BillyD1953
04-29-2008, 08:55 AM
This post provides users of QL Pianos (or any other very large VI sample library) with a method for distributing their sample files over multiple drives, even for an individual instrument in the collection, such as the Steinway D, for example. Other threads have mentioned that for optimum performance it is best to buy the fastest hard drive you can afford when using QL Pianos, which is the largest VI sample library ever released. Some users think RAIDed drives help, but many say that RAID is not useful in a situation where thousands of small files are being streamed rather than a few large files. My method allows you to distribute your samples over multiple drives without using RAID. My examples below use two hard drives, but the same principles apply to three or four or even more drives.
Let's take the simplest case first. Say, for example, you would like to run the Steinway D with the Player mic and the Room mic together, maybe even with some convolution reverb, but your system just doesn't have the horsepower for it. With my approach, you split up the instrument into two separate instruments and run them both together in PLAY standalone mode. In this case, you would set up the standard QL Pianos Library folder structure on two separate hard drives. One drive would contain the instrument file for the Player mic perspective and the other would contain the instrument file for the Room mic perspective. Then you simply add both instruments to PLAY and you're all set to run them simultaneously in the standalone mode as if they were a single instrument.
But what about a more complicated situation where you'd like to split up the samples for just a single mic perspective over multiple drives. This is a little trickier but it can be done. Again you want to use two separate instrument files, one on each hard drive. However, in this case, instead of defining one instrument for one mic perspective, you want both instruments to be set up identically but with each calling up only half of the samples from the library. This cannot be done programmatically, so you have to divide up the samples so that each instrument has access to half of the samples. However, QL Pianos won't load an instrument unless all of the expected sample folders and files are present, so simply splitting up the sample files onto multiple drives won't work. Instead what you do is create empty dummy files of the correct file name for each sample file. Then, on each drive you store half real samples and half dummy files. Of course you put complementary real files on each drive so that over both drives all of the real sample files are present. Then you add both instruments to PLAY standalone and you're all set to go.
But how should you divide up the real sample files on the two drives. Probably the best way is to divide them up by putting the samples for every other note on one drive and alternate notes' samples on the other drive. There is probably an optimum way to do this to avoid key dependencies in your performance: You don't want playing in C or G-flat to matter. So you might try putting the C and C# samples on one drive and D and D# samples on the other drive and so on. Whatever works best. This will improve your performance and effective horsepower by having different drives responsible for streaming different samples. Calling the dummy files does not cause PLAY any problems and since they’re empty they don’t waste time streaming any data from the disk (they may still use the same amount of seek time, however). When you use this dual identical instrument setup in PLAY it sounds like one instrument but should perform better with less overall computer horsepower required, and having multiple hard drives is now quite affordable, especially as compared with purchasing a new, more powerful computer.
Ideally, an updated version of QL Pianos may come out with the necessary features to accomplish this more simply, perhaps with the ability to programmatically assign notes to an instrument. In the meantime, I'd be interested to know what sort of luck people have with this approach. Enjoy.
Let's take the simplest case first. Say, for example, you would like to run the Steinway D with the Player mic and the Room mic together, maybe even with some convolution reverb, but your system just doesn't have the horsepower for it. With my approach, you split up the instrument into two separate instruments and run them both together in PLAY standalone mode. In this case, you would set up the standard QL Pianos Library folder structure on two separate hard drives. One drive would contain the instrument file for the Player mic perspective and the other would contain the instrument file for the Room mic perspective. Then you simply add both instruments to PLAY and you're all set to run them simultaneously in the standalone mode as if they were a single instrument.
But what about a more complicated situation where you'd like to split up the samples for just a single mic perspective over multiple drives. This is a little trickier but it can be done. Again you want to use two separate instrument files, one on each hard drive. However, in this case, instead of defining one instrument for one mic perspective, you want both instruments to be set up identically but with each calling up only half of the samples from the library. This cannot be done programmatically, so you have to divide up the samples so that each instrument has access to half of the samples. However, QL Pianos won't load an instrument unless all of the expected sample folders and files are present, so simply splitting up the sample files onto multiple drives won't work. Instead what you do is create empty dummy files of the correct file name for each sample file. Then, on each drive you store half real samples and half dummy files. Of course you put complementary real files on each drive so that over both drives all of the real sample files are present. Then you add both instruments to PLAY standalone and you're all set to go.
But how should you divide up the real sample files on the two drives. Probably the best way is to divide them up by putting the samples for every other note on one drive and alternate notes' samples on the other drive. There is probably an optimum way to do this to avoid key dependencies in your performance: You don't want playing in C or G-flat to matter. So you might try putting the C and C# samples on one drive and D and D# samples on the other drive and so on. Whatever works best. This will improve your performance and effective horsepower by having different drives responsible for streaming different samples. Calling the dummy files does not cause PLAY any problems and since they’re empty they don’t waste time streaming any data from the disk (they may still use the same amount of seek time, however). When you use this dual identical instrument setup in PLAY it sounds like one instrument but should perform better with less overall computer horsepower required, and having multiple hard drives is now quite affordable, especially as compared with purchasing a new, more powerful computer.
Ideally, an updated version of QL Pianos may come out with the necessary features to accomplish this more simply, perhaps with the ability to programmatically assign notes to an instrument. In the meantime, I'd be interested to know what sort of luck people have with this approach. Enjoy.