Total Studio 4 Max - 670GB???

[Coolruler12]

I'm considering pulling the trigger on Total Studio 4 Max but it says it needs 670GB of disk space.

I have a 250GB internal SSD. I could attach an external 1TB USB SSD that I have. I could also splash out for a 1 or 2TB new internal SSD but thats a pain / last resort.

Currently I have 100GB free space so I can fit in the apps but not sure if I really need the 670GB of sounds?

Any advice / guidance will be appreciated such as are these 670GB absolutely required to run the apps?

[DarkStar]

Total Studio 4 Max includes several different products, many of which have their own sample libraries. You do not need to install them all. (and, once you understand your way around the library you can move some instruments off to a back=up disk.

To help you decide, for each included product, have a look at the space requirements on the IKM product pages.

Other users may chip in with details of the disk space needed.

Also, remember that. during the installation of each sample library, you will need double the disk space - one area for the IK Product Manager to store the downloaded file(s) and another for the install program to create the sample library. After successful installation you can move the download files to a back-up disk (or delete them).

[Coolruler12]

sure thanks for that. Funny enough I did just that earlier, it seems that sample tank 4 max comes with 600GB of samples so that is probably where the heavy stuff is.

Ive already got a lot of the gear already in CS / SE versions and Amplitube max so I reckon it'll be fine as I really wont need all of the sample tank - its the other stuff I'm interested in at the mo..

[Trensharo]

The issue with IKM's libraries is that they are distributed in a way that is completely overkill for what they are, resulting in massive amounts of space waste.

Philharmonik 2 is distributed as PAKs of 24-Bit, 96KHz samples... That library does not need anything beyond 24-Bit 48KHz - so it effectively wastes almost 30GB of storage on the end-user system. 96K audio files uses the double the storage at the same bit depth.

Orchestral Tools' Berlin Orchestra is a comparable product [in scope] and is distributed as 24-Bit 48KHz samples. 90GB total size - 40GB after Compression.

If IKM does this across all of their products, then they are effectively wasting 250-300GB of storage on the end-user's system.

Syntronik 2 (which includes Syntronik 1) is like 200GB+. SampleTank 4's content is pretty massive when the Expansion Libraries are factored in (as they are in a MAX v2 product).

The Content LIbrary across those products is ~570GB when we ignore the WAV Samples for things like London Grooves and Philharmonik CE (which is already 16-Bit/44.1KHz). If we ignore the SampleTank 3 Content (~35GB), then they're probably wasting 250GB+ of storage across the rest of the content line by delivering high bitrate, high sample rate sample content when they probably should be delivering 48K samples.

If Native Instruments did this with their Kontakt Libraries, then Komplete Standard would have the storage requirements of Total Studio MAX and Komplete Collector's would require more than a 2TB SSD to hold all the content.

This also dramatically increases the RAM utilization of the patches, which is bad for a sampler platform that has no instance or global purge function (like Kontakt and Opus does).

If the samples are twice as large on disk, then they will be twice as large in Memory. Lastly, load times are impacted. Basically need these on an NVMe drive to get acceptable load times if you use IKM Libraries heavily in your projects.

The products are just insanely inefficient in terms of their packaging and delivery.

The plug-in sizes are fine. It's about 10-20GB for applications and plug-ins, depending on which products you install and which plug-in formats you install (or how many).

The very vast majority of the space used is for the libraries.

They need to repackage some of these libraries as 24-Bit 48K and redistribute them. If they had done this from the beginning, they would never had have to had a policy of paid access to redownload after XYZ months, because they wouldn't have to worry about users downloading half a terabyte per machine at-will.

[GHOLD_AS]

Actually I love the high bitrate distribution.

I'd rather have a few TB of pristine samples. Dedicated external/internal SSD's are very affordable these days.

What really frustrates me as a newb, though is that the ProductManager is a total mess, at least on OSX Sonoma.

It doesn't manage to download multipart libraries and needs a restart after each fragment/.dmg.


Gunleik

[Trensharo]

You shouldn't be installing via product manager.

You should be downloading everything manually from the website, then unzipping them into the same root folder, which allows you to install everything in one go instead of having to run 100 different installers.

And then you can back up that entire directory structure in case you have to reinstall later.

After installation, the content folder can be copied to other machines - macOS or Windows - without issue. You just install the applications on the other machines and set the content location, and its installed.

Maybe should is too harsh a term... "Are behooved to..." may be more apt.

-----

You aren't getting any real-world benefit from those 96K samples - certainly not any that is worth wasting 250GB of SSD storage on. And like I said, it ramps up both the load times and RAM utilization of the libraries.

