Loading St Mary Redcliffe on 64 GB ram

[Tompion]

I'm testing how much of the new Saint Mary Redcliffe sample set I can load in my organ; it has 64 GB ram.

The Beauty in Sound website says that the sample set needs 96 GB to load everything in the maximum possible way. However, the website also describes a way of loading the sample set so it will fit within 64 GB ram.

The suggestion is to load the front (not close) perspective at 20 bit and load the rear and noises at 16 bit.

My difficulty is I have no way no idea how to load parts of a sample set at one bit level and others at a different level. I've looked in the HW7 manual but could not find an answer.

Any ideas would be much appreciated.

[mnailor]

Use "Organ | Load organ adjusting rank..." in the organ menu (sorry, don't have exact wording). This screen is what you see the first time you loaded the organ.

Select all the Front ranks only, for example, and set them to 20 bits. Select the Close ranks and say No, don't load them. Leave Rear and Noise ranks at 16 bits and change from loading All samples to Default or Only First.

To select multiple ranks on Windows, use Control + mouse click to add one at a time, Shift + click to select everything in between. Mac has its own key combinations.

Adjust the way you want it, of course. Hit Ok and go out shopping.

[mdyde]

Hello Bruce,

My difficulty is I have no way no idea how to load parts of a sample set at one bit level and others at a different level. I've looked in the HW7 manual but could not find an answer.

In Hauptwerk v7, you would use "Organ | Load organ, adjusting rank audio memory options". For each virtual rank in the left-hand list you can set its bit-depth (and other properties that affect how much memory the rank will need, or set the rank not to be loaded at all) in the right-hand pane. You can also multi-select ranks in the left-hand list in the standard way for the operating system (e.g. CTRL+click to add/subtract a rank to/from the selection on Windows). If multiple ranks are highlighted in the left-hand list then you can change their properties simultaneously in the right-hand pane.

The "Organ menu: Loading organs" section in the Hauptwerk user guide covers the options on the screen (pages 80-83 in the v7 version).

[Edit: P.S. Mark and I replied at the same time.]

[Tompion]

Mark and Martin,

Thank you. I'd read the relevant pages in the manual a couple of times but had not realized how simple it was to have different settings for different groups of ranks.

I loaded the sample set as I set out in my first post. Not surprisingly the organ definitely sounds better than with only the front ranks enabled (albeit in 24 bit). To my considerable surprise, both HW and Task manager said that I had 28.1 GB of free ram after loading the sample set. I wonder if the difference in remaining RAM may be because of the differences in how Mac's and PCs use and free up ram. A few weeks ago I came across an earlier thread where there was a post explaining how, in essence, there's more available ram for sample sets on PC's than on MAC's.

Now I need to decide what changes I will make in loading this sample set. My plan is to take advantage of the three extra default HW configurations and load several variations. it will then be somewhat relatively easy for me to compare the different allocations of RAM and decide which one I prefer.

[mnailor]

Just a suggestion, but loading all but noises at 20 bits will improve sound compared to 16 bits, and loading all releases comes next. If there's still space, you can try loading all attack and sustain samples just for the front ranks, for example.

[Tompion]

After my previous post, I gradually increased the bit depth etc for the different perspectives. As things stand at the moment, I have all three perspectives loaded in 20 bit with releases set at maximum, except for the close perspective releases that are at default minimum (as suggested by Mark). I've loaded only those noises that are of interest to me (primarily stop and rank sliders).

I then still have 11.5 GB of RAM free. I may try squeezing a bit more in by increasing the noises to 20 bit but it I'm also wondering whether it might be worth leaving this RAM free for CPU performance.

I've posted in a separate thread some thoughts about the sample set itself: http://forum.hauptwerk.com/viewtopic.ph ... c&start=30

[Tompion]

Here is a report on my final addition; it leaves 7.4GB of unused RAM:
All three perspective at 20 bit, with maximal releases; stop action and rank sliders also at 20 bit; and blower and ambience at 16 bit.
I hope this may be of assistance to others who may be wondering how much can be loaded into a pc with 64GB.