Aria player - Garritan CFX Grand - Mac M1

Joannchr

I currently use Garritan CFX Grand on an Intel Mac using the standalone app and it runs perfectly . It is by far my favourite VST. I plan to upgrade to a Mac M1 later on this year and am doing some proactive testing prior to upgrading.

I understand your will have to use Aria Player if you want to run Garritan natively on Mac M1. (I discard the option of running standalone player using rosetta , as it is workaround rather than a proper solution; I had too many issues with Cocoa in the past to go through the same painful experience )

In the testing so far, I have noticed the following:

Memory :

(loading time) : Similar . I use a Samsung T7 fast SSD drive for the libraries.

(Memory requirement): similar

(Latency) : similar

(Tuning) : all parameters that exist in standalone are avail in the Aria Player, but they have been rearranged differently ( Actually, in more logical way). there is even more parameters to monitor performance in the settings view.

(Reverb) : I can't get any reverb to work . Convolution Reverb doesn't seem to have any effect and Ambience ( which I assume is the also reverb) doesn't seem to work either.

So after testing, all works fine except reverb. The fact is I don't use any additional reverb with Garritan CFX, as the ambient mics capture the natural and original abbey road studio reverb so perfectly that it is nearly criminal to change it as I don't think any VST has recorded it so well, but it could be a problem for arrangers who want specific reverb types for cinematic effects

Bottom line, i really hope they will fix it , I have open a ticket to report it .

CyberGene

You may also want to look at this discussion:
https://pianoclack.com/forum/d/580-garritan-cfx-on-apple-silicon

Joannchr

CyberGene HI CG, I had read this thread , and the version I have installed is indeed 2.001 and as I reported no reverb works for me( neither Convolution nor Algorithmic) a part obviously the sampled Abbey Road reverb, so IMHO it is a bug unless I miss something.

Since you installed 2.001 , have you tried both reverbs with this version on your mac ? does it work for you ?

CyberGene

Joannchr I don't use any reverb with Garritan CFX, the distant mics provide enough ambiance, so I don't remember. However, as noted in that thread, I found some bugs with notes that were abruptly cut in Aria Player which is why I don't use it. The standalone player is bug-free, so I hope they will port it to Apple Silicon soon.

Joannchr

CyberGene I didn't experience your issue about cut notes, even with lot of polyphony , so that's strange. Let see what their support says. I ll keep you updated

Joannchr

Hi again, problem is fixed and it works. Garritan Support has been very supportive with very quick response time. You have to turn up the 'send' knob in the mixer slot corresponding to Garritan CFX Grand as this knob is set to zero by default.

MacMacMac

All this talk of the Garritan CFX has made me want to try it again ... after setting it aside for several years.

I tend to prefer the Steinway sound to that of the Yamaha ... but there are are other differences to consider.

Namely ... how well do my Steinway VIs perform? I've been tiring of the honkiness in the bass of the Grandeur. (Turning down the "Tone" control on the panel eliminates the honk but dulls the tone.)

And the Vintage D, though true to the Steinway sound, tends to be brittle.

So it was refreshing to try the CFX again. I've got the reverb under control now ... and it sound great.
Not brittle.
Not honky.
S'good.

Two things for the experts:

Once I do all my settings, is there a way to save them so tweaks I don't need to redo them the next time I start up?
Is there a way to start this CFX with a piano already loaded? It's annoying to go through the load procedure each time.

QuasiUnaFantasia

MacMacMac Once I do all my settings, is there a way to save them so tweaks I don't need to redo them the next time I start up?

Yes, you can save presets under any name you wish. I can't remember the exact steps, but I believe it is found under the main menu.

EDIT: It's under "File", "Save as ...", and you save the preset as an *.aria file.

Joannchr

MacMacMac As QuasiUnaFantasia said, you can save all settings ( including velocity curve) in the preset drop down menu using 'save' option.

If you want to load your preset with your own settings , go to the main menu of CFX standalone or Aria Player and go to file / save by default and it will launch automatically.

EDIT: lol, I didn't see the EDIT of QuasiFantasia , so skip my reply 😉

MacMacMac

Superb! Thanks guys.

Starfish

Do you get any problem with the CFX plugin total RAM just increasing and increasing as you play, until eventually it reaches the max engine RAM allocation? This happens no matter how high I set the max allocation - and when reached I start to get drop-outs. To solve it I have to employ the preset slot and re-load it 🙁

Joannchr

Starfish I limit the max engine memory to 1.5 GB and have no problem at all ;I had more problems when I allocated 4 GB. The fact that it reaches the max engine RAM allocation seems logical , as I guess it works as a memory cache , with a 'least used blocks ' algorithm to free up the cache when it is full. I have noticed that when I was using 4 GB or + I had drop outs and paradoxically when I reduced the max size to 1.5 GB the problem had disappeared. It maybe due to a memory leak problem. Given, I use a fast T5 SSD, limiting the max engine RAM size impact on the performance is next to null .It is extremely fluid and playable , similar to Pianoteq in this department.

Starfish

Joannchr - I tried this approach in a band session last night - and it worked brilliantly. Whatever CFX sample set I had loaded, I set the max RAM to the nearest higher value, and the disk pre-caching to maximum. Even with polyphony set to 128 I had no pops or crackle 🙂

Currently the CFX samples are stored on a mirrored disk pair that uses a dedicated hardware RAID controller - it easily keeps up despite not being SSD.

Starfish

Interesting! Thanks for that feedback - clearly more experimentation is needed. I really like the sophistication of the CFX sampling and it would be good to use it for a complete band session without having to reload.

Joannchr

QuasiUnaFantasia brillant !