More ram = more plug-ins?

[MonkeyMan]

Evening guys & girls...

I am building a new virtual studio based around the new Apple Mac Dual-Core G5 2ghz (2gb ram) and Logic 7.

I was going to go down the TC Electronic Powercore Firewire route (UAD sort out a PCI-Express card soon!) to share the burden on my processing needs.

The helpful chap from Digital Village suggested that I double my ram instead (4gb). This would increase the amount of plug ins I could use he suggested. He mentioned that using the TC Firewire may cause me latency problems.

What are your thoughts on this? I know that some plug-ins are more CPU intensive than RAM intensive. Would adding more ram allow me to use more plug-ins?

[ledge]

He is a mental as far as I am aware. RAM does help systems but the main bottle neck for VSTs is processing power, your 2gig of ram should be plenty.

[Tomer=Trance]

If you dont intend on doing some extreme sample use= orchestral work with very large libraries for example 2 gb of ram should be more then enough.

[techno_7]

What tomer said, RAM is mainly for samples. I did several songs with quite a lot of samples(orchestra's ect.) on 1 gb of RAM and i never had any problems.

[F5D]

more cpu -> more plugins
more ram -> more samples

Of course you always need at least 512MB of ram to be able to do something.

I also have a dual G5 with 2 gigs of ram and logic and I don't see a day coming that I would need more ram.

[MonkeyMan]

Cheers bud thats what I thought. Just thinking of ways to ease the load on the G5's CPU's - most of the stuff I will be doing is will be CPU intensive.

Was going to go down the TC PowerCore Firewire route - or maybe getting a Mac-Mini and an ethernet link to share the burden.

What say you?

[ten]

Depends if the powercore has similar plugs to the ones that you use natively so you can offload them to the poco.

The poco has some great optional plugs which I have purchased most of, but they do cost a shit load extra on top of the already expensive hardware.

Which native plugs do you use mostly?

ten

[MonkeyMan]

Ten. I am taking the plunge buddy from scratch! The last time I powered up a computer in anger to make music it was an Atari ST running Emagic Creator (might of been C-Lab even).

The racks of outboard gear I had were top notch - but I had to move away from music production for various business reasons. I sold 90% of it and just kept my core kit. 7 years later...

To say that technology has moved on would be a big *ucking understatement. The simple thought of running a virtual studio 7 years ago was impossible (let alone affordable.) Just happened to pick up a Future Music Magazine after bumping into an old producer friend of mine (who also wetted my apetite) and BAM.... totally sucked back in.

Just waiting to pick up my kit which consists of (so far) : -

Apple Mac Dual-Core G5 2.0 ghz - 2 Gig of ddram
Apple 23 " Cinema Display
Logic Audio Pro 7
Lacie External 250 gb Firewire drive
Access Virus Ti - 61 note keyboard
(still making my mind up between the RME Fireface 800 and the Mackie Onyx 400F...)

The electronica stuff I used to produce was very heavily laced with outboard multi fx - which I used to record onto my DA30 and then multi-sample into my Akai S3000 (sigh...)

No doubt processing things in real time will be putting the G5 CPU through it's paces in a very short space of time - which is why I am thinking about how to ease it's load.

Apart from the Ti - I was just going to use virtual synths - and a decent software sampler or two.

[Merlot]

Originally Posted by F5D

I also have a dual G5 with 2 gigs of ram and logic and I don't see a day coming that I would need more ram.

I have and use the same setup and am exclusively using softsynths now. I have yet to come near putting my mac to the test. I would suggest you start off with 2 gigs of good corsair RAM and see if that will suit our style. If it does great, if not buy more.

Logics synths are great sounding and use minimal processor power. I think you would be fine with 2 gigs. that will give you breathing room to expand to third party AU's if need be.

[MonkeyMan]

Vintage stuff Merlot. Cheers.