Change order of loaded instruments

[lejmer]

+1!

[jspencer]

Why not just load a new instance of Play for each instrument? That is the ultimate solution, and it's recommended by EW.

[TGV]

Originally Posted by jspencer

Why not just load a new instance of Play for each instrument? That is the ultimate solution, and it's recommended by EW.

Because having different articulations on different MIDI channels works quite well.

[gstitt]

Why not just load a new instance of Play for each instrument? That is the ultimate solution, and it's recommended by EW.

It's also not feasible for large templates.

[jspencer]

Why not? You're only bogging down your system. There is no limit to how many instances you can open, and you can name each instance whatever you like (in Sonar you can at least).

[gstitt]

You are right, multiple instances bog down your system to the point where it no longer works. I'm sure someone has benchmarked multiple instances vs multiple instruments per instance. In my template, I have every SO articulation of every instrument loaded. I'm not in front of my machine, but I would guess that would require several hundred Play instances when using one instrument per instance.

For small templates, your suggestion is fine and is likely recommended because it allows the instruments to be spread across cores.

Either way, it's an easy suggestion to add. I already added it among many other sorting options to the editor I linked to in the earlier posts. If I can do it as a third party, EW can do it with much less effort. Whether or not they do is up to them because this might be a low priority.

[jspencer]

Excerpt from the EW site....

"We recommend using multiple instances of Play in your host, rather than filling one instance up with 16 instruments before moving to the next instance. The reason for this is that most Sequencer Hosts assign processing on a per-plugin basis, meaning that one plugin (regardless of how many instruments are loaded into that one plugin) generally get assigned to one processor. If you are using a multi-processor machine (such as a Quad Core) than utilizing multiple plugin instances of Play will balance the processing load more evenly among your processors, resulting in smoother performance."

I totally get what you are saying, and it works okay with SO Gold, etc, but not with bigger libraries such as Hollywood Strings. And yes, I have had over 100 instances in one project. Are you using SO Gold or Platinum

[gstitt]

That quote does not suggest using one instrument per instance. It suggests using more instances before you fill up all the midi channels of a single instance. It makes no claims about the optimal instruments per instance.

I'm using SO Platinum Plus with pretty much every other EW library. I understand their suggestion, but it is not universal. It depends on the instruments that you are using and what instances you put them in. If I mix Violin,Celli, Viola, and Bass articulations in the same instance, that likely isn't very efficient because I have multiple simultaneous instruments sharing the same core. But, if I fill up an instance with Violin articulations, I'm likely only using a few at a time (and usually just one), so there is no benefit from using these articulations in separate instances.

One huge disadvantage to one instance per instrument is that you do not share any samples. If multiple instruments in the same instance share samples, they will not require extra memory (or at least not much).

Another practical disadvantage is that you need one track per articulation. For my SO template, that would be 100s of tracks. Combined with all the other libraries I use, I would likely have > 1000 tracks. So, it might work, but it doesn't scale well.

[jspencer]

Holy smokes! I never thought of it like that. You are laying out some major templates there. If it works for you, don't change it. I see how changing the order would be beneficial for scenarios such as yours, hopefully EW will look into it.

[Jose7822]

Originally Posted by jspencer

Excerpt from the EW site....

"We recommend using multiple instances of Play in your host, rather than filling one instance up with 16 instruments before moving to the next instance. The reason for this is that most Sequencer Hosts assign processing on a per-plugin basis, meaning that one plugin (regardless of how many instruments are loaded into that one plugin) generally get assigned to one processor. If you are using a multi-processor machine (such as a Quad Core) than utilizing multiple plugin instances of Play will balance the processing load more evenly among your processors, resulting in smoother performance."

I totally get what you are saying, and it works okay with SO Gold, etc, but not with bigger libraries such as Hollywood Strings. And yes, I have had over 100 instances in one project. Are you using SO Gold or Platinum

As gstitt said, working that ^ way doesn't scale well and just clutters the project with high track counts. You have to find a balance between distributing your samples over multiple instances and keeping the project manageable. The way I do this is by using one PLAY instance per orchestral instrument, which keeps my projects at around 30 tracks or less. This makes it MUCH easier during mixing time. I simply freeze all tracks and now I'm ready to mix, all without leaving my project so I can go back and forth at any time if the MIDI data needs fixing.

It also makes it easier when sheet music needs to be printed since all the MIDI data for a particular instrument is contained in one track. The workflow is amazing this way, especially in combination with Cubase's Expression Maps because they let you create custom keyswitches that can be triggered from your keyboard, but without cluttering your MIDI tracks with extra MIDI data. Instead, you have a separate Controller lane dedicated to articulations. But I digress. I used to do the same in SONAR and it worked really well in conjunction with the Track Inspector (?). I can't remember if that's what it is called, but it's a separate window that you can float and use it to easily change MIDI Channel data. Very handy!