Never thought I’d see the day when I would need to install a 64 bit OS and admittedly my latest rig has 8GB of memory (due to relatively cheap RAM prices) so it was in my mind but it seems now the time has come earlier than expected.
One reason is because of increased memory requirements of Cubase and yes I probably could have got by for a while longer but at what cost…
…not being able to choose the sound (quality) I want.
As an example, I make good use of the free Kontakt Player, which has some excellent basses but today I wanted to try out another sample workstation called Independence from Magix.
Both sound great but due to the quality of the samples, they require large amounts of memory.
This is not about wanting massive sample libraries already loaded into memory but rather being able to use a variety of quality sounds and quite simply, 32 bits won’t cut it for me any longer.
Glad I made the switch, since my audio card driver(s) support(s) 64 bit which was the first requirement (besides computer hardware) that needed to be met.
Of course eLc is 64 bit and Cubase itself offers the option to install in 32bits so I guess it’s a supported configuration.
The good news is my memory “footprint” is down to 25% from around 60-70% which gives more time for some lagging software developers to become 64 bits wide
Working since years with the free versions of independence (free) and Kontakt 5 player.
(independence free for drums, Kontakt 5 mostly for Bass and Keys)
But since the last update of the HSE with the CB 7.01, I really think, the quality of the sounds of these free sample players is not good enough anymore.
The OS seems to be more responsive (or at least more efficient) so I will be sticking with this configuration for the foreseeable future, as it is not really a bad half-way solution to something I thought would become a problem considering at least one library I use is only 32 bit.
The best thing about this change is, no longer do I have to mess around with pre-load buffers (at least for the time being) which was starting to get me down, so it is something I did not have to go to much effort to realize because my motherboard already supports Windows 8 and by extension 64 bit with my choice(s) in audio devices, DSP all supporting 64 bit at the driver level or otherwise class.
