Ableton Forum

New to ableton and setting everything up on my old computer, awaiting a new one and was wondering on best practices on setting up VSTs/Audio, samples, etc.

I Understand the need to put all your audio/samples/mp3 etc on a seperate Hard Drive, but does the same apply to VST instuments and Effects??

Windows XP Pro

No, stick them on the same drive as your audio programs

Well, if you think, in an ideal situation, having all your effects and vsts on a remote machine and accessing them via some sort of protocol might be the best thinking that your host (assuming Ableton Live) is already eating a lot of your CPU.

Same with when you are recording audio in Ableton - best if your Ableton temp folder points to an external drive...

Of course all this if your machine has limitation...

gabi.

no point, vst libraries are too small of files to even worry about it. It takes a blink of an eye to load the actual dll, so it doesn't matter where you put it.

[eidt] vst files are small and take a split second to load the physical code. After that it will reside in your memory and initialize from there. so it more directly relies on cpu speed and ram rather then harddrive speed/location[/edit]

cool thanks

This is the general recommendation for any DAW:
System drive: Applications and plug-ins.
Separate drive 1: Record to drive.
Separate drive 2: Sample libraries (including those installed with some plug-ins).

I only use two drives so the record drive and the sample drive is the same for me.

What about FX? They do a bunch of proccessing I bet. I am assuming separate drive maybe?

gabi.

same goes for all vst plugins. Putting them into different drives makes no difference cause once they're loaded they reside in ram waiting for commands.

Like someone mentioned tho, it's a very good point, a lot of vsts especially samplers will stream audio from harddrives instead of just ram so it makes sence to put the libraries on a separate drive.