Darcy, et al., I am relatively pleased with GPO. Even though I was told (by Hiro) that laptops are trouble, and that Digital Performer 4.1 is trouble, it is, more or less, running fine for me on a Powerbook G4 1.33 ghz, on OSX 10.3.7, with 1.5 gb RAM. I am updating to Digital Performer 4.5, and expect improvements (I'll report back next week after I've tried it out).
I have used GPO in small chamber situations, and it works just fine. Right now, I'm writing a trio for alto sax, bassoon, and piano. Since GPO doesn't have saxes, I am using a third-party sound font saxophone in Reason. Thus, Reason, with the saxophone, a mixer, and a reverb unit, plus GPO as a plugin, along with the ambience plugin in DP 4.1. No problems. Also, I've tried it in Finale with Reason accessed through an IAC bus and the GPO studio -- same Reason setup, GPO Studio with both instruments and the ambience plugin. I did reduce the polyphony of the piano a little bit (down to 20 notes). The odd thing is that one day I got horrible crackles with this setup. I tried restarting, zapping parameter ram, shutting everything off, recreating the ensembles -- nothing worked. A day later, things were back to normal. Something was suddenly acting as a huge processor drain -- I suspect Kontakt. I've experimented with a relatively big orchestra. I fooled around with the opening of Beethoven 3rd, Scherzo (almost up to the first repeat). On good days, I can almost get it without crackles. I reduced polyphony to minimum (1 note, or two in the strings with double stops). I reduced the ambience quality. I am using ensemble strings, though filled out with three solo violins that are doubling vn 1. I am using the player 1/2 versions of the winds/brass instead of the soloist versions. I shut everything off, including the airport, including quitting quickkeys. Usually, crackles are minimal and only in the loudest full ensemble sections. It is really weird that it is different from day to day. Some days the crackles are all on one side (usually the right). Panning Kontakt one way and compensating by panning the other way in DP got the crackles out. Some days, the crackles are related to volume (even without the volumes bouncing into the red), and on those days, turning Kontakt way down will avoid crackles. Some days things go great -- even with the ambience set to highest quality. Some days, nothing helps. This is always with the same file! I am really impressed with the sound of GPO. I previously thought Reason was great. In my trio, mixing Reason (with an excellent 3rd party soundfont) with GPO really shows the difference. An excellent bassoonist was nearly fooled both by the bassoon and the piano (which has a big part) -- but bothered by the saxophone. I think GPO sampled each piano note with the pedal down -- no one else I know of has done this, and the difference is tremendous. So G4 laptop, 1.33 ghz and 1.5 gb of RAM seems adequate on most days for chamber situations, probably up to 8 or so. I do hope GG gets the problems with Kontakt and Macs worked out. I wonder if it would be better with Virtual PC. Anyone with GPO on a Mac and Virtual PC want to try this? In the meantime, I'm working with what I have, and trying to maximize the good days by living cleanly! And the minimal pops do come out when I process them in a cheap pop/crackle remover designed for LPs. I'm going to teach an electronic class this semester, and will have a dual processor G4, 1.25 ghz, 1.5 gb of RAM. I'll try GPO there and see what the deal is. A serious shortcoming of Kontakt right now in chamber situations with the piano is that you have to choose between using the sustain pedal on the piano and the smooth slurring in the other instruments. In DP, I just gave all pedaled notes their maximum pedaled duration. In Finale, that would be a mess. And without smooth slurring, the other instruments don't sound all that great. So Darcy, don't despair. GPO may work just fine on a maxed out Mac Mini. Or it may run on the Mini controlled with Finale on your current machine? Or maybe you can pick up a cheap PC to be the GPO host? I'm REALLY curious about GPO's expanding into voice (their website mentions this, along with jazz instruments, as the next area of expansion). Someone on the list mention Myriad's Melody Assistant, which "vocodes" text that is entered below music, using sort-of operatic voices. If GPO can do something like that (only better), what a cool thing that will be. David Froom _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
