DIY compatible Waves Soundgrid Server

[iomegaman]

Just thought I'd give a quick update here on Waves plugins and native...

Over the weekend I got the cheapest mac mini M1 you can get, mainly for test purposes...spent several days trying to get it to play nice with my Antelope Discrete 8 and loading plugins...took a couple of days (if someone wanted to create an app that would uninstall all your plugins form one machine and move them to another they'd be rich)...

At any rate once I got the hardware and software to play nice I loaded up a small project to start testing stuff...

I loaded 21 instances of Abbey Roads plates and 10 instances of Abbey Roads chambers, 21 each of FabFilter Pro Q3, HOFA 4U Tilt, Abbey Roads RS124, and DMG Track Comp 2...

So we end up with 105 plugins PLUS 10-Abbey Roads Chambers all with my hardware buffer set at 64 samples...(probably 1.5 ms rtl)...I hit play expecting it to crap out and it played without even hitting 70% in ProTools CPU, the ram was at 75% because this machine only has 8gigs...and in System Resource monitor the 8 cores never got over 70% or the RAM over 60%...it played without batting an eye.

This is the cheapest M1 you can buy right now 8 gigs ran, 256 gig SSD Mac Mini...less that $800 to my door...

Apple has changed the game.

Intel is in some serious desktop trouble...fortunately they will probably remain dominate in the server side of things...but I cannot see Apple ever going back to them and silicone ARM processing seems to be the future.

 

[Whoops]

Apple has changed the game.

I'm not really sure,
Apple is not innovative anymore across any category. Apple is failing to bring anything new to the table in smartphones, apps, smart devices, computers.
Their laptops computers quality decreased substantially since 2012, and even worse after 2015, they fail easily in a lot of different ways.
Apple at the present is just an hardcore master of Planned Obsolescence.

This is coming from a long time Apple user, so I'm really not that confidant as yourself that they are changing anything for better at the moment.

I bought a used $100 HP Elitedesk mini computer to try the server myself and it also runs lots of plugins without any problems so I'm really not sure that a $800 computer is needed for this build.

But congrats for your build and wish you much fun using it.

 

[mhelin]

It's not the ARM CPU cores which makes the M1 fast, it's the fact that it's a SoC and has everything integrated nicely and effectively together. Inter could do the same and be even faster. Nice chip though.

 

[cyrano]

Intel could make an X86 SOC, in theory. In practice, the thing would melt in use and it would break most of that gigantic library of X86 software.

Besides, the people at Intel who maybe were capable of performing stunts like that, have all left the company.

Google, Amazon and others in the cloud business are already using their own servers and none of those is X86 based. Some are 64 core ARM, some are other architectures. Performance isn't even the most important factor. Power use is. Electricity is very expensive in data centers, because most of it gets turned into heat. Getting rid of that heat is what makes a data center expensive.

AMD, OTOH, could surprise us. Possibly even with their own ARM range.

I've worked for all three. Intel is in the "fall of the Roman empire" stage. Creativity is minimal and the board dances to the beat of the stockholders.

 

[Whoops]

Creativity is minimal and the board dances to the beat of the stockholders.

I understand, but I find that happening with most companies, I feel the same situation is happening to Apple also. Steve Jobs really made a difference over there

 

[cyrano]

It's happening to a lot of companies that get to big.

I was thinking the same about Apple when Jobs left this world, especially the last decade with nothing new in the Mac arena, but I have to admit Tim Cook is doing a good job. The long awaited M1 has reconfirmed my trust in Apple. And since Linux is getting more viable by the day for audio, I don't worry about Microsoft anymore

 

[mhelin]

Intel could make an X86 SOC, in theory. In practice, the thing would melt in use and it would break most of that gigantic library of X86 software.

It wouldn't melt if it was built using 5nm tech and the thermal power handling would be design properly. After all it's just an engineering problem.
Also Intel CPU's already have internally RISC-like cores running CISC microcode. They are like M1 + Rosetta though the latter is performing better atm. Apple hasn't proved they can do larger desktop grade M1 socs yet, their thermal management will much more demanding. ARM ISA (instruction set architecture) doesn't exactly tell how to implement it, so Apple has optimized the performance as far as possible using large out-of-execution pools and somehow managed it thermally, but it's because of what Apple has done not ARM.

 

[wejee]

Let's make this topic our reference
Has anyone tried the 10th, 11th generation processors? i9 processor ? which xeon ?

Please list all supported motherboards (Mini ITX) company name and model name ..

Is every motherboard written on it
Intel® Gigabit LAN
Does it work fine on all versions?
Or Realtek is Better ?
Most of the motherboards mentioned in this topic are not available for purchase
Available in a large size, only Micro ATX

thanks for all

 

[Whoops]

Let's make this topic our reference
Has anyone tried the 10th, 11th generation processors? i9 processor ? which xeon ?

