Hi Diki.
My main question would be, you keep mentioning 64 voices of polyphony. How does it balance processor load to guarantee this? It sounds like you are using primarily sampled playback, which doesn't stress a CPU that much. But presumably it can run things like the Arturia stuff (I love their Memorymoog, CS80 and Jupiter8 sims) but these are processor hogs. How does it deal with this?
As you know each plugin generates it's own amount of CPU usage. Some are more efficient than others so the 64 notes I'm quoting are what I set as the limitation my Playback Sampler called Sample Lord can produce because it's not the only plugin running in at the same time.
Basically I did tests and monitored the CPU usage and then I told the plugin that it is not allowed to produce more than 64 notes. Doing this will allow it to smartly cut notes if you try exceed 64 notes, and it eliminates the chance of you reaching your CPU upper limit.
BTW, is the reverb a separate plug in? How does it handle effects routings?
Yes I'm running a reverb plugin at the same time as Sample Lord.
You have FX slots that allow you to run more than one Effect at the same time, and by using FX slots the plugin is placed in an area that can make use of “Send” values which give you control over how much of the VSTi Instrument gets sent to the Effect sitting in the FX Slot.
In addition to that you can also fully control the effect length, type or anything you like from the V-Machine interface. When you like what you hear you press two buttons to update the preset and save the changes.
Pretty straight forward setup actually.
I've read a few reports of the V-Machine being a hair buggy, but that could have been when first released. How do you find the stability (how hard are you pushing that CPU)?
The V-Machine was never buggy, it was always rock solid and reliable as dedicated hardware.
The problems you where reading about are to do with the program you install on your PC / MAC which allows you to load new VSTi's into the V-Machine. It's a program called VFX and yes that certainly has it's problems.
It's not all that bad though in it's current state, and you can workaround it's problems simply by not connecting it to the V-Machine at all and just using a Memory Stick to transfer the data instead.
I still don't see how this addresses the issue of dynamic CPU load when things get fast and furious..
If you have any specific questions just let me know. For the most part it's up to you to workout how much freedom you give a Plugin to use the processor by limiting the Poly Count.
It's only a tiny 1Ghz processor, but I do believe the upgrade kit will double this for in around 100 to 150 USD.
2Ghz inside this tiny box will be hilarious. Can't wait to take that for a spin.