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  • Dropped and stuck notes - VE PRO and Event Input with Master and Slave

    Got an issue of losing and stuck MIDI notes using VEPRO and master and slave machines.

    The issue of stuck or dropped notes.

    KEY POINTS:

    1. It only happens with the Vienna Ensemble Pro Event Input plug-in, the one that gives you additional MIDI ports within a single VE Pro instance.

    2. I create a VE Pro instance in DP and connect it to a server.  No Problem.  But when you create an Event Input and assign it to that same server you may see the problem.

    3. If I have a DP file with only one VE Pro instance and a couple of Event Inputs in a V-Rack there will be no lost notes.  But my current setup has about 10 VE Pro instances and about 12 Event Inputs in a V-Rack and this makes it more likely to happen.  It doesn't happen in any predictable way, though.  I may lose one out of every eight notes I play, or one out of 15.  Also when I reduced the number of Audio and MIDI connections in VE Pro from 8 to 6 the problem lessened.

    4. If in DP I create a new VE Pro instance instead of an Event Input, and create a corresponding new instance on the slave then the problem is eliminated.  I get all the same sounds and MIDI info but no lost notes. However you are loading up your server with a lot of instances - maybe 10 instead of 4 - and Vienna says in its manual that one should use the minimum number of instances. But  this solves the problem though clearly this is not the solution Vienna intends or they wouldn't make the Event Input available.

    What to be done?


  • The only solution we found to get rid of the stuck and drop notes while using DP8.01 and 7.24 was to eliminate all Event Input plugs from our template. Immediately the problems ceased. So sad. Now we are to tons of instantiations which bloats everything. I still have hope they will find the cause and fix, but for now, no event input plugs for us.

  • Thanks for your input. I also have found that to be the work around and it is clumsy. It is very helpful to have you confirm this approach. I am testing some things - like conflicts with software and all that stuff - if I find anything I will post it. Thanks again much appreciated.


  • Very welcome. Karel and Mateuz helped us step through this issue, but they could not seem to duplicate it on there end. But just to confirm. I know other scoring folks who have the same issues, and are forced to eliminate all Event INput plugs, so I know it isnt isolated to us.

  • What is the routing of your Event plugins? I always make sure the Event outputs are routed to the same output as the VE Pro plugin. Since I did this, I didn't have any stuck notes. 

    Can't say if this solves your issue. I route the VE plugs to a busses for realtime record. Offline bouncing doesn't work with the Event plugings.

    Good luck!


  • Hello Lennert. I 'think' the answer to your question for us here is 'yes'. But perhaps you can describe in a different way with 'how-to's' or 'step by step example' of what you were doing before , and what you changed to in this statement??? ("Event outputs are routed to the same output as the VE Pro plugin.")

  • Hi Labman, I'll try to explain how I work.

    In my V-Rack, I have one main VE Pro routed to a bus (aux) 'stem 1'. The other outputs of VE Pro go to busses 'stem 2, stem 3'... etc). In my 'Tracks' I have all these stems as audio tracks to record them all in one pass.

    These audio tracks go to a main 'Music' bus.  

    For the two Event plugins that I use, I created a new V-Rack. Just to have them out of sight, since there's no audio going through them.

    The outputs for the Event plugins go to 'stem 1'. The same as the VE Pro plugin. 

    That's about it. I hope it's clear enough. Have a look if it works for you. 

    I've been working all day today with DP8.01, VE Pro + Event plugs. No stuck notes. 


  • Thank you for your details. We shall check it out. We do not use V-racks as we are generally one chunk per score. Our VEP returns hit auxes which then go to their respective roles... orch bus, rhythm bus etc. We were using 11 event plugs to the one slave I believe. I wonder if the amount makes a difference.

  • I have a V Rack. I might have up to 12 VE PRO ENS instances and up to 10 Event Inputs. All MIDI at least until the audio return from the slave. It does eem to be the more load applied the error of dropped and missing notes appears.

    I am starting to look at the best Preference settings - like thread count and also the audio and latency settings. But also I wonder if the MIDI preference in VE PRO ENS that set Smoothing and Rounding might be getting some MIDI sync information from the master workstation DAW (In my case Digital performer) and putting things off - so I will try these two MIDI preference settings deactivated.

    Any thoughts?


