LIVE 3/4 with G5

ryst · Post by **ryst** » Wed Aug 04, 2004 4:19 pm

Is anyone using a G5 and Live 3/4? I would like to know how many tracks you are getting and how many plug-ins you can use? I ordered a new 2.5ghz G5 but I'm thinking I could have just ordered the 2.0ghz machine so I wouldn't have to wait 4-6 weeks. But do you think the 25% increase in processor speed and FSB speed is worth it?

dirtstyle · Post by **dirtstyle** » Wed Aug 04, 2004 5:47 pm

I am using a dual 1.8 G5 w/ 1.5Gig RAM and it absolutely screams in Live 3/4. I've never seen the CPU meter go above 35% with Reason rewired and multiple tracks and plugins - it usually hovers around 3-7% for basic editing. Let me know if you've got any other questions.

-mike

ryst · Post by **ryst** » Wed Aug 04, 2004 6:37 pm

dirtstyle,

Thank for the reply. Could you run a quick test for me if it's not too much trouble? I would like you to take a 4 minute track, copy and paste it between 40-50 times in the arrangment view, add tons of rediculous automation, and add as many plugins as you can. And let me know where the CPU meter is? I just want to get an idea of what kind of power the G5 has for Live. I will be mixing songs that have 40-50 tracks and tons of plugs. I am not doing Dj stuff. This is studio-type production. By the way, what kind of compressor, eq, and reverb plug-ins do you use?

ryst · Post by **ryst** » Wed Aug 04, 2004 8:51 pm

does anyone else use a G5 with Live?

dirtstyle · Post by **dirtstyle** » Wed Aug 04, 2004 8:53 pm

Hi,
I am at work now and won't be home to the G5 until 5:30 US mountain standard time, not sure where you are. So I'll do that test for you when I get home and report back. I'm not really using live for that intense of a studio setup and I'm no veteran, but I will try to get the machine going pretty good with what you described. I use pretty much all Waves4 Gold plugins, theres a boat load of eq's and a couple of different compressors and reverb's to choose from. How many band eq's do you want my to use for all these tracks? I have up to a 10 band.

I will probably just send the tracks in groups through a handful of different plugins. Whats the minimum number of reverbs, compressors, eq's you wnat me to use for these 40+ tracks? -Mike

Per Boysen · Post by **Per Boysen** » Wed Aug 04, 2004 9:17 pm

Hi,

I use a dual 2 GHz G5. So far I have only used Live 4 on my portable G4 but I recently produced an album on the G5 with Live 3 ReWire slaved to Logic (have to take advantage of that SpaceDesigner impulse reverb of Logic's). Used around fifteen audio tracks in live, some effects and then a lot of effects audio- and virtual tracks in Logic. Some songs maxed out the machine and I had to freeze virtual instruments to audio in Logic. This might sound bad, but fact is I did not chose plug-ins "to save CPU cycles", only for the best sound. So on every soft-synth, except for the Arturia Moog Modular V and MiniMoog V, had a PSP Vintage Warmer going for light multi band compression/limiting.

I did a test with Live 4 and found that a song used 14 % CPU power while using 24 % in Live 3.

In live 4 it's very easy to re-record virtual instrument tracks as audio to save CPU power.

ryst · Post by **ryst** » Wed Aug 04, 2004 9:22 pm

dirtstyle,
I'm a dumbass. I should have read your signature. lol. Well, in Live 4, try and put a RenEQ and RenComp on each channel (40+ tracks) if you could. Then add reverbs and anything else that's processor intensive. I basically would like to know how far you can push your 1.8ghz G5 with Live. If you have any VST's go ahead and ad them to the mix. If you could somehow copy some automation to all 40+ tracks (otherwise it might be time-consuming) that would be nice too. Also you said, "I will probably just send the tracks in groups through a handful of different plugins." I'm not sure what you meant by that but if you could keep each track separate and not bus anything that would be cool. If I am asking too much just let me know!!!! I don't want to take up all your time. I am just dying to know how much craziness I can accomplish with a G5. Thanks for your help! By the way, I'm in Atlanta so no worries about time. Just whenever you can. I will buy you a drink the next time I go out west!

ryst · Post by **ryst** » Wed Aug 04, 2004 9:36 pm

Per Boysen,
That sounds cool. How many tracks/virtual instruments/audio fx did you have running in Logic?

dirtstyle · Post by **dirtstyle** » Wed Aug 04, 2004 9:36 pm

no problem, you were right by what i meant, it was a little vague. i will just do what you outlined. don't sweat it, i'm always eager to push the G5 anyway! it shreads anything i throw at it so far - i've never created that big of a session before so we'll see what happens

-mike

ryst · Post by **ryst** » Wed Aug 04, 2004 10:40 pm

dirtstyle,
Awesome! Just post your results whenever you get a chance....I'll be over here salivating.

andrewlogan · Post by **andrewlogan** » Thu Aug 05, 2004 1:20 am

well I'm getting the dual 2.5s as well, I'm not so worried about the number of tracks or plugs as live in's and live plugs like a guitar going through amplitude (or several) anyone tried this? Sampling rate?

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Thu Aug 05, 2004 9:51 pm

ryst,
i messed around quit a bit with live4 and the G5. i had 43 tracks with either a truVerb, compressor, 4 band eq and others on EVERY single track and a couple tracks with multiple plugins and automation running. let me just say that i've never seen my G5 work that hard since I bought it. though it was still only maxing out at about 50% of the overall CPU usage.

i was worried at first because the cpu meter in live started out a 60% w/ all this, then once I hit play it goes up to 100+%. But the meter in live reflects the dual processors differently than OSX's cpu monitor. so when the meter in live says 100%, it really means that overall the dual cpu's are at 50%. so when looking at the cpu usage with the dualies 200% is 'maxing out'.

i tried a couple of different setups of 40+ tracks. since I didn't actually have a session with that many tracks all ready to go, I had to just copy and paste the same tracks over and over. so that obviously sounded like shit. but i assume that if you have a real session tracked out (without multiple copies of the same track running simultaneously) it'll sound just fine...i'm rambling... the bottom line still is that with plugins on every track with that many tracks the cpu load is still only maxing out just above 50%. hope that helps.

-mike

dirtstyle · Post by **dirtstyle** » Thu Aug 05, 2004 10:00 pm

that twas me above - wasn't logged in

ryst · Post by **ryst** » Thu Aug 05, 2004 10:04 pm

Mike,

Thanks for the results! I am confused. I thought Live could only read one processor in the Dual Macs? Am I wrong? Can you or anyone else verify that Live uses both cpu's? If that's the case then that sounds pretty good. I would assume the 2.5ghz G5 would be a nice improvement on this test also. Thanks again, Mike! When I get my Mac I am gonna try a test like this and see how far I can push it.

dirtstyle · Post by **dirtstyle** » Thu Aug 05, 2004 10:33 pm

ya, maybe you're right. that never occurred to me.

i always have the activity monitor in my dock. it shows 2 little blue indicators that let me know how hard each processor is working comparitively. for example, when i encode a dvd in toast, i can obviously see that toast is not set up properly to balance the 2 processors because one of the blue indicators is maxed out while the other is barely being used (unlike most other apps i use in OSX).

so, my conclusion with live was that even though the cpu meter in live was going above 100%, the indicators in OSX's activity monitor showed the 2 processors balanced the way they should be. i think if live wasn't geared to be using the 2 processors equally, in the activity monitor it would show me one being maxed out with the other barely being used (like my toast example). hope this makes sense.

-mike