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by squeaky-clean 927 days ago
Only if you're mixing audio tracks with minimal processing or using lots of sample libraries. Modern virtual analog synthesizers or guitar amp emulations like the Archetype Nolly mentioned in the article use a ton of CPU and require almost no disk I/O.

For example he mentions FL Studio can handle 70 tracks of Nolly. The latest FL Studio version's tutorial project has 98 tracks and can run on an HDD if your CPU is fast enough. The effects being used are lighter than the Nolly guitar amp effect. But they're still more cpu heavy than I/O heavy.
1 comments
sayrer 926 days ago
Oh, interesting. I'd probably never use something like Nolly. So, out of my range. I do use the synth stuff, and I can get the Intel mini to like 50% with some effort, but it's never been a real problem.

The SSD matters for picking the sounds, in my experience. So you're going through listening to a bunch of drum hits, for example. If the drive is slow, this stalls.

Plus, isn't he simultaneously playing 70+ tracks with a CPU-intensive filter on each one? That's not a realistic workload.

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squeaky-clean 926 days ago
> Plus, isn't he simultaneously playing 70+ tracks with a CPU-intensive filter on each one? That's not a realistic workload.

I linked this in another comment, but here's a real video of a Skrillex single and it has 180 tracks loaded with plugins.

He mostly uses virtual synthesizers, but you'll notice the track is mostly composed of audio clips and not MIDI running a real synthesizer. Because he does the synthesis in a different project and renders the audio out. Because it would be impossible for a project like this to run in realtime with the synthesizers being calculated.

https://youtu.be/2dYFJdQf7rs?si=rsBc8gCtz5DQYGI9

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