Frode HansenHello.
Forgive me if this is in the wrong place. Also, I know this has been adressed before, but I haven’t been able to find a solution so far. So if someone can help, it would be greatly appreciated.
I’m running a Windows 11 PC (fully updated), and have SD3 (v3.4.0.) and all updated libraries installed on my OS drive (Corsair Force Series MP600 1TB M.2 NVMe SSD). I figured that having all of it there would provide for the fastest load times.
My DAW is the latest Cubase 14 Pro.
My other specs are as follows:
CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 3900X
RAM: 32Gb G.Skill Trident Z Neo DDR4.
GPU: ASUS ROG Strix x570-F
Also, I have a few other SSD disks in the PC for storing as well, but everything that has to do with this (Cubase and SD3) is on the OS drive.
My default kit that loads upon startup in SD3 is Nashville Slam at 2599Mb. On a freshly started computer, I tried opening SD3 within Cubase 14 Pro. No other tracks than the SD3 track. Nashville Slam took 4 min and 9 sec to fully load.
Then I tried SD3 stand alone, and the load time was just the same as in Cubase. I switched over to 16-bit, but that didn’t affect the loading time.
It it supposed to be this slow, or can I do something to decrease the loading time? Should I move the libraries from the OS disk? That M.2 reads and writes quite quickly, so I don’t understand what’s taking so long.
Thank you for your input.
Mark KingSo that’s definitely not right. It shouldn’t be that slow. I use a m.2 drive for sd3 and kits larger than yours load in a couple of seconds. Do you have a spare m.2 slot to try? I have 2 m.2 drives and one of them will not work with my ujam vsti’s. SD3 works fine from both my m.2 drives. I’m using Cubase 14 on win 11. even my ssd drive loads in about 30 seconds. Do you have space anywhere else to try out? Sometimes the m.2 slot has shared access on a m/b.
I’ve read again and can see you are using on the os drive. How much space is left on the drive? If it’s full or getting close then you may have problems. I would get a 2nd m.2 drive to put sd3 on and keep away from the os drive. It’s also a good idea to do this in case you ever need to reinstall windows. I keep all my vsti content on a seperate m.2 drive and on a ssd back drive. I’d hate to have to download them all again.
If you do get a 2nd drive you can just copy to the new drive and point sd3 at them. As easy as that!
SD3 with older sdx,s plus Rooms of Hansa and Death & Darkness. Cubase and wavelab current versions. Roland TD50x using all trigger inputs for triggering SD3 only. Windows 11 computer. Various keyboards and outboard gear as well as VST instruments. Acoustic drums: Yamaha 9000 natural wood and Pearl masters. Various snare drums. RME BabyFace Pro FS and Adam A7X monitors
2
Thanked by: Frode Hansen and drumjack52
drumjack52Frode: Do you have SD3 set to ssd for disk type? As Mark said it’d be good to move all SD3 content (except for the program itself) off of the system drive. Never a good idea to have sample content on the system drive for the reasons Mark stated. Also make sure that you have disabled all power savings measures on your computer – in a typical Windows install they are enabled by default. What else do you have running on your computer? Is there any way you can increase the amount of ram? Having a 24 gig load coming from SD3 doesn’t leave a whole heck of a lot for Windows and whatever else is running.
Jack
aka musicman691 on other forums
Superior Drummer 3.4.0
Area 33 1.0.0
Death and Darkness 1.0.1
PT 2021.6
OSX 10.13.6
3.46 GHz hex core 2012 MacPro 48 gig ram
1
Thanked by: Frode Hansen
metrosuperstarI’m with Frode on this one. I use NVME drives (M.2) and I also find that the load times are way too slow for being on such a fast drive (the bar at the top reaching 100%). I had moved to NVME in order to improve from regular SSD but no difference really. And yes of course I set my libraries to SSD optimization.
My expectation was that on NVME it would be swoosh…loaded! But it isn’t.
My Kontakt libraries on this drive are loading at the expected speeds – but definitely not my Toontrack drum kits. 🙁
1
Thanked by: Frode HansenMark KingI just realised the default kit mentioned is 25Gig in size. That is huge. I wonder if the problem lies there. What if you pull up a preset. Does that load fast? My kits are about 4 to 8Gig and load in less than 10 seconds. Going on that then a 25Gig kit should load in about 30 seconds.
I use contact libraries (not drums) but they don’t tend to be as large as sd3. When I moved from ssd to m.2 there was a big difference in load times.
SD3 with older sdx,s plus Rooms of Hansa and Death & Darkness. Cubase and wavelab current versions. Roland TD50x using all trigger inputs for triggering SD3 only. Windows 11 computer. Various keyboards and outboard gear as well as VST instruments. Acoustic drums: Yamaha 9000 natural wood and Pearl masters. Various snare drums. RME BabyFace Pro FS and Adam A7X monitors
1
Thanked by: Frode Hansendrumjack52I just realised the default kit mentioned is 25Gig in size. That is huge. I wonder if the problem lies there. What if you pull up a preset. Does that load fast? My kits are about 4 to 8Gig and load in less than 10 seconds. Going on that then a 25Gig kit should load in about 30 seconds.
