External Drives

[I Got Riffs]

Someone recently told me that I can put certain files on an external hard drive in order to lighten the load when running a lot of files in a multitracking session. I sort of understand this, and I've already moved my Adobe Audition Temp folder to another drive as instructed.

But is there a similar setup that can be used with midi and plugins? He told me I should be able to do this, and that it would also help to decrease latency and underruns.

The gear I'm using is FL Studio 8 for midi editing and hosting plugins, a generic midi keyboard, and the Line 6 UX2 as a soundcard with Gearbox software for guitar processing.

The signal from Gearbox to Audition is fine, but when I try to use it in FL8, I get a lot of latency. I've optimized the audio settings according to the included setup instructions. My buffer length is currently 12ms, but I have yet to run much more than 4 or 5 instruments/midi channels at once.
I know my gear isn't top of the line, but so far Ive been very happy with it. So if there are any ways for me to further optimize my setup, I would be very happy to hear about it!

[TimOBrien]

Originally Posted by I Got Riffs

But is there a similar setup that can be used with midi and plugins? He told me I should be able to do this, and that it would also help to decrease latency and underruns.

No.

Midi was developed on 8mhz computers. Its just text and number moving back and forth; very little load on any system.

Plugins get loaded ONCE when they are initialized. Moving them to another drive wont do anything.

Latency is all from your soundcard/interface, its drivers and settings.

[Waffleness]

Originally Posted by I Got Riffs

But is there a similar setup that can be used with midi and plugins? He told me I should be able to do this, and that it would also help to decrease latency and underruns.

The above post is correct, but you can reduce latency in VSTi's controlled by midi

If you are using your MIDI to control virtual instruments, or trigger samples, then loading those samples and audio files onto an external drive will increase the overall speed. For example content libraries from sample packs are often stored on a slower remote drive, so they can be pulled into the memory when needed. This frees up your faster harddrive (one with the operating system and DAW on it) to access system files and code that is relevent for running the audio workstation, not wasting its time with picking up gigabytes of audio files.
This way, your not spinning up gigabytes of data, just to pull up 50Mb of it every 2 minutes. Once its in the RAM, the remote drive can rest again.

This method does rely on you having a fat load of memory, which I assume you would have, otherwise you wouldnt be looking into external drives To get the latency down, dont use USB2. Firewire and external sata connections will allow quicker movement of data.

[dementedchord]

it is better to have a drive for different functions... it wont do midi better as already mentioned but if it's ported to a streaming vsti that can improve absolutely... i have three drives... system/progs... audio files... vsti's... and drives are real cheap now... make sure they spin at 7200 or better... and check the size of the on board buffer 32meg makes a diff... look at a spec called "through put"... higher the better

[I Got Riffs]

Originally Posted by dementedchord

it is better to have a drive for different functions... it wont do midi better as already mentioned but if it's ported to a streaming vsti that can improve absolutely... i have three drives... system/progs... audio files... vsti's... and drives are real cheap now... make sure they spin at 7200 or better... and check the size of the on board buffer 32meg makes a diff... look at a spec called "through put"... higher the better

Thank you, this is all very helpful.

When I installed FL8, it created a folder in Program Files called "Vst Plugins". Should I just move that folder, or do I need to uninstall them and reinstall them(on another drive)? I'm not seeing that any of them have sample libraries, but just the .dll file and some small data files, so I'm guessing it would be pointless to move them anyway?