Hey guys! Thinking of moving my nebula temprep folder to another drive partition. Is there a way to do this within the settings file so that i can relocate the folder without nebula losing the paths? Thanks so much in advance

 

Never done it myself so not 100% but first things I guess to maybe try is open nebula server64 XMl & other various XML in Root folder with say wordpad and there is a datapath listed there - Change this manually to new location & scan etc.
Outside changing datapath on XMl etc on PC say navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Acusticaudio\Nebula and change location of SUPPDIR reg key to new location.
As I said not 100 percent but worth a try & you can always make a backup etc.
Good luck

 

Curious about this myself. Plan on moving Nebula temprepository from my 250 GB SSD to my 1 TB Data drive. I'm hoping it won't slow load times too drastically which was why I put it on the SSD to begin with.
Please post back if you find a successful method.

 

Actually looked into it as was interested myself & it was a little more complicated than I thought but similar. Basically it is real important that INIT.N2P and INIT.N2V are not deleted or moved from original location after install.

You CAN'T delete Vector and Program folders where nebula is installed as datapath in xml points to them and can't be modified.

Nebula won't work, GUI be messed up & most likely your DAW will Crash when you open nebula if you move those

Therefore if you install on C Drive then INIT.N2P and INIT.N2V must remain in that location in the appropriate folders

Outside that everything else can go but rather than change the datapath in the xml you have to list ALTERNATIVE datapaths for your libraries and everything else can be then shipped onto external -

Open XML with notepad & modify along lines of

<DATAPATH> /Library/Audio/Presets/AcusticaAudio/Nebula3/ </DATAPATH>
<ALTERNATIVEDATAPATH> /Volumes/New hdd/nebulapro/HO/ </ALTERNATIVEDATAPATH>
<ALTERNATIVEDATAPATH> /Volumes/New hdd/nebulapro/Div/ </ALTERNATIVEDATAPATH>
<ALTERNATIVEDATAPATH> /Volumes/New hdd/nebulapro/AlexB/ </ALTERNATIVEDATAPATH>
<ALTERNATIVEDATAPATH> /Volumes/New hdd/nebulapro/cdsoundmasters/ </ALTERNATIVEDATAPATH>
<ALTERNATIVEDATAPATH> /Volumes/New hdd/nebulapro/genelennon/ </ALTERNATIVEDATAPATH>
<ALTERNATIVEDATAPATH> /Volumes/New hdd/nebulapro/timp/ </ALTERNATIVEDATAPATH>
<ALTERNATIVEDATAPATH> /Volumes/New hdd/nebulapro/stn/ </ALTERNATIVEDATAPATH>
<PROGRAMSUBPATH> Programs/ </PROGRAMSUBPATH>

List should reflect libraries & drive etc.

Works then no problems

So all in all a bit more complicated but if people not familiar with say editing the XML then look into it because there is a hell of a lot of other useful stuff you can do by editing XML with regards to say library structure, how libraries are listed, organised & displayed and many other useful things.

Deffo take a look at it if you haven't already

 

@Kloud, many thanks for the instructions! I'm unfortunately going to be forced into doing something like this soon, I am sure, as space on a system drive is ever shrinking. Either that or bite the bullet and migrate to a larger SSD for the system drive.

Looking at your pathing statements, I see you are on MAC OS. I hope that this is similar on Windows (understanding that the paths would differ).

I first realized I was going to have this sort of problem when I built my music PC (Windows 7) and migrated the Nebula directory from my wife's laptop where I was testing to the music PC. I was trying to save myself the effort of reloading each and every Nebula preset I was using. I actually had to mirror her account in order for Nebula to be able to load the presets. That was the easiest solution, as I recall. I did it this way in order for there to be no differences so that existing projects would load correctly. In hindsight, I should have just re-installed everything (Nebula and presets) from scratch and started with a clean slate, and rebuilt any Nebula instances I was using.

I will look into the XML. I've been toying with the idea of trying the timed kernel mode settings next. Had been waiting to get close to the end in the current project I'm mixing (due to CPU hit). My understanding is that the timed mode really gets your depth closer to the hardware. I am interested in this, because depth was something I had been struggling with until I moved all 2 bus duties to a hardware chain. If I can get some of that from the tracks themselves, then it's a simple matter of unfreeze/re-freeze to get the advantages of timed mode.

