Originally Posted by: Seventh Sam

Originally Posted by: DANIELE-ES

2 - VST3 midi routing is buggy too on Reaper, if I try to route midi and audio on the same track by activating "Feedback Routing". I cannot use two tracks for every instrument in my template (one for MIDI and one for Audio), it would be too messy, a huge workflow worsening.

But that's the point of feedback routing: you only need one track per instrument.  Each track takes in MIDI and then outputs audio.  Furthermore, they can be frozen/unfrozen individually.  Did you check the other thread and try setting it up as explained there?

- Sam

EDIT: Link to thread - check the last post

Yes Sam, I already did it, I know how to do it.

The problem is that the first track doesn't send midi to the main plugin, I analyzed a bit more the problem and I found this...

I send every track to a reverb track and a sub-master track, if I mute this sends then the second track doesn't send midi and so on, there's always a track that doesn't work. If I follow the procedure on a clean project by sending only midi to main plugin and receive audio from main plugin then everything works fine.

Maybe there's something that Reaper do with multiple sends, I only sends audio to reverb track and sub-master obviously but this in some way conflicts with midi sending to VEP.

Originally Posted by: DANIELE-ES

Ok, I found out that with feedback routing enabled if I send tracks to another track and not directly to the mixer, one of the tracks doesn't sound and doesn't send midi signal to VEP7. With feedback routing disabled everything works, but obviously you don't hear any sound.

If I'm understanding you correctly, what you're saying is that feedback routing is not working when the individual tracks are routed to BOTH the VEP plugin track AND other tracks (reverb buses, submixes, etc.)

I created a test project where I routed three tracks' MIDI output to a submix track, then routed everything from the submix track to the VEP instance track.  Then, I routed the audio from the VEP instance track back to the three individual tracks using the feedback routing procedure.  Finally, I routed the audio output of those individual tracks to both the master track AND a reverb bus (which then routed to the master as well).  Everything worked fine - I tried muting different things, freezing tracks, etc.  No problems.

I've attached screenshots of the exact settings, ports, sends etc. that I used to create this set-up.  Hopefully this can help you sort out whatever's bugging out on you.  I do apologize if I've misunderstood your set-up in any way.

Overall Project Layout

Routing for Track 1: VEP Instance

Routing for Track 2: SUB-MASTER

Routing for Track 3: MIDI 1

Routing for Track 4: MIDI 2

Routing for Track 5: MIDI 3

Routing for Track 6: VERB BUS

Peace,

- Sam

Originally Posted by: DANIELE-ES

I routed MIDI from single tracks to VEP track, then I routed audio from VEP to single tracks using feedback routing, in the end I routed the audio from single tracks to a bus track and if you'll do the same you will experience the same issue.

Okay, I did the same set up:

• Individual instrument tracks routing MIDI to a track containing VEP instance.
• VEP track routing audio back to individual instrument tracks.
• Individual instrument tracks routing that audio to different BUS tracks, depending on instrument group.
• Only the BUS tracks routing to master, every other track has "Master send" disabled.

Worked perfectly, no problems.  However, taking a look at your post on the Reaper forum, I think I see what's going wrong: you're using the Event Input plugin!  That plugin is buggy as f*ck and isn't necessary for work with VEP7 in REAPER at all to achieve what you want.  Try setting up the routing without that plug-in and, crossing fingers, it should work!

Here's a screenshot of the set-up for what I detailed above:

Routing Set-up

I hope that helps!

- Sam

Originally Posted by: DANIELE-ES

Take tracks 8 and 9 in your setup and put them at position 1 and 2. If I put my BUS track as last track it works, put them before VEP plugin track and you will see magic happens.

Aha.  Now the magic is happening.

I played around with it some, and got some interesting results:

• If the instrument tracks were routed via sends to the instrument bus track, then the bus track would not work if it was placed above/before the VEP track.
• However, if the instrument tracks were children and the bus track was a folder instead, all of them except the first track in the folder would work, even if the folder was placed before/above the VEP instance.

....?????....

Have you reported this bug to the REAPER devs?

Even with this strange behavior, it seems to me your problem working with VEP7 is solved!  Just put all the VEP instance tracks at the top of your project and hide them if they're cluttering up your workflow.  :)

I'm glad you brought this to everyone's attention; now I know to put my VEP tracks at the top to avoid this strange behavior.

- Sam

Ehi Sam, one of the Devs helped me to find a simple solution until the fix this. They could do it for Reaper V6, so in the mean time without moving any track it is enough to send from the main plugin track to the bus track, you could send nothing by putting audio and midi to "none". This little trick does the job.

