Loading the PAB

[telemanr]

I hope that making the choosing of what to load, which loops etc., easier (it couldn't be harder) is a high priority because making a wrong decision on the PAB and having to start over (let alone choosing the first time) because unless you have 16 megs the default choices won't work, (deep breath) is a real chore. And that is somewhat of an understatement.

Rob

[micdev]

Rob,

What I'm doing when I load a new sample is usually to load it in 16 bit and base on the sample producers memory consumption judge if I can load all the ranks.

Once loaded, I check my free memory. Usually I will play for a while with that setup. Since you can have 2 HW configs (regular and sequencer), the next time I have some free time (going out to do some shopping, have dinner, going to bed) I load on the other HW a more agressive configuration than my first load; if I successed, this version becomes my new "base version" and so on.

That way I only have to wait for the first "long load" and always have a fast playable fast loading version available and can take my time to work on a more complete one when not in the rush to play.

François

[telemanr]

It's the click, click, click, click you have to go through that bothers me.
With a 90 stop organ it is a pain. Not being able to select more than one rank at a time is what really gets to me after you've decided that you'll choose to (let's say) use only the first loop on ALL the stops.

Not only that but if you're going to experiment you have to actually sit there and watch the RAM usage in the Task Manager because if you don't, when it fails to load because you haven't trimmed enough, you can't tell how close you were to succeeding because it clears the RAM. That makes deciding what to do next a complete crap shoot.

But as to the caching time on the PAB. I've got 4cores but it is excrutiatingly slow all the same. I need a RAID split disk and 8 cores and 16GB of RAM of faster memory real soon. Just as soon as the economy picks up that is. Meanwhile I might as well take a bath or a nap.

Rob

[micdev]

Rob,

Of course 90 x 4 or 5 click/rank is a lot of click and hope that soon Martin will give us the possibility to shift-click/control click many ranks to assign a default value to these selected ranks (already logged as an enhancement).

As far as watching the Task manager, once I have a succesfull load and checked the free memory, I'm very cautious not load to many new ranks and change the sampling rate all at once.

When I bought the Metz and at that time only had 3 Gigs, I asked about how to load it and someone gave me his succesful recipe that I duplicated... and my first load (22 long agonising minutes...) was a success.

I think it would be a good idea that we can keep the "loading recipe" for the big sample sets somewhere on this forum.

Ex: METZ on XP with 4 gb (with /3gb swith)
Load all the Great ranks 16 bit - first loop, multipe release, stereo
Load all pedal ranks above 8' - 16 bit, first loop, multiple release, mono
etc etc.

So Rob, I will let you spend hours of trial and error and once you found the optimal loading configuration.... I will buy the PAB ;-)

Regards
François

[mdyde]

Hello Rob,

Yes - allowing multi-select on the settings screens (and especially the rank routing screen) is an extremely high-priority enhancement.

[telemanr]

Very good to hear Martin. (I was sure you were on top of it). I'm just going a bit batty trying to optimize the PAB to get the best use out of 8GB.
It's nothing but "after the snow storm" frustration.

Rob

[telemanr]

So Rob, I will let you spend hours of trial and error and once you found the optimal loading configuration.... I will buy the PAB ;-)

Regards
François

I'm going to hold you to that promise François. Start saving your money.

And by the way, you thought the Metz took a long time to cache? Well I'm looking at the caching of the PAB (or the second time) and after 20 minutes it at 6%!

Rob

[Lougheed]

It's nothing but "after the snow storm" frustration.
Rob

(On the world scale, we are next-door neighbours - Brampton and Brantford are about one hour apart).

I wasn't too frustrated with the first storm (since I'm a teacher I got an extra day off - the wonderful invention called a "snow day"), however, my wife now informs me that we are now expecting not one more, but two more storms.

I actually find these days when snowed in to be dangerous, because the computer still works, and on-line shopping becomes a temptation!

So many Christmas discounts these days, and so little spare cash. (Well, really no spare cash).

Lawrence

[micdev]

And by the way, you thought the Metz took a long time to cache? Well I'm looking at the caching of the PAB (or the second time) and after 20 minutes it at 6%!

Yikes..... Hope you made (or make it if it is still loading...) it on the first load?!?!?

About snow, I can only imagine the 5 pm rush hour..... even in mid summer it is a mess. I remember once I was in Toronto and some 5 cm of snow felt during the afternoon. The ramp merging from the Gardener Expressway to Hwy 427 has a slight slope, but since no one had snow tires they were skidding around, unable to climb the slope... I slalommed between the cars with my 4 wheel drive Audi TT with winter tires :-)

So far in Quebec City we had 2 storms and winter is almost like last year where we received close to 500cm of snow..... as they say in Quebec... "Mon pays ce n'est pas un pays, c'est l'hiver" (My country is not a country, it is winter!)

Looking forward to your comments about the PAB.

François

[telemanr]

I love Gilles "mon jardin, ce n'est pas un jardin, c'est la plaine" etc. I sometimes sing it to myself. (and at events I always sing O Canada in French under my breath which wouldn't necessarily impress a Quebecer. Mind you it's only because I don't know the English words).

Always used all stops one loop for all loads and of course all compressed. (You have to)

I have loaded the PAB with all pedal at 14bit, the rest 16 bit, all one loop, truncated to 250ms and it loads in just under 5GB. But you need reverb and I'm not sure I like the sound all that well.

I then used the other HW.
I loaded the same but most 16' and all above 8' with no multiple releases. This loads in 6.5GB and so far I think it sounds better (and I can add just a touch of reverb without too much negative effect) although, like Rob Stefanussen, I think I like the rather dry acoustic. At least so far.
My thinking with letting stops above 8' lack multiple releases is that they would affect the sound the least since they die away quicker. (I think).

I'm then going to incrementally add in the multiple releases to some major stops that lack them until I can't.

But you can literally take a nap each time you recache.


Rob

[Csaba Huszty]

Hi! Loading PAB is slower just until 18% of the progress bar (in Windows, v3.11) since there are the samples from 0-18%. The range above 18% corresponds to graphics and other things so the progress bar will be a lot faster after 18%.

All the best,
Csaba