 

Yeah sounds interesting for sure with some of the stuff you have planned
I am by no means anywhere near well versed with Nebula and still have loads to learn about using it
There is a lot of stuff you can do say with library order, naming and all sorts of other bits that I didn't really know much about.
As for the technical side well I guess I understand the basics but I could definitely do with going much deeper.
Luckily my repository is only around 40GB which by no means very big. It has some really cool & useful tools though.
I use Nebula 3 server though I'm toying with the idea of upgrading pretty soon to Nebula 4 as it looks absolutely awesome. Looks like a huge upgrade I reckon. GUI looks amazing and you also get a couple of plugins chucked in I think if you upgrade so I reckon it gotta be done real soon.

The paths for windows similar but paths are more dependent say on the drive used to store repository
There some info on it on a few sites scattered around ie for windows

so for example the ALTERNATIVEDATAPATH directs you as towards the drive used i.e in this example hard-drive used called - New hdd

<DATAPATH> /Library/Audio/Presets/AcusticaAudio/Nebula3/ </DATAPATH>
<ALTERNATIVEDATAPATH> /Volumes/New hdd/nebulapro/HO/ </ALTERNATIVEDATAPATH>
<ALTERNATIVEDATAPATH> /Volumes/New hdd/nebulapro/Div/ </ALTERNATIVEDATAPATH>
<ALTERNATIVEDATAPATH> /Volumes/New hdd/nebulapro/AlexB/ </ALTERNATIVEDATAPATH>
<ALTERNATIVEDATAPATH> /Volumes/New hdd/nebulapro/cdsoundmasters/ </ALTERNATIVEDATAPATH>
<ALTERNATIVEDATAPATH> /Volumes/New hdd/nebulapro/genelennon/ </ALTERNATIVEDATAPATH>
<ALTERNATIVEDATAPATH> /Volumes/New hdd/nebulapro/timp/ </ALTERNATIVEDATAPATH>
<ALTERNATIVEDATAPATH> /Volumes/New hdd/nebulapro/stn/ </ALTERNATIVEDATAPATH>
<PROGRAMSUBPATH> Programs/ </PROGRAMSUBPATH>

so for example the ALTERNATIVEDATAPATH directs you as towards the drive used - Therefore say we buy a ssd crucial 525GB drive

called Crucial 525GB ssd

<DATAPATH> /Library/Audio/Presets/AcusticaAudio/Nebula3/ </DATAPATH>
<ALTERNATIVEDATAPATH> /Volumes/Crucial 525GB ssd/nebulapro/HO/ </ALTERNATIVEDATAPATH>
<ALTERNATIVEDATAPATH> /Volumes/Crucial 525GB ssd/nebulapro/Div/ </ALTERNATIVEDATAPATH>
<ALTERNATIVEDATAPATH> /Volumes/Crucial 525GB ssd/nebulapro/AlexB/ </ALTERNATIVEDATAPATH>
<ALTERNATIVEDATAPATH> /Volumes/Crucial 525GB ssd/nebulapro/cdsoundmasters/ </ALTERNATIVEDATAPATH>
<ALTERNATIVEDATAPATH> /Volumes/Crucial 525GB ssd/nebulapro/genelennon/ </ALTERNATIVEDATAPATH>
<ALTERNATIVEDATAPATH> /Volumes/Crucial 525GB ssd/nebulapro/timp/ </ALTERNATIVEDATAPATH>
<ALTERNATIVEDATAPATH> /Volumes/Crucial 525GB ssd/nebulapro/stn/ </ALTERNATIVEDATAPATH>
<PROGRAMSUBPATH> Programs/ </PROGRAMSUBPATH>


That's sort of the idea behind it & the way it goes. As for your situation it could be possible to install everything from scratch say if of course you have the libraries backed up. I know some people chuck the libraries even once they turned into Vectors & Programs to save HDD space. Repositories can get enormous in size though I tend to be real selectective for that very reason.

In all honesty i'm not to sure either how disk transfer speed effects Nebula itself & performance.
It would be cool if someone could validate or explain. My instincts are that disk transfer speed will affect say library loading times but not performance itself say when the program & vector etc actually loaded.
I couldn't say whether there also any disc streaming on the fly or say even DFD usage like with Kontakt that affects performance. I'm guessing that once loaded there is no disc streaming etc or anything like that occurring that can affect performance but in all honesty I couldn't say.