The size of these libraries is being used as a marketing bullet point for people who think more is better, when in this case more is just more wasted space. 600GB of samples... SO MANY GBS!!!

This is just the result of a "bigger just has to be better" thinking. Symphony Essentials fits in 20GB of Storage and Iconica Sketch is a 5GB Library. Both of those sound better than Philharmonik 2... and UVI Vintage Vault sounds as good as Syntronik 2 without ramping up the sample rate to 96K (they deliver 44.1KHz samples).

Most high-end orchestral libraries deliver 24-Bit 48KHz samples, so that argument is pretty weak in the grand scheme of things - from a practical standpoint.

If 96K were such a killer feature, then libraries designed for the high-end market segments with composers who have TBs of storage to throw at these libraries would have been delivered this way since a decade or more ago.

Libraries like PH2 are not new releases.

Also, many people have both PHCE and PH2. You can load equivalent patches and you won't hear any audible difference between them. PHCE delivers 16-Bit 44.1KHz samples

East West used to have a Platinum Plus SKU for Symphonic Orchestra where they delivered both 16- and 24-Bit samples that you could switch between to save RAM and decrease load times/CPU use for this reason.

[GHOLD_AS]

Thanks a lot for the download advice!

Is there a simple way to just install "all" on osx or do I have to go through each .dmg individually?

Part of the reason I am asking is that it seems that not installers are really working.

G

[shawnbulen]

Having just downloaded ST4, there are parts of download+install that are very confusing...

First, and most important, bear in mind that download + install means you have two copies of everything, i.e., 670MB x2= 1.3TB. Plus it needs workspace to extract & install, so you really need more than that...

Second, the install order is very important, fixes, patches, etc., must come after the sound libraries. And you kinda have to learn that all the hard way, in part because file names don't make this particularly obvious.

Third, if you're upgrading ST3, things get very confusing very fast. Certain installs really want to go into your ST3 library and some need to go into ST4... I thought I'd let it all just go where it suggested, and that didn't work at all. Some ST3 stuff needs to go into the ST3 library, & some needs to go into the ST4 library. So I had to reinstall again again. Again, learned those lessons the hard way, testing after install.

Fourth, you can only download a few at a time... That's a lot of downloads to keep track of...

Fifth, I ***swear*** the download packages online are different from those used by the package manager. Literally counts of files were different (online is fewer, & bigger). I started by attempting a product manager install, ran out of space multiple times (due in part to the 2x problem mentioned above, due in part to it using a download location I wasn't expecting...). Upon restarting the process, I found I couldn't mix product manager downloads with website downloads due to these differences.

And once that broke, it took me well over a week to fix it. First off, it doesn't restart, the product manager told me everything was installed already, when it was maybe 20% installed... And where files were incomplete, the only fix was to re-download the whole series of files, because I couldn't mix online with prod mgr. Again again again.

The ST3/ST4 thing is very tricky. If there is overlap with sounds between the two libraries, that can confuse & crash the VST, taking your DAW down with it. I spent a lot of time ensuring stuff was in one place ***only***... (By comparing the ST3 & ST4 library folder structures & manually deleting dupes...) It took a few more reinstalls to stop the crashes.

It's quite difficult... If I could have done it all in the product manager, I would have done so, because I assume that would have kept all the dependencies & locations straight. And it does in fact keep your downloads around. Just make sure you have lots of space for 2 of everything + workspace.

<<<Sorry, I had to have my own install rant to add to the mix... Thank you, this was theraputic!>>>

I think ST4 needs a library integrity checker that checks that the downloads & installs were complete.

[GHOLD_AS]

Thanks a lot

I am new to the IK/Studio Max way of handling stuff, but what you write kind of confirms everything I see.

I am downloading to an external SSD, and plan to run the sounds from that SSD. I'll back up the downloads to a NAS, not too worried about the file sizes (I have been working a lot with RAW video )

I think the product Manager downloads seem like a great idea...

But it totally doesn't work.

Now downloading all the libraries, and brace myself to manage to install them.

[GHOLD_AS]

A bit of an update

So I have downloaded all (or so I think)

And started to install from the .dmg's

So I start to see a pattern:

The SampleTank3 installers don't work with Sonoma

I think I have figured how to copy manually, but the issue is that I guess that I should use the sample tank 4 info files (and I guess it's the 3 on the dmg's)

Just as a point of warning

G

[GHOLD_AS]

And going through this manually

The SampleTank 3.22_ST2 XL

doesn't have a corresponding "instrument"

Dunno if that is of consequence... but here it is