VI
f e a t u r e
Studio Farms
The ultimate scalable V.I. rig uses multiple computers, all with
access to the same plug-ins and sample libraries on a
server. It’s surprisingly easy to set up, and only a single
gigabit ethernet cable connects everything: audio,
MIDI, video, the keyboard, and mouse…
by Jesse White
ne day a single computer may have the resources
O to run as many softsynths, sample libraries, and
processing plug-ins as we need. Until then, a network of
two and probably more machines is an essential compo-
nent of any serious V.I. studio.
But the reliability and ease of basing an entire studio
set-up around computers—and more importantly on net-
works—is easy to overlook when you’re designing it. You
have to think of it logically: how can I have quick access
to everything I need at my fingertips without having to
worry about systems crashing or overtaxing my main
computer?
The answer is simple. Distribute your virtual instruments
and effects across a network to decrease load, and cen-
tralize your network around a server so all your machines
can conform to the same data.
If this is done right, you end up with each computer on
your network, or each “farm,” having the ability to run any
instrument or processing plug-in you have and access
any sample you need. Not only is this convenient, it also
offers some insurance. If one of the farm machines goes
down in the middle of a project, you can simply reassign
the plug-ins to a different one instead of spending pre-
cious time repairing it right away.
Braving the elements
To start, let’s break our network down into
four elements, as shown in Fig. 1
1. This is going to be a high-bandwidth sit-
uation for your LAN (local area network), so
using gigabit ethernet is a necessity at almost
every layer. That means putting gigabit cards
in every computer involved, a gigabit switch
or switches, and I recommend using CAT5e
for cabling.
You’ll also want a router if you have an
internet connection. The router acts as a fire-
wall between your cable or DSL modem and
your network. It goes in the last port of your
gigabit ethernet switcher.
2. DAW: the main host machine that you’re
going to use for writing and mixing, which is
where you interface to the network. This can
be a PC or Mac.
3. Server: a central node for all the files
that will be referenced over the LAN. This
could be a Mac, but in the set-up here it’s a
Windows machine.
4. Farm machines: a collection of comput-
ers that are essentially the same and are used
to run plug-ins to decrease CPU and memory
load on the host DAW. These are Windows
machines in the set-up we’re describing, for
only one reason: so far there isn’t a solid and
totally usable software program for Mac that
sends audio over ethernet (taking the place of
audio interfaces on the sending and receiving
machines).
On the PC there is: FX-Teleport, a program
that can load plug-ins over a network reliably
and efficiently. You can get it from
http://www.fx-max.com for prices ranging
from $99 for two machines to $236 for four
(with additional machines $59 each). They’ve
reportedly been working on a Mac version as
well.
If you’re already running your main DAW
on Windows and your software allows you to
 VI
f e a t u r e
selected 192.168.1.9 for the main DAW
Internet because the range of the LAN I am on is
Machine Room/Closet Studio 192.168.1.1 to 192.168.1.254; 192.168.1.1 is
reserved for the router. If you enter a number
Cable/DSL and lose your internet connection, it almost
Modem certainly means you’re using a number that’s
Monitor
out of range.
CAT 5e Cable Next, install FX-Teleport as a master on
10/100 your DAW (or middleman machine). A master
Router Router in last port means you’ll be loading remote plug ins. We
don’t need to scan for any network plug-ins
Keyboard/ yet, as we have not set up our farm
Gigabit Switch Gigabit Switch Mouse
machines.
With FX-Teleport, your latency should only
Digital Audio be double the buffer setting of the sound
Workstation card in your main DAW—which is comparable
to what it would be if you had sound cards
on both machines. If you’re running with a
F1 F2 F3 F4 F5 Server 128-sample buffer, for example, your total
ADAT
or Lightpipe should be around 256.

Middleman The server

computer This is arguably the most crucial compo-
F = Farm Computers w/Audio nent in your network, so it has to be built to
Interface be fast and reliable from the ground up. Since
the main job of the server is to share files,
and presumably you’ll be putting every sam-
ple and instrument you’ve ever come across
Fig. 1: The expandable multi-machine studio set-up. Just one CAT5e cable connects everything to the main on it, it needs a big hard drive.
DAW (unless you’re using a Mac, in which case the middleman machine acts as a “submixer” and you route In fact it needs a few big hard drives. RAID
audio to the DAW the conventional way and set up an extra computer monitor). arrays are a great way to create large amounts
of space and increase speed by spreading out
load VST plug-ins, at this point you’re golden. panel (or the Network control panel in Mac data across hard disks. There are several differ-
If you’re using Mac, you will need to add a OS X). In XP, right-click on your gigabit card ent types of RAID set-ups, but my recommen-
“middleman”—an additional Windows and select Properties, then open Internet dation is RAID 5 for added safety.
machine that sits between your DAW and the Protocol (TCP/IP). Here you can set your IP RAID 5 essentially lowers the size of your
farm. This computer loads virtual instruments address by selecting “use the following IP RAID array by one drive and allows you to
for you and acts as a large MIDI instrument address.” rebuild the RAID if one of the hard disks goes
using Music Lab’s MIDI Over LAN software Pick numbers that make sense to you, so bad. So if you have a 750GB RAID composed
(from www.musiclab.com). More about the you know how to access each machine. I of four 250GB hard drives and a head goes
middleman machine later.