I use contact libraries (not drums) but they don’t tend to be as large as sd3. When I moved from ssd to m.2 there was a big difference in load times.
- This post was modified 1 day, 4 hours ago by Mark King.
I’m seeing roughly 20 to 25 secs loading time for an Area 33 kit that I use that’s like 24 gig – both standalone and in ProTools – but that shouldn’t matter. And this is off of a bog standard SSD mounted on the motherboard of my 2012 MacPro desktop. 48 gig of ram so there’s plenty of room for everything else. I still think ram might well be an issue (actually the lack of plenty of ram space).
Like I asked earlier – what else is running on the computer?
Jack
aka musicman691 on other forums
Superior Drummer 3.4.0
Area 33 1.0.0
Death and Darkness 1.0.1
PT 2021.6
OSX 10.13.6
3.46 GHz hex core 2012 MacPro 48 gig ram
1
Thanked by: Frode Hansen
JohnHi,
I have most of my libraries on external NVMe SSD drives in TB enclosures and e.g. the Nashville Slam loads in just a couple of seconds. Much bigger kits from other libraries as well. IOW, there is no NVMe inherent “slowness” with SD3 libraries. My Kontakt and Spitfire libraries on the same drives load as fast (or slow) in my opinion. Hard to compare IMO.
What I do notice is that one of the drives is FAT32-formatted instead of AFPS and this one load libraries slightly slower but we’re still talking seconds for ≈6GB kits.
I suspect that something else than the SD3 software is the culprit of your slow loading times on your system.
BR,
John
John Rammelt - Toontrack
Technical Advisor
2
Thanked by: Frode Hansen and drumjack52
Bear-Faced CowAll of my libraries are on a dedicated SSD in a thunderbolt drive bay. Been working with a 10GB kit and is loading in roughly 6 seconds.
Is anything else using your drive at the same time?
jord
1
Thanked by: Frode HansenFrode HansenThank you all for your input.
Firstly, I have to right a couple of errors in what I wrote. The M.2 OS disk is 4TB, not 1TB, and there’s more than half the space left on it. Also, I called my motherboard GPU, which of course is wrong.
I’ve tried to load a couple of other default kits, and they were Orchestral Percussion II at 1942 mb – that took 3 min. Fields Of Rock – dry (default) at 3270 mb took almost 6 minutes to load!
Mark: I have one more M.2 slot, and I’ll take your advice and buy another M.2 just for storing of libraries. Also, as I said, more than half the space is still free on my OS disk as it is 4TB. My concern is moving the libraries, but I take it that it’s easy to relocate them from SD3 – and that the Toontrack Update Manager finds them for updates.
Drumjack52: Yes, SD3 is set up for SSD as disk type. The power options are set to Performance. I did these loading tests with the PC a freshly booted. No other programs open or anything big running in the background. Maybe 32Gb RAM is too little? If so, I can of course increase it. But the default kits are fairly small chunks of data, between 1900 and 3300 Mb, and one should imagine that they’d load in a flash even with 32Gb or RAM? Thank you for your input.
Metrosuperstar: I hope we’ll find the solution for the slow load times.
John: Thank you for that. I can only dream about those load times. So, yes – the problem has to be somewhere else. I just don’t have a clue as to why – everything else loads up very quickly.
Bear-Faced Cow: I timed these loads with the pc freshly booted, so the drive was not in use by something else at the time.
Thanks again.
drumjack52Frode: You say that the computer was freshly booted and the drive was not in use by something else. Actually it was because the operating systemw as also using the drive. One question you haven’t answered is – is anything else running on your machine? What other processes? What exactly does it mean when you say the power options are set to ‘performance’? There are many settings possible as shown here: https://www.nextofwindows.com/performance-settings-windows-11
There are 2 things one can never have too much of: money and ram.
Jack
aka musicman691 on other forums
Superior Drummer 3.4.0
Area 33 1.0.0
Death and Darkness 1.0.1
PT 2021.6
OSX 10.13.6
3.46 GHz hex core 2012 MacPro 48 gig ram
1
Thanked by: Frode HansenMark KingI was thinking memory could be a problem with 32gig but you still struggled with small kits. I have 32gig and haven’t hit a memory problem with my size kits plus everything else in my DAW. Do you have a virus program that checks files being read? I have Cubase and sd3 removed from windows defender. Do you have an old ssd you could plug into the m/b to try that? I’m trying to think of things that could narrow it down.
If power is set to performance it should be fine. You can actually use the ultimate power settings. If you google it there are instructions on how to make it visible.
SD3 with older sdx,s plus Rooms of Hansa and Death & Darkness. Cubase and wavelab current versions. Roland TD50x using all trigger inputs for triggering SD3 only. Windows 11 computer. Various keyboards and outboard gear as well as VST instruments. Acoustic drums: Yamaha 9000 natural wood and Pearl masters. Various snare drums. RME BabyFace Pro FS and Adam A7X monitors
Bear-Faced CowTaking minutes to load is not normal. Something is stealing loading time. Do you have any disk tools or virus checkers running?