As I mentioned my knowledge wrt Nebula is functional & basic at best
many people use nebula in Timed Kernel mode exclusively claiming "superior performance" or effect on sound.
However as you mention there is a price to pay in that it hit's CPU & processing big time.
You get a big cpu hit & spikes sometimes but Nebula like that in general.
I've even read about people going beyond the standard 10ms say regarding to XML
One thing that someone recommended was to open XML file of the libraries you want to use in timed mode
Then change TIMED -> 5500000 and FREQ -> 5500000.
This basically enables you to go beyond 10ms as in standard regular timed mode.
In this case freezing will help but there are claims of superior sonic character
Some people say go mess with Kernels etc while others recommend that you leave them well alone.
My way of thinking is that you gotta experiment. I think at the end of the day it comes down to 10 kernels being your maximum.
Also can vary wrt on the program itself as to how many kernels. Could only have five. Personally I reckon you gotta experiment deeply with Timed Kernel Mode and the results are normally along the lines of certain libraries due to the way they are developed sound MUCH better when using timed kernel mode. However the cost as usual -> Huge CPU usage. Other libraries do not benefit from using timed kernel mode and say utilisation & function on those libraries can result in simply wasting a huge amount of processing & CPU by utilising that mode with NO apparent effect on sound.Think basically it depends on the library itself and for me experimentation definitely the way to go.

It can obviously get way deep also but I reckon you gotta mess with these settings and see what happens

 

Absolutely! Once I get this set up. I may be able to script turning Timed mode on/off depending if I'm mixing or bouncing. Really, the effort I go to will depend entirely on the results of my initial experimentation.

I don't believe moving the libraries will affect anything other than load times. This is not said with any absolute knowledge, however. Just my gut feeling based on what little I do understand about it.

Nebula 4 should be a real game changer as far as compression libraries goes. My understanding is that the new engine (Core 9?) is supposed to handle compression much more realistically.

Personally, I turned away from Nebula compression after I discovered that it wasn't doing what I felt it should. Instead, I'll run an algorithmic compressor, an emulation, then one of the Henry Olonga Mojo presets afterward to impart the vibe of the same equipment that was emulated without compression. The two combined work pretty well.

 

Yes, as others have said, it's relatively simple by Nebula standards, get a xml editor for editing the file (recommended by acustica) and your good to go. Done it myself a few times as my library has kept needing bigger drives added over time.
Hoping N4 will be a lot more simple to setup and customise, just avoiding installing yet as it will be a job that needs doing again once I've put a Rayzen system together for it..

 

Last edited: Mar 31, 2017

The latest release of N4 has directly implemented a setting menu in the gui where you can enter the path of your libs like on the screenshot bellow

Also in the latest N4 release you can load your own acqua plugs in Nebula (apparently it's not stable yet, I haven't tried this specific feature, for now I use my acqua plugs in vst))...It's N4 Win VST2 1.0.015.0 Rel J (EXPERIMENTAL Settings On), the latest build.

Also free for owners of N4 a new compressor that only works with N4 has just been released, it's called Violet, it's an "emulation" of the phoenix compressor (mastering comp by thermionic culture) a valve vari MU compressor and it's bloody awesome (perfect for the master, glue things incredibely, it can be extremely transparent and yet very effective, the preamp is top notch too). It comes in the form of three expansions for Nebula, the comp, the preamp and the comp plus the preamp.

Details from acustica website :

*We offer for FREE to all N4 customers new impressive commercial libraries, this pack

includes:

-VIOLET COMPRESSOR (N3 compressor library, single istance)



-VIOLET PREAMP (N3 preamp library, single istance)



-VIOLET ACQUA LIBRARY (pre + comp, 2 istances)



VIOLET COMPRESSOR & VIOLET PREAMP use the same .AUT of N4

Like ROSE we decided to give to all N4 owner also the VIOLET COMPRESSOR - ACQUA LIBRARY version (the best emulation by Acustica characterized by new gorgeus N4 skin).


The acqua library version of Violet WORKS ONLY if loaded by Nebula, this isn't a standard standalone Acqua Plugin.
In order to authorise this version of Violet you can:
-Use Aquarius: the Violet plug-in will appear in the list of plugins installed in your system, click on Authorize button, on the right of Violet thumbnail.
-Authorize it manually: coping the N4.AUT file inside your Nebula temp repository in the current path: "../Nebula4TempRepository/AcquaPlugins/"


All versions include in only one installer called N4 Library WIN VIOLET, you can find it in N4 folder on BOX.