Reason Rack plugin lackluster MIDI features

[QVprod]

I don’t know if MIDI is outdated or not, and there’s really no “right” answer when posing such questions in general.
But I DO know I’ve never gelled with using one Kontakt for all instruments, even when using a lot of instruments. I don’t organize my productions by ‘brand’, I organize by sound. When I need to adjust the strings I go to the strings plugin, which is better IMO than going to the Kontakt plugin and scrolling until I find the strings, etc…
Same when using RRP in LUNA, I don’t want every Reason instrument in one place. One of the advantages of using plugins over hardware samplers is the fact you finally don’t need to load all sounds into one device!

So maybe I’m an example of an edge case in wanting to use plugins like Kontakt or RRP this way, but it works quite well for me and I’m happy to finally be able to work this way.

As for CPU, I rarely use even 8 Kontakt instruments but made a quick comparison in Reason between using 8 separate Kontakt instances vs 1 Kontakt with the same 8 instruments loaded.

The takeaway, I’m sticking to using multiple instances of Kontakt in Reason!:
•Using 1 Kontakt w/8 instruments uses 7% MORE CPU than using 8 Kontakts with 1 instrument each.
•RAM use is the same.
•Load times are 3-4 times LONGER (typically 3x) when using 1 Kontakt vs 8

8 Kontakts
Load time: 0:35, 0:32 0:33min
9.84 GB RAM
74% CPU Idle
146% CPU “C chord”

1 Kontakt
Load Time: 1:37, 1:36, 1:59 min
9.59 GB RAM
61% CPU Idle
156% CPU “C chord”

Empty Song
2.45 GB RAM
40% CPU Idle

Kontakt instruments used:
1-Symphony Series Woodwind Solo (Woodwind Quintet)
2-Alicias Keys
3-Abbey Road Modern Drummer
4-Symphony Series Brass Ensemble (Brass Ensemble)
5-Symphony Series String Ensemble (String Ensemble)
6-The Canterbury Suitcase
7-Symphony Series Percussion (orch kit)
8-Prime Bass

[forgot to add system specs: Mac M1 Max Studio, 32 GB RAM, MacOS 12.6.1 Monterey]

All of this!

[ljekio]

[Goriila Texas]

1 instance of Kontakt has less cpu usage then a combined collection of 4 Kontakts have to understand core management.

Cores are idle with one instance of Kontakt with 4 Thrill's at 20% on one core task manager 18% vs 4 instances of Thrill in a multi-instrument at 10-14% each across more cores working harder but showing less cpu in DAW but greater at 23% in task manager. So I'm sticking to one instance of Kontakt not only is it more organized, less cpu hit and makes more sense if I'm going to use several Kontakt instruments. It makes no difference if you like using one instance of Kontakt the fact is it's more efficient to use one Instance if you are going to stick with the instruments in it.

I don’t know if MIDI is outdated or not, and there’s really no “right” answer when posing such questions in general.
But I DO know I’ve never gelled with using one Kontakt for all instruments, even when using a lot of instruments. I don’t organize my productions by ‘brand’, I organize by sound. When I need to adjust the strings I go to the strings plugin, which is better IMO than going to the Kontakt plugin and scrolling until I find the strings, etc…
Same when using RRP in LUNA, I don’t want every Reason instrument in one place. One of the advantages of using plugins over hardware samplers is the fact you finally don’t need to load all sounds into one device!

So maybe I’m an example of an edge case in wanting to use plugins like Kontakt or RRP this way, but it works quite well for me and I’m happy to finally be able to work this way.

As for CPU, I rarely use even 8 Kontakt instruments but made a quick comparison in Reason between using 8 separate Kontakt instances vs 1 Kontakt with the same 8 instruments loaded.

The takeaway, I’m sticking to using multiple instances of Kontakt in Reason!:
•Using 1 Kontakt w/8 instruments uses 7% MORE CPU than using 8 Kontakts with 1 instrument each.
•RAM use is the same.
•Load times are 3-4 times LONGER (typically 3x) when using 1 Kontakt vs 8

8 Kontakts
Load time: 0:35, 0:32 0:33min
9.84 GB RAM
74% CPU Idle
146% CPU “C chord”

1 Kontakt
Load Time: 1:37, 1:36, 1:59 min
9.59 GB RAM
61% CPU Idle
156% CPU “C chord”

Empty Song
2.45 GB RAM
40% CPU Idle

Kontakt instruments used:
1-Symphony Series Woodwind Solo (Woodwind Quintet)
2-Alicias Keys
3-Abbey Road Modern Drummer
4-Symphony Series Brass Ensemble (Brass Ensemble)
5-Symphony Series String Ensemble (String Ensemble)
6-The Canterbury Suitcase
7-Symphony Series Percussion (orch kit)
8-Prime Bass

[forgot to add system specs: Mac M1 Max Studio, 32 GB RAM, MacOS 12.6.1 Monterey]

[selig]

1 instance of Kontakt has less cpu usage then a combined collection of 4 Kontakts have to understand core management.

Cores are idle with one instance of Kontakt with 4 Thrill's at 20% on one core task manager 18% vs 4 instances of Thrill in a multi-instrument at 10-14% each across more cores working harder but showing less cpu in DAW but greater at 23% in task manager. So I'm sticking to one instance of Kontakt not only is it more organized, less cpu hit and makes more sense if I'm going to use several Kontakt instruments. It makes no difference if you like using one instance of Kontakt the fact is it's more efficient to use one Instance if you are going to stick with the instruments in it.