Please list all supported motherboards (Mini ITX) company name and model name ..

No one knows that, it has to be tried, you could try it and let us know.

The only thing we can be certain is that the motherboard and processor SPECS that I posted in this thread work, if you want to try different components then it's up to you.
If you are lucky it might work

 

[thorfriis]

Hi everybody!
I've run this whole year with my homemade waves SGS setup using LV1 live.
I've used a lenovo dekstop with the INTEL I5 8k gen.

However i'm trying to get this working in the new Intel nucs, but it doesnt seem to pickup the network cards.
Anybody tried getting SGS working with the NUCS?

 

[Deadly Mix]

It's very doable. In fact, I built the WSG Extreme server in our studio myself. Not only that but Waves was very helpful with my WSG Driver issue when I was having trouble getting it setup after I was finished.

Theres not a lot of wiggle room on the build. You have a short list of mobos and CPUs to choose from.
In my case, I was able to build mine in a 2U rack case with some nice LED fans in the front and even got a nice WSG sticker to show off on the face.

Inbox me and I can send you a list of everything I used to build it so you don't run into any issues.

 

[Deadly Mix]

Here's a picture

 

[Whoops]

It's not a good idea to publish here photos of DIY stuff with Trademark logos and brands.
It's not good for this forum and it's generally not well accepted

 

[Deadly Mix]

It's not a good idea to publish here photos of DIY stuff with Trademark logos and brands.
It's not good for this forum and it's generally not well accepted

Its labeled what it is. Though the build is based on and is essentially a slightly upgraded version of the Extreme server, it does NOT say "Extreme" on it nor is the label silk-screened or made to appear to be their specific product. It is a server for our Waves Soundgrid system and is labeled Waves Soundgrid.
Waves is well aware people build them and even aware of my unit specifically because I told them all about it when they helped me get the WSG driver running on our studio PC so I could connect it to the server.

 

[iomegaman]

Waves has updated the drivers/plugin for WSG to v13 making them compatible with Apple M1's...gonna give it a spin, but honestly the V13 of the Waves plugins are not really stressing the cpu much at all, so I'm not sure how much benefit will come of it.

 

[iomegaman]

New server boots up faster, seems a little snappier, connection is easier...same amount of instances/etc...

 

[GreyboxAudio]

Here's my current server:

Motherboard: Asus H81M-A
CPU: Intel Core i7 4770
Memory: 2x4GB DDR3-1600
CPU-Cooler: BeQuiet Shadow Rock LP
Case: Inter-Tech 4U 4088-S
PSU: BeQuiet System Power B9 300W
Case Fans: Arctic F12 Silent, Arctic F8 Silent
USB-Stick: SanDisk Ultra Fit 16GB

The case is pretty oversized, but it's one of the cheapest rackmount-cases available in Germany. And since it's 4U in height it will easily fit a standard ATX PSU and many small-ish CPU coolers.

While building and testing the system I noticed that dual channel DDR3 memory can make a huge performance difference in SoundGrid! With only 1x memory stick of 4GB my performance meter maxed out after only 3-4 instances of H-Reverb (Stereo). Swapping the memory for 2x 2GB I was able to load 8x instances of H-Reverb (Stereo) without issues. All testing was done in SoundGrid Studio v13 at 48kHz.

 

[roofRob]

Their

Hey @Whoops,
After all you guys have been so full of praise for the MBP 2012‘s I‘ve been looking for one to replace my AudioComputer (basically a 2014 i5 2500k overdriven but still passively cooled and quiet, 16Gb, SSD) AND my Lenovo X220 at the same time.
Will the MBP at least be on par with the Audio PC (ballparkish)? Using Cubase 12.

What makes the build quality ever decreasing after 2012, you reckon?

Best,

Rob

 

[Whoops]

Hey @Whoops,
Will the MBP at least be on par with the Audio PC (ballparkish)? Using Cubase 12.

I think so but you need a MBP mid 2012 with an i7 2,9Ghz processor.
It needs also to have an SSD system drive,
And RAM needs to be maxed at 16Gb

I use mine with external cooling, I have an aluminium base with 2 Fans from Asus

What makes the build quality ever decreasing after 2012, you reckon?

There’s many issues (between 2014 and 219) some of them:
- screen problem with some of the models, screens stop working or breach easily
- search Google for “Mac butterfly keyboard problems”
All the parts are also soldered to the Logic board, Drive, RAM, Battery, all soldered. So you can’t upgrade it and it’s also much more difficult and expensive to fix

 

[roofRob]

Thanks for elaborating on this! Those were the specs I was looking for. That config goes for about 300€ around here...
I was hoping for it to actually be silent out of the box, due to the unibody.
So: how much load are you putting on it to be in need of additional cooling? Do you happen to have a pic of that freezer-setup?