instrument instances: 9 (CPU 85%) Maximum polyphony: 160 stereo voices / (CPU 80%)

64-Bit Answers For PCs and Macs

Peter Alexander — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 03:21:07 +0000

Written with Nick Batzdorf, publisher, Virtual Instruments magazine and Jeff Laity, Marketing Manager at Tascam.

Over the past few months we’ve been trying to answer the question as to how powerful a 64-bit machine you need to take advantage of the newer PLAY and Vienna Instrument libraries that today do take advantage of the 64-bit technology. To review, both PLAY and Vienna are 64-bit on the PC, but not on the Mac. PLAY, however, per Doug Rogers (see responses below) has engineered the software to access all available system ram on 64-bit Macs as is described at this link. An updated version of Vienna Ensemble 3.0 coming shortly that will be 64-bit on the Mac. GigaStudio 4, now released, is 64-bit on the PC and is a PC only program. Tascam GVI 4 is now 64-bit on the PC with a Mac version expected soon.

In this week’s column, you’re getting straight answers.

I got these answers through an e-mail interview with VSL’s Paul Steinbauer and Nick Batzdorf, publisher of Virtual Instruments magazine. To better understand these concepts, please download Vienna’s video demonstration of the Vienna Ensemble 3.

Two on One

Happily, Nick Batzdorf, Mac maven and publisher of Virtual Instruments magazine, found that you can run both PLAY and Vienna Instruments on the same Mac system. To do so, both must be on independent drives. For best results, PLAY needs to use Soundflower so that it can run as a standalone program. Vienna needs to use the Vienna Ensemble 3 in standalone mode. This means that when you license VE3, of the three installs that come with the license, one will be used up with the Mac.

Some important issues on the Mac.

First, the Mac Pro case is limited to four hard drives. For better load times, VSL’s Paul Steinbauer recommended multiple hard drives for the Vienna Instruments.

If you need more than the standard internal four drives available on the Mac Pro (which is possible when putting different companies on individual drives), you’ll need an eSATA card and an external setup allowing multiple drives.

With such a setup, get the most powerful power supply you can.

Vienna On a Dedicated PC

Paul affirmed my observation that the Vienna Instruments today operate best on a dedicated PC. The ever popular question, however, is how much RAM is really needed for VSL.

Here’s a happy answer: 8GB of RAM running Vista 64 Business with Service Pack 1. See example the Vienna video running Logic. Here Vienna is streaming 48 stereo pairs (on one machine!) of audio via a LAN Ethernet cable connection from the PC to the Mac. According to Paul, only 3GB of samples were loaded to execute this particular orchestral template.

But Which PC?

On a PC, you get can a motherboard with 8GB or 16GB RAM and up. With an 8GB of RAM system, you can use a Quad Core CPU. If you’re concerned for future planning, then getting a PC that can handle 16GB of RAM or better requires the Dual Xeon CPU.

With the Vienna Ensemble, the more powerful CPU allows for more instances.

The hard drives remain a key factor.

One thing that some store salesmen do is tell you that all your libraries can fit on a certain sized drive. This is true, but that’s not the issue. You want to assign one drive as one section of the orchestra (HAH! Last year it was one computer as one section of the orchestra!). Since the entire Vienna Symphonic Cube is 500GB, you want to spread that over several drives. But how big should the drives be? Well, I wouldn’t go less than 500GB per drive with Vienna, but if you’re planning for the future, possibly 750GB (remembering that you have to leave 20% of the drive free for operating integrity).

This means you want a case that can handle 4-5 hard drives. While a 4U rack would be more streamlined, a tower case is going to be the better solution because of the number of drives it can hold.

You’ll need a Gigabit LAN Ethernet connection. That’s usually built onto the motherboard. If it’s not, you can buy a separate Gigabit LAN card and install it.

With the Vienna Instruments on a dedicated system running Vienna Ensemble 3, you only need a LAN cable to connect to your sequencing DAW. No audio card or hardware MIDI interface is required.

With so many hard drives, you want a really robust power supply. I interviewed Chris at ADK Pro Audio in Kentucky (www.adkproaudio.com) and his suggestion was that for an 8GB RAM system 750watts or better is recommended. But if you go to a server motherboard capable of handling 16GB of RAM or more, than an 800 watt or better power supply is the starting point.

PLAY on a PC

The same criteria applies. Use multiple drives. For MIDI, use MIDIoverLAN and select an appropriate audio card. At this time, PLAY does not have its own virtual mixer ready. We understand that a version is coming that works like MIDIoverLAN. There are a couple of options here.

One option is to put PLAY on a standalone machine using MIDIoverLAN and an audio card. Using MOL, you can assign each MIDI port to an instance of PLAY. This gives you 16 channels per port.

A second option is to use GigaStudio 4 and PLAY. GigaStudio 4 has a new feature allowing other VSTi’s to run in it. This is now being tested at Tascam and results are promising.

Desktop Remote

You don’t need a KVM switch. If you’re sequencing on the Mac, there’s a version of Windows Desktop Remote available for you.

Gigabit Switch

If you’re connecting more than one computer to a master DAW, then you’ll need a Gigabit switch to connect all the DAWs together in a network.

Summary Observations

With the Vienna Instruments on a dedicated PC, 8GB of RAM seems to be enough. If you want to play it safe, go to a system that can expand to 16GB of RAM.

With PLAY, the same will hold true except for when you’re running the MIDI Performances, in which case you want to start with 16GB of RAM, or get a system that enables you to expand to that.

On the Mac, you can run both programs, but each should be on their own drives. You will need multiple drives if you try to do it all on one Mac system, in which case, starting with 16GB with 4GB modules is probably the best way to go.

GIGASTUDIO 4

I spoke with Jeff Laity, Marketing Manager at TASCAM for GigaStudio 4. For the PC version, a system similar to the 8GB version for Vienna Ensemble 3 is right for now. That’s because with GigaStudio, the key issue is polyphony, which at this point is up to 600 voices using 7200RPM drives. Once polyphony has peaked, it doesn’t matter if you have more than 8GB.

The following screenshots were created by Nick Batzdorf to show CPU hits on the Mac when you run plug-ins and stand-alone programs in various combinations. The screenshots appear in the following order:

EW and VSL windows closed – spikes [just to identify the dumps, look at the WindowServer in the first line - %CPU = 20.20]
EWconv off + VSL no spikes [WindowServer 19.30]
EWconv off no VSL, no spikes [13.30]
VSL only not playing [5.20]
VSL only not playing window closed [11.70]
VSL only playing window closed [20.20]