I tried yesterday.

I'd like to ask you a question, do you have bad performances using feedback routing?

Because in general devs say that using it could result in heavier cpu load.

Originally Posted by: Seventh Sam

So by sending nothing, you end up sending everything? Lol what a strange fix, but hey, if it works :) I stress tested using feedback routing on my single machine setup using 40 vipro instances all running through mir, several CPU hungry guitar vsts double tracked to separate amp sims, 5 instances of massive on ultra settings, 20 kontakt instruments (mainly chris hein horns, session horns pro and discovery series) and the garritan cfx on full settings playing something like 50 notes at a time with the sustain pedal. All of them were routed (in vipro) to illusion, a fusion ir that takes a fair amount of CPU. I loaded each midi track with as many notes and keyswitches as I could fit in. On a single machine, 4.5ghz quad core processor, at 128 buffer I got a few clicks here and there but nothing ultra distracting. At 512 buffer the clicks disappeared completely. I should also mention I have a very entry level audio interface. I don't know how this compares to your template and hardware, but I hope it helps. VEP is just amazing, even on a single machine setup. EDIT: It also occurs to me that if feedback routing does indeed increase CPU load, then the very thing it enables you to do - freeze individual tracks - can be done to decrease CPU load! Win win :)

It is not a fix, it is a trick to use while we are waiting for a real fix, but I think that doing an empty routing it shouldn't cost so much to apply.

I have an 8 core CPU (16 threads) with 64 GB of ram so this sounds great. I use a lot of automations so I'm keeping buffer size at 512 and I was starting to have some UI lags with big projects, this is why I'm trying to move the CPU load from Reaper to VEP.

Well, it seems that it works great, so I think I shouldn't have performance problems using feedback routing with my configuration. I don't like to freeze tracks because while I'm composing I keep editing tracks many times so for me it would be a continuous freeze/unfreeze process.

Originally Posted by: Seventh Sam

Yeah, with 8 core you should be sailing.  Both REAPER and VEP are good multi-threaders.  Then again, I have no idea how big your projects are, what your OS is and how it's optimized, etc.  So, no way to tell for sure unless you test yourself I guess...

That said, feedback routing increases CPU load in REAPER, yes, but the great thing about VEP is that it's offloading the CPU load of the actual sample processing from REAPER to VEP.  Whatever CPU hit REAPER is taking from feedback routing is going to be a drop in the bucket compared to what it would be if you were doing everything in REAPER.

I did a stress test before I knew about feedback routing as well.  It wasn't exactly the same set up, but it was very close.  I noticed the exact same behavior - a few clicks at 128, and nothing at 512.  In short, I don't think feedback routing changed much of anything, or even at all. 

I did some test some time ago and I didn't notice any differences in playing some tracks at once with kontakt instances tracks and with midi routing tracks with feedback routing enabled.

I'm on Windows 10, not really optimized but it is a pretty fast computer and I'm planning on upgrading the CPU for a 12 or 14 core.

About the project you could think of a pretty standard big orchestra enviroment, with single instruments for brass and woodwinds and solos and sections for strings. Then I could add some percussions and/or synths.

Since I'm going to use more and more libraries with a modeling approach I have to use many automations for every instrument (dynamics, vibrato, breath noise, bow position, bow pressure and so on...) and this is where the project is going to be heavier.

I think feedback routing could start to ask a lot of CPU when used in combination with many FXs and complex routing. The configuration where we are going to use it is pretty linear and simple.

Damn, man, I'm sorry this is giving you so much trouble!  I wish I could be of more help...

I did a test run.  I loaded up 40 instances of a variety of kontakt instruments in VEP (no MIR enabled) all routed and playing a bunch of random midi notes.  I then made another project where I had the exact same midi, exact same kontakt instruments, exact same order, except that I had them all loaded on each individual track, no VEP.

Using VEP, my idling RT CPU was 5%

Without VEP, my idling RT CPU was 18%

So...I have no idea wtf is going on on your end, I'm afraid to say.  All I can really offer are screencaps of my REAPER settings and a link to the guide I followed for optimizing Windows 10 for audio.

60% idling makes me think there's some bug or compatability issue or weird under-the-hood thing going on.  Hopefully something in my settings will present a solution.  If I think of anything, I'll let you know ASAP.

Other than that...best of luck :/  I'm sorry it's not working out for you.