  • we did indeed try tweaking our Macpro slave thread prefs etc, to no avail. I will be interested in seeing how your tests make out on your rigs.

  • Further to this issue:

    !! And all this only ocurrs if Event Input is the VE PRO chosen MIDI input method !!

    I am using Altiverb on a Mac in Digital Performer and the Digital Performer is the master system connected using Vienna Instruments Vienna Ensemble PRO to a slave Mac Mini running instrument sounds.

    I run Altiverb in a V-Rack in Digital Performer on an AUX channel insert across audio that is coming back from the Mac Mini via VE PRO.

    My problem is that I am experiencing dropped and hung MIDI notes on my VE PRO instruments but only when Altiverb is the chosen plugin on the AUX channel in Digital Performer. If I use another reverb plugin the problem goes away.

    The problem also goes away if I turn of automatic delay compensation if Digital Performer.

    !! And all this only ocurrs if Event Input is the VE PRO chosen MIDI input method !!

    So is it delay compensation bug between Evernt Input and what..?

    Dean


  • "The problem also goes away if I turn of automatic delay compensation if Digital Performer. !! And all this only ocurrs if Event Input is the VE PRO chosen MIDI input method !!" Hey Karel. Now there is something we never considered. CAn you look into that relationship please?

  • There has been a suggestion from Altiverb that the problem might be due to an Altiverb bug involving tempo changes in the sequence affecting Altiverb. I have seen this with delays but never reverbs. I am going to try to test it.


  • I'm having the same issue. DP 7.24, and DP 8. VE-Event Input Channels. But only the VE-Event input for my second instance of VE-PRO, which houses all my Vienna Instruments. Not sure if the "second instance" or the "VSL" is the issue. Mac Pro 12 core host, PC 4-core slave. Did anyone experience this issue with previous updates of VE-PRO before the 5.1.12010 release? I don't recall that I did.

  • I found a sorta quick fix for this when I experience it..  (it only happens every once in awhile with sessions.. kinda like a corrupted file case)

    (I use DP 7.24 btw)

    This is what I do:

    Double click the Event Input

    In the drop down menu where you can choose a different plug in --> Select "None"

    Then in the same drop down menu, re-select "VSL Event Input"

    Re-assign the midi channel and to the correct instance.

    BOOM! back to normal.  Kept all the midi routings too!

    Works for me.... hope maybe it works for you other folks!  Takes only about 10 seconds to do..


  • Just for the record I also have this. I'm building a new template with DP7.24 /8.01 and VL EP with 30 event inputs and I get loads of this. Only on the event input tracks when I have lots of them active. Midi over lan and external midi is a solution but the latency is horrible.


  • Actually this is all coming back to me now. I tried this when event input first came out and had the same problem with large numbers of event inputs. The only alternative is using midi over lan and external midi in VSL EP. The latency is horrible but you can insert a midi track plugin in DP called time shift and offset everything early by the same number of samples as the latency. Not perfect but it works. The logic environment layer solution apparently works really well and Cubase uses vst3 so doesn't have the problem so its just Pro Tools and us DP people out here!

    We need VST3 support in DP then we'd be sorted. 


  • It works!

    As an earlier poster said you turn off plugin delay compensation in DP (setup>configure audio system >configure studio settings and uncheck Automatic plug in delay compensation) 

    Also you have to set the system to run all plugins in real time and turn off pregen in the preferences.

    Then it works. You still get latency from the VSL EP system depending on the number of buffers. I'm getting 1200 samples with 2 buffers run on a macbook pro. But that's still a ton better than using external midi. Still working on the finer details of this but this is the first time I've got the thing up and running and I'm using 25 event input plugins, 250 midi tracks on a Macbook pro.


  • Turning off delay compensation in DP8 is a non-option for most of us. Our engineers would kill us with the chaos it would cause to their mixes ! :)

  •  I'm actually trying Event Input for the first time. Decided to try streamlining my main template, going from running several parallel VEP instances to two or maybe three at the most. I'm on Cubase 7.

    Very first Event Input I create, and assign to a not too complex VEP instance running about 10 Kontakt libraries, and it drops/skips notes, some get stuck, etc. Everything worked perfectly as independent VEP instances running on the VEP x64 server and Cubase. I'm puzzled, and glad I found other people reporting the same, and not on Cubase. So must be something on the VEP side, no? For the record, I don't have any latency compensation enabled on Cubase.