Not sure what you're saying, did I do my test wrong? What should I be comparing if not what I compared?
What about load times, why am I seeing such a huge difference there?
All I can say is on MY system it's far less efficient - if I was preferring to use a single Kontakt in the past I would quickly switch to using multiples after seeing these results, especially for better organization IMO.

Again, maybe my test was not done correctly, let's talk about what a better test would be if so!

[Goriila Texas]

Key splits with scripting amongst others things. Bro you wrong take the L.

Why does Reason have ID8 and Arturia have Analog Lab? The short answer is companies want a quick simpler instrument which displays most if not all of their products in a single package.

The reason NI changed auto midi channel select was because it was a p.i.t.a to most user and finally listened to us. I hated having to change the midi channel every time I load another instrument. Yes 16 midi tracks started on hardware but has evolved in software making it very useful and powerful,

Ok, explain what can be done with 16 midi channels in a DAW that’s more powerful than loading individual instances.

There's a huge CPU hit loading 16 RRP vs 1 RRP or 16 Kontakts vs 1 Kontakt c'mon man this is basic music knowledge. I started not to respond because I've seen you lose a lot of debates only to deflect when proven wrong. All I have to do is screenshot cpu usage of each instrument in studio one but I'm not. To be clear that's 16 loaded RRP and 16 loaded Kontakts vs one Kontakt loaded cause I know some fan going to load 16 empty racks and say "see not much difference" lol.

For clarity, that would require loading let’s say 5 libraries in one instance being used multitimbral vs loading those 5 libraries individually. I’ve tried this in the past and saw no difference which I why I stopped using Kontakt that way. Admittedly, you can’t run this test in RRP currently.

[Goriila Texas]

This shows my CPU getting hit at 11% for each instance of Kontakt that you must calculate together to claim it's better than 1 instance.

CPU.png (240.58 KiB) Viewed 5930 times

Firstly, your math is wrong. In order to be accurate you need to combine cpu usage and load times for each instance. You mentioned load times which I have check because it's non-issue for me with 64gb of ram but to be accurate you would have to calculate the time it takes to switch back and forth for those 8 instruments you have against loading time of one instanced. Scrolling down back and forth is counter productive and takes more time to do. Again, in Studio One the multi instrument is showing 10-14% for each instance vs only 20% one core.

My test was one Kontakt 7 with 4 Thrills and 4 Kontakts with one Thrill each in a multi-instrument which is basically routing midi to 4 individual Kontakt instruments. My computer specs doesn't matter as my argument is about using cpu and workflow efficiently.

1 instance of Kontakt has less cpu usage then a combined collection of 4 Kontakts have to understand core management.

Cores are idle with one instance of Kontakt with 4 Thrill's at 20% on one core task manager 18% vs 4 instances of Thrill in a multi-instrument at 10-14% each across more cores working harder but showing less cpu in DAW but greater at 23% in task manager. So I'm sticking to one instance of Kontakt not only is it more organized, less cpu hit and makes more sense if I'm going to use several Kontakt instruments. It makes no difference if you like using one instance of Kontakt the fact is it's more efficient to use one Instance if you are going to stick with the instruments in it.

Not sure what you're saying, did I do my test wrong? What should I be comparing if not what I compared?
What about load times, why am I seeing such a huge difference there?
All I can say is on MY system it's far less efficient - if I was preferring to use a single Kontakt in the past I would quickly switch to using multiples after seeing these results, especially for better organization IMO.

Again, maybe my test was not done correctly, let's talk about what a better test would be if so!

[selig]

I did the 4x "Thrills" test and found results more as expected originally, which is 150% for a song playing one note on all four Thrills in one Kontakt vs 155% for the same thing spread across four Kontakts.
So a 3% greater overall CPU hit in this comparison test, something I don't think I'd ever notice but totally worth it for my way of working fwiw.

[QVprod]

Key splits with scripting amongst others things. Bro you wrong take the L.

Ok, explain what can be done with 16 midi channels in a DAW that’s more powerful than loading individual instances.



For clarity, that would require loading let’s say 5 libraries in one instance being used multitimbral vs loading those 5 libraries individually. I’ve tried this in the past and saw no difference which I why I stopped using Kontakt that way. Admittedly, you can’t run this test in RRP currently.

There’s no L to take here. Why do I need a key split when I can play the parts separately and they have dedicated audio tracks automatically? Very different if you’re playing live, but for production it’s not really an advantage. Plus you can do a key split with just one midi channel in the RRP (combinator) already which is easier than having to zone out your midi keyboard.

[DaveyG]

One of ya is gonna have to let it lie and move on otherwise you'll fill up the Internet.

It's not like you are going to agree....

[songsmite]

I am hoping for this feature set to come so I can finally upgrade from ReasonRack Lite. I am not upgrading unless this, and I also hope for the option to load entire reason song in a single reason rack (with sequencer intact).

[huggermugger]

MIDI out from the RRP is totally do-able in Logic. I use the Players all the time, and even patching things like Matrix or RPG-8 or Redrum is a breeze.

[Ad0]

It's midi input that is the problem, not output...