I agree, the tool (VEP) is supposed to help and make things go more smoothly.  If - for whatever reason - it's not doing that, then it's not the right tool.  You've certainly been giving it more than a fair shot with all the work you've put into it!

- Sam

Originally Posted by: DANIELE-ES

There's something wrong I don't catch. Did you have some busses in the test you did?

I fired up a new test project.  Set up a VEP instance of 16 kontakts all playing a bunch of MIDI nonsense, feedback routed, etc. and this time splitting their output into two separate buses.  Tracks 1-8 went to BUS 1, while 9-16 went to BUS 2.  The RT CPU was consistently idling around 2-3% and at 7% during playback.

Then I set up 16 tracks of individual kontakt instances playing the exact same MIDI, but no VEP, feedback routing, etc.  Same bussing set-up.  With this, the RT CPU idled around 5% and went to 10% during playback.

I'm stumped, dude.  I tried moving the BUSES around, disabling feedback routing, etc.  All my results were consistent - the VEP set-up, even with feedback routing, was more CPU efficient, RT and non-RT, than the non-VEP set-up.

I don't know if it's going to be any help, but I've attached the project file.

At this point, I'm pretty convinced there's something in your project itself that's causing an issue.  I know it's a huge PITA, but have you tried just setting up a big (or semi-big) template using VEP and feedback routing the way you normally would for a project?  Have you seen if this RT CPU strangeness is happening with other projects of yours?  It could just be that you're mixing older settings with newer technology and there are compatability issues.  I could, of course, have no idea what I'm talking about, but it's worth a shot.

I do hope this works out...

- Sam

EDIT:  My VEP buffer is set at 2, fwiw and latency is 128 on my audio interface

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Okay, did a bunch of testing using the modified project you uploaded (helping_daniele1.rar).  I included a bunch of screenshots just to make absolutely sure that we're testing the same thing.  I've circled and highlighted all relevant data.  I also added a bunch of nonsense MIDI to all the tracks to give the CPU something to crunch on.

Originally Posted by: DANIELE-ES

In your project, the updated version (but the same would be with the original one) if I disable feedback routing I get a RT at 0%, if I enable it I get a RT at 12-13%. Not too much in general but too much if you think about bigger templates.

Using exactly the settings you uploaded:

With feedback routing enabled:

• RT CPU was 5.4% while idling. Screenshot
• RT CPU was 10.5% during playback. Screenshot

With feedback routing disabled:

• RT CPU was 4.9% while idling. Screenshot.
• RT CPU was 8.2% during playback.  No screenshot here since it would be redundant.

Originally Posted by: DANIELE-ES

this is because even if I put offline my FXs sends remain active and there is where the problem is.

With the VEP FX instances bypassed but the sends still active:

• RT CPU was 2.3% while idling. Screenshot

Originally Posted by: DANIELE-ES

...If I mute my tracks I see a big improvement...

...if I disable it or if I delete all sends RT drop down from 50-60% to 10%...

With the FX online, but all instrument tracks muted and all sends bypassed:

• RT CPU was 4.5% while idling. Screenshot

And just to be thorough, here is a screenshot of the VEP7 window with the instances.  They're all active and duplicates of each other, and you can see in the second screenshot I uploaded that they are all playing as they should.  

Originally Posted by: DANIELE-ES

This is not a VSL fault obviously but untill the Reaper Devs will go to work on this (and who knows when) VEP is useless in these conditions.

Except, for whatever head-scratching reason, it's not useless on my machine.  Using the exact project you uploaded, I get completely different RT CPU readouts (as you can see in the screenshots), none of which even get to the 12-13% you're getting while idling even during playback, despite you having a faster CPU (and all these tests were done with a bunch of other apps running in the background).  For you, disabling the sends dramatically increases performance, but for me, it's the opposite.  For you, disabling the FX doesn't do much of anything, but for me, that (logically) reduces the CPU overhead.

WTF?!?!?!??!

This absolutely convinces me that there is something specific to your set-up/hardware/whatever that's making feedback routing buggy and CPU intensive.  You're right, the REAPER devs should know about this; thank you for alerting them.  

I did think of one thing that might help:

Did you test to see if youre CPU is actually multi-threading?  Using CoreTemp I monitored the idling CPU usage to make sure all threads were being utilized.  Screenshot.  If only one core is actually being utilized, the issues you're experiencing would make a lot more sense.  Worth a check, I think...

I'm afraid that's the best I can offer...if I think of anything else I'll let you know.

- Sam