IP daily
First, use the same Windows user name
and password for all of your machines on the
network. This will make access to their
resources easier.
If you read Monte McGuire’s “Lay of the
LAN” article in the 9-10/05 issue, you’ll
remember how to set the unique IP number
that identifies each machine on the network
so it doesn’t change every time you restart
your computer. The default setting is for the
computer to use a protocol called DHCP,
which automatically assigns IP numbers
sequentially to each machine that starts up
(or in some cases only remembers each
machine for a limited amount of time).
That kind of arbitrary numbering won’t
work when you need to be able to “talk” to a
specific machine on the network. To avoid
that, not only would you have to start up
your machines in the same order every time,
you’d have to shut them all down whenever
one needed restarting so you could boot
them up in the correct order.
Instead, you want to set your IPs to a static
Class C address as shown in Fig. 2. You can
set this in the Network Connections control Fig. 2: Setting up static IP addresses so each machine’s number doesn’t change arbitrarily.
 capable file server for storing and sharing all
your plug-ins and data over your LAN.

Workin’ on a plug farm

A farm machine is a computer specifically
designed to run plug-ins requested by the
DAW and loaded from the server. It should
have a fairly decent processor and a good
amount of RAM (at least 1GB), but you can
save some money here because it doesn’t
need a big hard drive—the RAID array on the
server takes care of that. I’d suggest you
install at least a 40GB hard drive to support
the OS, but these days 80GB and larger
drives cost very little more.
Make sure the farm machine is running
Windows XP Professional and not Windows
XP Home. This is important, because it allows
more network features, including Remote
Desktop, a major component of our set-up.
Here’s an interesting tip: you only need to
install FX-Teleport (slave) once. When you
install it, select your server
“\\fileserver\RAID” as the root install directo-
ry and put it into its own folder. Now to add
FX-Teleport (slave) to any new machine, just
put a shortcut to the network executable into
your startup items.
Fig. 3: The server RAID. I recommend installing most of the applica-
tions that will be used throughout the farm
on the server; it makes access simple no mat-
bad on one drive, you simply replace the bad Remote Desktop lets you operate the comput- ter which machine you’re using. It’s impor-
drive and rebuild the RAID (which can take er over the network using another machine’s tant to map the server drive to the same net-
some time). keyboard, monitor, and mouse. work drive on all of your farm machines. I use
Unless the motherboard you use supports a Now go to the Computer Name tab and R:\ as the network drive on my farm. To map
large enough RAID for what you need, you click on the Change button. Give the com- a network drive, go to an Explorer window
will probably need a RAID card. These are puter a name like “Fileserver.” After hitting and under Tools select Map Network Drive.
usually PCI cards that go in a slot in your OK and letting it restart, you have a large,
(CONTINUED ON PAGE 56)
server’s motherboard, and they’re used to
connect all the hard drives. I use the Hightech
RocketRaid 1810A to connect the SATA hard
drives on my server.
Your server is going to need to do some
heavy-duty file sharing, so it going to need an
OS that is specifically designed for that kind
of stress. Windows Server 2003 is an excellent
choice; it’s very easy to set up, and will allow
many computers to access your RAID effi-
ciently.
Once installed and your RAID is recog-
nized, you should have at least two drives on
your server—a C:\ Drive for the operating
system, and your RAID drive (which is really
an array of drives) for your plug-ins and sam-
ples. As shown in Fig. 3, go into the proper-
ties for the RAID drive and enable file sharing,
and give it a name you can remember…such
as “RAID.” Again, assign the server an IP
Address that makes sense to you; I use
192.168.1.10 (remember, .9 was the main
DAW).
Now right-click My Computer and select
Properties. We’re going to set two things in
this window.
Take a look at Fig. 4. First click on the
Remote tab and enable the check box that
says “Allow users to connect remotely to this
computer.” This enables Remote Desktop on Fig. 4: Remote Desktop, a feature in Windows XP but not Home, allows you to share a monitor, keyboard,
the server, so we can control it if we need to. and mouse over the network.
STUDIO FARMS
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All your farm computers will be loading
and scanning VSTs from a central point—the
server—so a global VST directory is necessary.
Assuming that your server has been given the
network drive R:\ you would then create a
folder R:\VSTPlugins.
From this point on, install all your VST
plug-ins into this directory and have FX-
Teleport look here for VST plug ins on each
farm machine. You now have a common net-
work point to load VSTs from, so any time a
Fig. 5: Setting Security Mode to Classic lets you make changes to the network bit router, which is
easily.
new plug is added, all of the farm machines
will see and scan the new addition.
For your samples, create a directory on the
sign to their drive letter in the network path.
For instance, I can now access the C:\ drive
on f1 simply by entering “\\f1\c$” in the
Run command. Sharing does not even need
to be enabled.
Once all the farm machines are set up and
looking at the shared VST Plug-ins directory,
you can return to the DAW. Using FX-
Teleport, you can now scan the network for
