GPO4 multitimbral

[kelldammit]

I was just curious if there was any way to use GPO4 in true multitimbral mode (i.e. being able to assign a stave to any of the 16 channel/slots in aria), rather than having to load a whole new instance for each instrument. if this is not an option, is it on the "to do" list?
also, strangely enough, if i only set up the multi-output aria player, in vst preferences, GPO doesn't show up in score setup mode, only aria player (multi), and the separate instrument groups (strings, brass, etc) don't show up...

thanks in advance!
kell

[wcreed51]

Check out the tutorial video for multi-output VSTi's:

http://www.notionmusic.com/support/tutorials.html

[kelldammit]

Thanks, I got it working, sort of. It could use some love, though. Expression and articulation notation don't work in aria multi-mode. I worked around it by just setting up a standard GPO instance, and only using one output. However, all voices in that instance must use the same keyswitches...THEN it seems to work.
It looks like i'll have to delve into the custom xml stuff to get "proper" behavior, yes?

k

[pcartwright]

Custom rules may get what you're looking for, but you'll need to be creative. Typically the rules are designated by an instrument ID, so if you try to cross different instruments on one instance of ARIA you may have a bit of an issue.

Just out of curiosity, why do you need to limit the number of instances of ARIA? Multiple instances don't really increase RAM usage or processing usage, so I'm not really sure what the benefit fewer instances (and more tweaking) would be.

[kelldammit]

the big reason is really organization and simplicity. i just prefer to set up groups of instruments, or entire sections in related instances...it's just easier to deal with if you want to make adjustments common to all of those instruments in one instance, rather than having to open/edit/close GPO 16 different times. i'm kind of a retentive, meticulous freak about that sort of stuff.

i wondered about the differences in terms of cpu usage myself, actually, so i ran a quick test in reaper. using the same sequence (22 midi channels), and the same gpo instruments, i did two versions...one with 22 instances of gpo (one per midi track), the other with 5 (one instance each for string, brass, wind, and percussion sections).
for the 22 instance project, my cpu peaked at 17%, RAM usage was at 603MB. for the 5 instance project, cpu peaked at 9%, RAM usage was 454MB. so, it's not a huge difference, but if i take the Awakening Notions demo project in Notion, and reassign each instrument to single instances of GPO...my machine chokes on the playback before i've even gotten everything assigned. in multitimbral, it will work...just barely...with the reverbs
since that's about as large a project as i'm ever likely to do...it's just nice to know that i could squeeze it out of my poor aging computer if i needed to.

[EDIT] you know, it just occurred to me to up my buffer sizes...i never have to do so in reaper, i just set and forget. sure enough, they were at 256. so i CAN squeeze out larger projects if need be. though, i'd definitely still prefer the better organization/ease of the multi

kell