Can Sample Libraries be accessed "live" from a DVD-ROM disk?

[rasputin1963]

In the Sample Library mode you've usually got a library of samples which the VSTi.dll draws from.... live/realtime.

 

And these sample libraries can sometimes get HUGE. Like 20 Gigs sometimes, probably bigger.

 

The ideal scenario would be to have your sample library sit as near, on your hard drive, to the VST.dll as possible, no?

 

Question: Can space be saved on your hard-drive by burning the sample libraries to DVD-ROM disk and using them as the "live/realtime" source for the VST.dll? Now they're coming out with 8G disks, which helps a lot. Can the software access the disk data fast enough?

 

How do YOU handle big sample libraries in YOUR workflow?

[Anderton]

Here's my trick. I ran into this problem when using Ableton Live on a laptop with a 5400 RPM hard drive. If I designated the files as RAM files, they used up way too much internal RAM. If I designated them as disk files, the hard drive would start freaking out playing back all those files.

 

So...I stuck all the files I use in a Live project on a USB stick, and tell Ableton they're disk files. They're kept out of system RAM, they're kept off the system hard drive, and Ableton streams them just fine - remember, USB sticks are pretty fast for playback, it's during recording where they start to fall down.

 

As long as you can tell your sampler where to look for files, you're in good shape

[JeffLearman]

But no, they won't work streaming off the DVD player. They're not designed to work that way, and the seek time on the DVD would be too high for it to work anyway.

 

Nice to hear that it works from USB thumb drives!