plug-ins; all of the farm machines should
return the same ones.
While this is happening it’s a good idea to
keep an eye on the farm with Remote
Desktop. To connect to a farm machine
through Remote Desktop in the Start menu,
go to All Programs->Accessories-
>Communications->Remote Desktop
Connection. Enter the name for the computer
(e.g. “F1”) and then proceed to log on to
Windows. Once all the plug-ins have been
found, add them (ADD->) to your sequencer’s
VST directory and start your DAW software.
The middleman
If you use a Mac sequencer (or a Windows
one that doesn’t support VST plug-ins), there
is another option: the middleman machine.
The idea behind this set-up is that every-
thing—the server, farm, and the middle-
man—all create one huge instrument.
You can set up the middleman machine
just as you would the DAW as described
above, however its audio will go to your main
server named R:\Samples and place all your
sample data in that folder. This once again
centralizes the data so every farm machine
can access and stream it to the currently
loaded VST. If you’re concerned about server
load, I can say that I’ve successfully streamed
samples from one server RAID to ten farm
machines at once without a glitch, all with
FX-Teleport and Remote Desktop simultane-
ously sharing the network bandwidth.
Ethernet hardware
Again, all your switches and networking
cards must be gigabit ethernet rather than
100base-T, or you may
Role name
Main DAW daw
Server fileserver
Farm 1 f1
Farm 2 f2
Farm 3,4,5... f3,4,5...
start running into bottle-
necking problems. If
you’re going to provide
access to the internet for
your network, make sure
the router is connected
to the last port in your
gigabit switcher so it
doesn’t interfere with
traffic (unless it’s a giga-
unlikely). Do not use a
10/100 router as a con-
nection point between any computers on
your gigabit LAN—it will interfere with and
slow down network traffic.
DAW (i.e. your Mac) the traditional way:
using an audio interface. It’s not necessary to
put MIDI interfaces on both machines,
though—Music Lab’s MIDI-Over-LAN (men-
tioned earlier) can send MIDI between Macs
and PCs over the network.
You’ll probably want to use audio interface
with a good number of outputs, probably 16
to be safe. I find the ADAT optical format to
be the most useful, because it uses the least
number of cables. Install XP Pro on the mid-
dleman, and use any good sequencer or host
that supports VST.
In the sequencer or host, you make a tem-
plate of all the VST instruments you want to
load over the farm and assign them to MIDI-
Over-LAN tracks. Their outputs can be sent
back out through the ADAT connection to
your main DAW.
One drawback is that you may need to start
doing some submixing inside the middleman
to accommodate the number of outputs you
have. Eight stereo channels is a good number
of splits, but you lose some of the individual
control on your main DAW’s side.
However, a major upside to doing it this
way is that it can significantly cut load time in
your main DAW. If all your instruments are
loaded remotely into a separate template,
then your sequences only need to load MIDI
tracks and host instruments and effects. You
load the template on the middleman machine
once, and unless it crashes, you won’t need
Use CAT5e cables, as this seems to result in
slightly better latency than normal CAT5.
Daisy-chaining gigabit switches to add more
ports is fine, although it can be more conven-
ient having one. 8-port switches aren’t very
expensive, and it might be a good idea to
have extra ports in case you need them.
Tips
Here are some other settings you’re going
to want to make on your slave machines:
1. Follow a sequential IP address and nam-
ing scheme for your farms. Here’s an example
of how I name and address machines on my
network.
IP address
192.168.1.9
192.168.1.10
192.168.1.11
192.168.1.12
192.168.1.13, .14, .15...
This keeps your network simple and easy to
reference and remember.
2. Make sure you enable Remote Desktop
on each machine so it is accessible over the
network.
3. Enable Classic Mode file sharing, as
shown in Fig. 5. This makes adjustments to
any drive on your network simple. Go into
Administrative Tools in the control panel and
open Local security policy. Under Local
Policies->Security Options, open Network
Access: Sharing and security model for local
accounts, and select Classic.
Now as long as all your computers have
the same user name and password, you can
access their drives simply by adding a dollar
to load those instruments over the network
on that machine again.
If you’re using a Mac as your DAW, you can
download a Remote Access client from
www.mactopia.com and control your PCs
from your Mac keyboard, monitor and
mouse. There’s also a free cross-platform pro-
gram called Synergy (http://synergy2.source-
forge.net/) that sends just the keyboard and
mouse over the network if you want to use
separate monitors.
Through the ether
The amount of information that gets
passed through the network at the speed it
does is dumbfounding. Essentially you are
going keyboard->DAW->farm->server->farm-
>DAW->monitors so quickly that it’s inaudible.
Pretty impressive stuff.
As complicated as this may sound at first,
once you grasp how it works, everything
becomes easy to access, control, and find.
Your DAW CPU load should stay significantly
lower, and every plug-in and sample will be
accessible on each farm machine…which
means faster writing and mixing with less
hassle. VI
Jesse White is a film/TV composer and audio
post engineer. He also does studio consultation
for many composers in Los Angeles. His specialty
is programming custom network scripts and
general system design.