Memory - WTF?

I've just created a new project. I intend to use it in my live show with my duo mate. Each sequence in the project will represent one song, and will have only one plugin instrument associated with it.

I've not even created ONE sequence yet - it's an "empty project", and it's telling me memory is at 47%. How can that be? If I add two sequences, using Legato from Studio Strings on one and Finger Bass Amped from FabricXL, I'm at 99%. If I try to add one more sequence, it tells me memory is full?

I'm on a Live II for development work, but this is intended to end up on a Keys 61.

What in the world am I doing wrong? How can memory go that fast?

Just to be clear, there is plenty of storage space in both my Internal and SATA drives. I'm on the very latest firmware upgrade for the Live II, upgraded this morning.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Carl

Hard Drive =/= RAM. Your MPC Live has only 1 Gibabytes of memory available for the samples while the MPC keys likely has 3 Gibabytes. That's all there is to it. How big your hard drive is doesn't matter. So if the strings are like 300MB and the bass 100MB, it's 600MB left for the rest of your samples. As simple as that.

https://www.mpc-tutor.com/how-much-memo ... ive-mpc-x/

Advice? There is no advice aside from buying the Keys or using programs that will use less RAM (like Fabric non XL?). Depending on how long your sequence is, bouncing instruments it into an audio track might lower memory usage... or not if the sequence is too long, and since the MPC doesn't support disk streaming...

Thanks. I should have mentioned that I've been using computers since 1982 and taught college-level computer classes for over 30 years. I know the difference between storage and RAM. I actually mentioned the two drives just in case someone replied who didn't know the difference. My bad.

I guess I didn't realize that ONE instrument could take up that much memory! That makes no sense to me. If I load one instrument from, for example FabricXL, is it loading in the entirety of FabricXL?

Thanks for the quick reply.

Carl

You‘re not alone...
viewtopic.php?t=214917&p=1856609#p1856327
24bit samples are a ridiculous overkill for live usage anyway.
Maybe get something else

cchimi wrote:I guess I didn't realize that ONE instrument could take up that much memory! That makes no sense to me. If I load one instrument from, for example FabricXL, is it loading in the entirety of FabricXL?

the MPC live has half the ram of the keys 61.
akai really didn't design their new 'instruments' for the keys 61 with the other units in mind.

Telefunky wrote:You‘re not alone...
viewtopic.php?t=214917&p=1856609#p1856327
24bit samples are a ridiculous overkill for live usage anyway.
Maybe get something else

That's just what they're stored in. Pretty sure the MPC is converting everything to 32-bit floating point when it loads the project into memory.

If AKAI were clever they'd offer a RAM Upgrade for the existing MPC one / live /X series

If they hadnt used an SOC and buhlt their own Main board, yes.

ontherun wrote:If they hadnt used an SOC and buhlt their own Main board, yes.

I know , but they could still offer a board upgrade at least?!

Don't worry, they're going to offer a board upgrade alright... by making you buy a new MPC Live XL, a MPC XXL or a MPC One XL with more RAM, full price...

The will never let you get only the board.

cchimi wrote:I've just created a new project.
I've not even created ONE sequence yet - it's an "empty project", and it's telling me memory is at 47%. How can that be?

This is definitely not normal, with a new blank project (with no plugins or kits loaded), the memory window should always show 0%. This 0% has already accounted for the memory taken up by the firmware/OS.

On a Live II you should have approx 1GB of free ram available upon boot up, so 'something' is taking up nearly half of that.

I would first perform a preference reset, MENU > PREFERENCES > RESET PREFERENCES.

Then disconnect all attached drives (including any added SATA disk) to rule out any third party add ons that might be loaded into memory - for example, the MPC has to load up the expansion image for every expansion on your system, some third party expansions have crazy large expansion images that have not been optimised. Reboot.

Are you still getting the problem after this?

BTW, a single instance of Studio Strings uses up 31% RAM on an MPC Live II, so this would be expected to pretty much wipe out your remaining RAM when something else has already used up 47% of it. IMO Studio Strings is not practical for any MPC other than the MPC Key.

couldn't it be that you loaded up a bunch of presets for the fabric or session strings to try them out but didn't delete them so you see just one or two loaded in proper tracks but you have a lot more loaded up in ram?

From what you describe I think the Akai Force would have been a better pick for you because it has diskstreaming. I don't understand why Akai still hasn't brought this feature to the MPC line yet. An alternative would be our Hakai firmware so you could dual boot the MPC/Force firmware on you MPC. This way you can test the disktreaming feature in your workflow.

What is missing in the OS/plugins is the option to purge memory to hold only used samples (ie notes actually played within a project) like is done in VST sample instruments.

hyena wrote:couldn't it be that you loaded up a bunch of presets for the fabric or session strings to try them out but didn't delete them so you see just one or two loaded in proper tracks but you have a lot more loaded up in ram?

He's saying it's a blank project, so the only way plugins are taking up memory would be if he were using a custom blank project template that contains multiple plugins pre-configured. On an MPC Live II, the default blank project would not load any plugins at all (just an empty drum program).