Originally Posted By: nonchai
I was wondering - when rendering audio tracks to disk - does BIAB Mac render all the tracks in one processor core or - where a mac has - say 4 or more CPU cores- can it INTELLIGENTLY use parallel processing to process ( and possibly ) output each track where possible - IN PARALLEL - to speed things up?

Or is BIAB just single-threaded throughout?
Perhaps it does but not that I can tell. Perhaps the upcoming 64bit version will.

BTW, parallel processing doesn't really "speed things up". It lessens the load on the CPU (which can throttle if overloaded but that's not the same thing). Since 32 bit apps have a 4G limit, this isn't an issue with any but the oldest Macs.

If sending MIDI and calling up virtual instruments (VIs), that's a different matter. Multiple instances of VI players such as Kontakt will assign to separate cores, Say you call 4 instruments. If loaded into one instance of Kontakt, then all 4 will use a single core but 4 instances each with one instrument will use 4 cores. Some users use a separate instance per instrument and let the Mac balance as best it can — I use 4 instances and balance my instruments within to (again) lower the overhead in my 2010 iMac i7.

My next iMac will likely be an iMac Pro. I've seen demos where composers have called up 300 instances of Kontakt on a 10 core without choking the machine so balancing isn't exactly something that anyone worries about with those. A 12 core Mac Pro often maxes out around 200 by comparison. The new 8 core i9 iMac should take quite a beating in that regard if it has at least 32G RAM.

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