2 technical questions

1 Does having more Ram mean more processing power and better handling of complex fx or it means having just more space to load more samples?

2 Does disk streaming, if used continuously, affect the longevity of the internal hard disk and, if so, to which extent?

1. mostly more space for samples, some FX also need more RAM like reverbs and granular, since the delay buffers need some space to hold the audio, and of course the algorithms also need some space always

2. idk, for ssd, on mechanical drives yes due to mechanical wear, for ssd I believe only writing ages the disk, but someone who knows better should confirm this.

moonlake wrote:1. mostly more space for samples, some FX also need more RAM like reverbs and granular, since the delay buffers need some space to hold the audio, and of course the algorithms also need some space always

2. idk, for ssd, on mechanical drives yes due to mechanical wear, for ssd I believe only writing ages the disk, but someone who knows better should confirm this.

1 Very good. So an MPC with more Ram could handle a good Reverb, for example, or some good granular effect (the actual Akai Granulizer is not bad at all, anyway, but I would love to have a granular synth on MPC).

2 Yes, I am not sure if using disk streaming is the best way to go. At the moment, I never run out of memory and I use more long samples so, with 4gb, I don't think I will need it.

Reverb also needs CPU of course, current RAM should be sufficient for any reverb as long as your RAM isnt crammed with samples and other stuff already.

Whats costly in reverb cpuwise is the lookup into the delay buffers, which is similar to sample playback, but in a medium quality stereo reverb you have for instance 12 or 16 such lookups,
plus the same amount of writing operations into the memory, probably the same amount of lowpass filters ( though you can get away with less ), some other stuff, so its very similar to 16 voices sampling, for instance, or more.

Straker wrote:2 Does disk streaming, if used continuously, affect the longevity of the internal hard disk and, if so, to which extent?

The disk streaming feature allows the use of the SD card or SSD drive. Therefore, there is no need to worry about wear on the internal disk.

Elijah wrote:

Straker wrote:2 Does disk streaming, if used continuously, affect the longevity of the internal hard disk and, if so, to which extent?

The disk streaming feature allows the use of the SD card or SSD drive. Therefore, there is no need to worry about wear on the internal disk.

Ah wow, so it will be possible to stream from an sd card instead of using the ssd disk?
That's very good to know, sd card are cheap and can be even damaged, who cares.

In my tests there is no difference in streaming performance between SD card and SSD drive. Both stream audio tracks without any issue and both choke identically if you try streaming keygroups on busy tracks (skipping notes when it can't keep up with the amount of data it needs to stream). RAM is still the best option for anything other than audio tracks, so 4GB ram is definitely the way forward in this respect.

MPC-Tutor wrote:In my tests there is no difference in streaming performance between SD card and SSD drive. Both stream audio tracks without any issue and both choke identically if you try streaming keygroups on busy tracks (skipping notes when it can't keep up with the amount of data it needs to stream). RAM is still the best option for anything other than audio tracks, so 4GB ram is definitely the way forward in this respect.

Yes, I think 4gb of Ram will be more then enough for my needs.
With 2gb I never go out of memory, and I use more long samples, I am quite surprised how many long samples can Mpc handle with current resources.
But good to know there will also be the possibility to stream samples on an sd card.

Straker wrote:Yes, I think 4gb of Ram will be more then enough for my needs.
With 2gb I never go out of memory, and I use more long samples, I am quite surprised how many long samples can Mpc handle with current resources.
But good to know there will also be the possibility to stream samples on an sd card.

Also FYI, Akai recommends not to use streaming for too many short samples, but I don't know what the limit is before problems will start happing. It's meant for long samples, but if your not using a lot of plug-ins that are power hungry like Fabric XL & Studio Strings, you can usually get away without streaming anything.

Also, if you set a sample to stream & then chopped it up, all the chops will also be set to stream & you'll then have to change it afterwards if that's not what you want & snice there's currently not a way to bulk stream a bunch of sample at once, you'll have to change each sample one by one.

B-Wise wrote:

Straker wrote:Yes, I think 4gb of Ram will be more then enough for my needs.
With 2gb I never go out of memory, and I use more long samples, I am quite surprised how many long samples can Mpc handle with current resources.
But good to know there will also be the possibility to stream samples on an sd card.

Also FYI, Akai recommends not to use streaming for too many short samples, but I don't know what the limit is before problems will start happing. It's meant for long samples, but if your not using a lot of plug-ins that are power hungry like Fabric XL & Studio Strings, you can usually get away without streaming anything.

Also, if you set a sample to stream & then chopped it up, all the chops will also be set to stream & you'll then have to change it afterwards if that's not what you want & snice there's currently not a way to bulk stream a bunch of sample at once, you'll have to change each sample one by one.

Yes, maybe disk streaming is for using long audio files, like vocals in a structured song.
At the moment I am just using samples, long and short, field recordings, beats extracted from past works, noises, sounds, and only occasionally I use opx4 to add some weirdos.
This way, with 2gb of Ram, Mpc works like a breeze, never have memory issues and never have issues of any sort.
Chopping and assigning to pads is a really great MPC feature to sync samples and get creative.
As I stopped using synths and drums and bass lines and only focused on samples, I am appreciating MPC more and more.
So with 4gb Ram it will really be the most advanced sampler on the market, or the most advanced sample manipulator on the market, you can load many of them in a project.

Straker wrote:Yes, maybe disk streaming is for using long audio files, like vocals in a structured song.
At the moment I am just using samples, long and short, field recordings, beats extracted from past works, noises, sounds, and only occasionally I use opx4 to add some weirdos.
This way, with 2gb of Ram, Mpc works like a breeze, never have memory issues and never have issues of any sort.
Chopping and assigning to pads is a really great MPC feature to sync samples and get creative.
As I stopped using synths and drums and bass lines and only focused on samples, I am appreciating MPC more and more.
So with 4gb Ram it will really be the most advanced sampler on the market, or the most advanced sample manipulator on the market, you can load many of them in a project.

I got how you were using the MPC from your previous post. I was just letting you know some facts about streaming that you may not know. I use the built in synths & long samples so I'm in the habit of streaming most samples that's not short ones hots like drums.

Tefty explained how 2GB is enough for most people: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RLo3Jg ... 5VQHvhpdsE