FAQ: Technical

What are the most important parts I need for my music computer?

The computer hardware market is changing quickly, but there are a few components that will be the pillars of performance.

To assemble these components in an efficient way, it is important to understand the basics of sample streaming: Sample Streaming means that only the very first small part of your sample is loaded into RAM, and the rest of the sample is "streamed" for your drive. In simple words: Your fast RAM bridges the time until the sample can be played back from your drive. With the arrival of Solid State Drives (SSD), the access times have dropped significantly, and of course you will benefit from this with our software.

So the speed of your drive and the amount of needed RAM is in relation to each other: The faster your drives, the less RAM you will need (for the same amount of samples). A faster drive also means that you will load your songs/templates faster, of course.

So when you set up your computer environment, make sure to get the fastest drive your budget allows, with the fastest possible connection.

In short words:

• DRIVES: You need a place to store your samples, and the file access time determines how quickly you can load your files. The faster the access time, the less RAM you need.
  
• RAM: This is where the first part of your sample is loaded. The more RAM you have, the more samples you will be able to load.
  
• CPU: Your CPU power determines how efficiently your computer works with audio signals. With our software, more processor cores will help with the performance, as the implemented multi-threading is highly effective.

Multithreading means that your computer runs instruments and plug-ins in parallel using several different threads, which allows to utilize several processor cores on the system.

Which connection speed do I need to connect my drives?

The fastest hard drive will not help your performance if you are using the wrong connection (with a low data throughput). The diagram below shows the theoretical connection speeds of the available connection standards.

What format should my drive be? And how do I change the format?

In general, you will benefit from the standard formats that are used on the supported OS's.

• On macOS, the standard is APFS or MacOS (Journaled)
• On Windows, you should stick to NTFS formats.

Formatting your hard drive can be done in DiskUtility (macOS) or Disk Management (Windows).

Attention! Drives which are formatted in FAT32 and ExFat are not streaming data efficiently and will not deliver a reliable performance when streaming our samples.

How does the Preload Size affect my performance?

The Preload Size defines the size of the sample that is loaded into RAM, to compensate the access time of your hard drive. The faster your hard drive, the lower you can set this setting.

In our Synchron Player, Synchron Pianos Player, Synchron Harp Player and the Great Rieger Organ, we have implemented an automatic access-speed measurement that picks the best value for each hard drive that holds your samples. You can of course overrule these settings manually in the Preferences > Database of each player software (those are shared settings).

In Vienna Instruments / Vienna Instruments Pro, this is a manual setting in your Directory Manager.

Why Is My Download Slow/Stuck?

Our download rates are usually exceptionally high - so, if you are experiencing a slow download, please check that

• your anti-virus software is not blocking the download
• your firewall is not in the way
• you are not connecting from behind a proxy server

If you are downloading in a university or at a company, chances are that your system administrator does not allow torrent-based downloads. You can:

• Ask your system administrator for an exception
• Download your sample content on a different internet access
• Contact support@vsl.co.at and ask for an alternative download

Where are logs & crash reports for VSL software stored?

Reports are saved locally after a crash on your machine, but are also sent as anonymous report to the developer team. Please find OS relevant information below:

macOS: Reports can be displayed right within the "... quit unexpectedly" message by clicking "Show Details". The same report (and logs) is saved inside the macOS "Console" application.

Windows: Open the Windows Explorer and type the following as a path:

%appdata%

Now navigate to the folder "VSL" which shows subfolders for each separate VSL software currently installed on your system. You can find the reports & logs inside the subfolder, like:

• %appdata% > VSL/Vienna Synchron Player/log/...
• %appdata% > VSL/Vienna Synchron Player/sentry-db/reports/...

Important

Please do send us reports/logs always in form of an attached text file document. Don't copy the text into your email body.

MacOS Crash & Console app:

Windows 10 "AppData" hierarchy:

How can I report a bug?

We're always happy about input from our users. If you are experiencing a bug/crash, please include steps to reproduce.

Example:

1. Launch application
2. Insert Bus channel
3. Press "Mute" button on the inserted Bus channel

Expected results: Bus Channel is muted

Actual results: Application crashes

Also, please include crash reports with your mail, if available.