I have just upgraded to the new mac pro using ve pro in standalone because I have a large template and work on many cues at once so its just easier to have all the sounds/samples set up in 1 standalone . I have completed 1 series working like this on my 2009 Imac and internal 7200 drive but had to set the standalone buffer size to 1024 which is not ideal . I bought the mac pro and installed 3 1gig ssd drives on a blackmagic multidock thinking I would then be able to drop the buffer size down to 256 at least . Sadly this is not the case . I am still getting major crackles at 256 and even some at 512 without that much going on . In fact just playing a fast run on a  berlinWW exp B clarinet(solo cl leg)  at 256 causes breakup. I tested this with logic , loading the same sound directly into logic and I am able to go down to 128 without issues. I have experimented with all the different combinations of thread allocation in ve pro and Kontakt and logic but it seems to make very little difference . ( for instance I have 12 cores , have tried 2 on logic , 10 on ve pro , and off on Kontact . or 2 logic 4 on kontakt and 6 on ve pro etc )

I guess the question I have is  whether the engine on the standalone not good enough to work this way and would I be better off with the server for working at lower latencies ?

I dont like using the server even decoupled because it makes life much easier just having 1 master standalone that can be updated easily just adding new midi tracks to the `Daw and for instance switching from logic to cubase as I am now ( cant stand logic X after 25 years of being a notator, logic person ) If I have to revert to an old cue from last year on logic 9 my setup will still work because all there is in logic is the midi.

I suppose there are other hosts like mainstage I could try but I really like the ve pro mixer and I am wedded to it now because this is the 3rd year of the series I am working on .

Forgot to mention that I use the IAC midi driver 

Any thoughts much appreciated

Charlie

Mac pro late 2013 osx 10.9.2 Rme  UFX fireface usb logic X 10.0.7 

It seems its actually a Kontact 5.3 issue having spoken to Orchestral tools , because it is mainly the Berlin Exp winds that cause the crackles.( they claim v5.2 is ok ) no activiity in Kontakt Disk meter but the odd spike in cpu .

Having said that sounds like you are right about cubase and windows , goddamit . Wish I had known before buying the mac . 

+1 for cubase , I agree 100% . Apple have screwed up logic x , cant stand to even look at it after 30 years . Have started on cubase  which is not a massive learning curve and will switch despite being mid series. However that doesnt help my crackle issues because I am only using the daw for midi .

The reason I use standalone is so that I can route all the outputs via adat to another computer which runs protools . It is like having a virtual mixing desk . I can then just press record in protools and all my midi is stemmed in one pass ready for mixing . The beatuy is then I can mix a whole tv episode or movie in one protools session and the cues only have to be mixed once moreor less in terms of applying plug ins etc . ie The celeste always comes out of the same audio chanel rather than loading a seperate logic song for each cue and having to reapply settings. When you have to mix 30/40 cues per episdode evry two weeks it all helps . Mixing that anount of midi in logic can take forever.

I could work in server mode and reroute everything back to logic and then out again but its more messy ( especially the way logics mixer now works) . In terms of workflow I seemed to have found the culprit in Berlin winds exp so as long as I use them sparingly until Kontakt is fixed  all is well and I can have a massive template at 256 with no issues. Having said that , seems like a pc with cubase is the way to go .

great news! so you use cubase with ve pro ensemble standalone and iac ports? how many instances do you manage to run and what is your memory footprint?

Actually I haven't made complete switch yet and I'm using Logic 10.0 .7 but just for MIDI so it shouldn't make any difference Cubase or not. I have 32 GB of RAM loaded so far in vepro standalone in one computer at 256 buffer with about 20 kontakts and a few Vienna instruments .

I would be interested to know if there is an alternative to IAC bus that has less latency or jitter ( apart from Ve pros own midi input which is only for server use)