As for reloading your libraries, this is as easy as dragging them to the new disk and pointing Superior Drummer to the new locations. The production manager will know where they are in order to update them.
jord
drumjack52Taking minutes to load is not normal. Something is stealing loading time. Do you have any disk tools or virus checkers running?
As for reloading your libraries, this is as easy as dragging them to the new disk and pointing Superior Drummer to the new locations. The production manager will know where they are in order to update them.
jord
- This post was modified 1 day, 3 hours ago by Bear-Faced Cow.
When you do a drag and drop like you say does Windows leave the file in it’s original place as well as placing the file in it’s new place so you have 2 identical files in 2 different places? I know MacOS does that unless you use a key modifier. Been a ton of years since I ran a Windows system that deeply.
Jack
aka musicman691 on other forums
Superior Drummer 3.4.0
Area 33 1.0.0
Death and Darkness 1.0.1
PT 2021.6
OSX 10.13.6
3.46 GHz hex core 2012 MacPro 48 gig ram
JohnWhen you do a drag and drop like you say does Windows leave the file in it’s original place as well as placing the file in it’s new place so you have 2 identical files in 2 different places? I know MacOS does that unless you use a key modifier.
When you drag and drop a folder in the Explorer from one location to another it will be Moved if it is on the same drive, copied if it is between different drives.
Modifier keys are: Ctrl for copying instead of moving; and Shift for moving instead of copying.
Changing path to a library can be done in the PM via the Installation Info tab or setting the path in SD3 via Settings>Libraries/Paths.
BR,
John
John Rammelt - Toontrack
Technical Advisor
1
Thanked by: Frode Hansendrumjack52When you do a drag and drop like you say does Windows leave the file in it’s original place as well as placing the file in it’s new place so you have 2 identical files in 2 different places? I know MacOS does that unless you use a key modifier.
When you drag and drop a folder in the Explorer from one location to another it will be Moved if it is on the same drive, copied if it is between different drives.
Modifier keys are: Ctrl for copying instead of moving; and Shift for moving instead of copying.Changing path to a library can be done in the PM via the Installation Info tab or setting the path in SD3 via Settings>Libraries/Paths.
BR,
John
Thanks. So Windows is just like MacOS in that regard. I don’t do all that much in WinLand anymore.
Jack
aka musicman691 on other forums
Superior Drummer 3.4.0
Area 33 1.0.0
Death and Darkness 1.0.1
PT 2021.6
OSX 10.13.6
3.46 GHz hex core 2012 MacPro 48 gig ram
BradHello.
Forgive me if this is in the wrong place. Also, I know this has been adressed before, but I haven’t been able to find a solution so far. So if someone can help, it would be greatly appreciated.
I’m running a Windows 11 PC (fully updated), and have SD3 (v3.4.0.) and all updated libraries installed on my OS drive (Corsair Force Series MP600 1TB M.2 NVMe SSD). I figured that having all of it there would provide for the fastest load times.
My DAW is the latest Cubase 14 Pro.
My other specs are as follows:
CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 3900X
RAM: 32Gb G.Skill Trident Z Neo DDR4.
GPU: ASUS ROG Strix x570-F
Also, I have a few other SSD disks in the PC for storing as well, but everything that has to do with this (Cubase and SD3) is on the OS drive.
My default kit that loads upon startup in SD3 is Nashville Slam at 2599Mb. On a freshly started computer, I tried opening SD3 within Cubase 14 Pro. No other tracks than the SD3 track. Nashville Slam took 4 min and 9 sec to fully load.
Then I tried SD3 stand alone, and the load time was just the same as in Cubase. I switched over to 16-bit, but that didn’t affect the loading time.
It it supposed to be this slow, or can I do something to decrease the loading time? Should I move the libraries from the OS disk? That M.2 reads and writes quite quickly, so I don’t understand what’s taking so long.
Thank you for your input.
Superior Drummer 3 version: 3.4.0
Operating system: Windows 11
Hi there,
Just to add to the conversation. Some simple problem solving: after rebooing the PC, could you start up the Task Manager > Resource Monitor
Then start SD3 and see if anything else (process/program) starts eating CPU or disk cycles. Looking for like a anti-virus/anti-malware type program that may be interrupting the data on load.
Mac Studio M1 Max, RAM 64 GB, 1TB Drive, OSX 12.x/13.x and Windows 10 (VM)
DAW: Studio One Pro (always up to date)
DTX Express III (Extreme triggers), Nektar LX88
OWC Thunderbay Mini (4 X 1TB Sata SSD), Express 4M2 (4 X 2TB M.2 SSD), Envoy Express (1TB M.2 SSD)
Presonus Quantum, Faderport & Faderport 8
Black Lion Sparrow Mk2 A/D, FMR-RNP-RNC, MIDI Xpress 128, BM5A, KRK VXT4, Equator D5
2020 Macbook Pro 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD Audio(mobile rig)
1
Thanked by: Bear-Faced CowNo products in the cart.