Using STS live

Talk about the STS series of Creamware samplers.

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dawman
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Post by dawman »

It seems to me that STS could be used in a live gig playing converted giga samples, and reloading them instanty between scenes with the aid of a solid state ram drive, i.e. gigabyte i-ram. Am I correct in assuning that STS loads samples from a hard drive? If so, the solid state drive would show up to the O.S. as a hard drive, but load in nanoseconds, as opposed to seconds!!!
Loading them from within a project without reloading a project, could be my dream-rig. Imagine, lightning fast sample loading, while keeping my B2003, Minimax, and external Lexicon routings. Tell me that this is possible please.

Jimmy V.
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astroman
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Post by astroman »

the solid state drive avoids the mechanical movements of a hard disk, but it's not as fast as the memory the CPU accesses on the mobo.

It is (only) as fast as the disk controller and driver allows - it's connected by serial ata.

Loading samples is usually reading large chunks from the disk (with few head moves anyway), so the advantage may not be mindbreaking... :wink:

cheers, Tom
dawman
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Post by dawman »

Tom,
Do you know if it's possible to delete layers of sampled GS3 instruments to make them fit in STS quicker during load times? Sorry I keep coming up with silly ideas, but it seems as though you are the guru of Scope, and have an excellant understanding of computer audio apps. I'm still nervous about HDD's, even in a RAID 1 setup with hot spares. I use to think that the trade-off for less hardware was great, but I guess I'll be curious till I'm comfortable. The tour starts in 3 weeks. We'll see.
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astroman
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Post by astroman »

tnx for the flowers :wink: but it's not exactly expertise - more like a lot of common sense and the same amount of unsensitivity to marketing hypes - been too long in the Mac/PC business, too much hollow promises and vapourware... :lol:

I wouldn't expect GS3 samples convertable at all if they are true gigasamples (e.g. make specific use of the program's features) and have a 'sound' that depends on exactly those program features.

I only have an old version (Gigastudio96 under Win98) to refer to an example:
the Gigapiano is a 'true' GS instrument in that sense, while the Conexant GM lib is just a 'regular' sample collection that could be loaded anywhere.
I have played that piano on a celeron 333 with 256 MB Ram without any glitches...

that's why the Gigastuff is really high regarded by myself - and I certainly would buy a more recent version if they didn't have that annoying protection scheme, but that's a different story :roll:

I assume for your live setup it's the piano and probably some orchestral stuff you're after, isn't it ?
to 'retune' the converted samples would be a lot of work imho, and to 'shorten' them to fit into STS even impossible in the amount of time left before your tour starts - you probably have something better to do than tweak samples... :wink:

of course I cannot comment on GS3 as I don't have it myself - but I can't remember any crashes of Giga (ok, I didn't use it too much...) and I think that if someone can deal with large samples on the fly, then IT IS TASCAM.
at least I would trust them more than reloading a complex STS setup on stage... :wink:

cheers, tom
dawman
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Post by dawman »

Astro,
When I have time, I will delve into STS for sample playback only. It reminds me of the days when I tweaked samples for the EMU/Roland stuff I had. When I'm gigging it keeps me in the room more, which keeps me out of trouble.I'm still trying to organize my stuff for one load only during the gig, but I'll learn more through my failures live,always have ,always will.Thanx again for your input.I'll let you know how it goes, I've already bought 2 new drives for a seperate experiment, I'll call it rig #2.
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at0m
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Post by at0m »

Serial ATA solid state drives? How about PCI or PCIexpress... Should be way faster, this one claims 8,5GB/s. Remember http://www.go-l.com/desktops/machl38 :smile:

Google returns a couple of providers of these memory cards, have no experience w them though.
more has been done with less
https://soundcloud.com/at0m-studio
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