If you are used to a workflow without VE, have no lacks and are happy like that, stay away from it : indeed it's a layer of complexity slowing the workflow, and there are bugs not fixed (developpers are on Synchron Player...), lags, crashes for some people...

Yep I also use VEP6 with cubase 9.5 on a single machine. I went without doing this for years thinking "Why would you do that?" I owned VEP5 but never used it. But after reading others' posts on the subject and finally making the effort to move in that direction I'm very happy that I did.

I find (for myself) that if vastly simplifies the large template approach, and I feel (again for myself) that having the instruments and their plugins all hosted in a separate entity makes cubase itself run smoother as it's got so much less to do. Separating the 'audio sources' from the sequencer also is a little easier for my brain to understand in the middle of a big project too, and it's a bit reminiscent of working with racks of kit when we still had tape.

Broadly my arrangement is separate VEP instances for instrument sections (dead easy with VEP6) - bussed out to Cubase as stems, with instrument specific effects plugins either as inserts on VEP or aux busses inside VEP - and then traditional aux busses for reverb, parallel processing etc.. in Cubase.

So my cubase sessions really only consist of:

Lots and lots of midi channels; no VST instruments at all- only VST racks that are routed to VEP server instances; seven assignable FX aux returns; stem groups for mixing with VCA's attached to each. I also add Britson channel (very light processing and quick trim and EQ) to each stem group for extra level trimming, so I don't have all my faders in wacky positions.

When I render a midi track to audio the routing automatically stays the same in cubase so I also retain my stems in the correct places in the mix as sub-busses.

The main disadvantage I can think of is that when I want to make a change to an instrument in VEP I have to select it effectively twice - once in VEP and then go and find it in Cubase - and whilst I may actually have a methodical approach to where all the tracks are and the routing, sometimes that can be a bit of a nuisance. But on balance the up-sides outweigh such a negative.

Originally Posted by: nicola74

Originally Posted by: Richard Ford

....oh and I forgot to mention (probably touched on elsewhere) that MIR Pro only works to its full potential in VEPro - so I would also have as one of my Cubase aux busses MIRacle as VSL recommend.

Couldd you explain this, please?
What MIRX can do only in VePro?
Thanks...
I am making a template using VePro6 and Cubase 9.5 and I have noticed that in some instrument I can't decide the character in MirX Teldex, the field is empty and I can't do anything.
Is there anyone having a good suggestion to resolve this?

It sounds like you're confusing MIRX with MIR Pro - they are different things. And they work differently - and when I first set this up I got terribly confused by the whole thing. I had MIRX - but upgraded to MIRPro - annoyingly VSL don't offer an upgrade option between the two - so I do also have a licensed MIRX that I'm npot using. Ah well..

MIRX works the same in both environments - (ie: in cubase as VI OR inside VEPro) (and is a lot cheaper)

But MIR Pro is tailor-made to work in VEPro. (if you don't already have it and don't know what it's features are I'd strongly suggest reading about the software on the VSL site - it's quite different to use than any other reverb I know of)

Essentially it looks like an insert (you're replacing the stereo pan) and you add it to each instrument - but then the whole thing becomes a sort of holistic stage GUI where you can move your instruments around the space and change things like mic types / instrument orientation, reverb length and on and on.. 

The main trouble I had was using a VIPro patch that already had MIRX and then added MIR - I can't quite remember exactly what went wrong now but it was a world of pain that finally went away when I switched the VIPro reverb to bypass after implementing MIR Pro.

Please accept my apologies if I'm telling you things you already know !

Originally Posted by: matthieu.lechowski

If you are used to a workflow without VE, have no lacks and are happy like that, stay away from it : indeed it's a layer of complexity slowing the workflow, and there are bugs not fixed (developpers are on Synchron Player...), lags, crashes for some people...

Whilst I agree that if one is happy with their current workflow, why change it - I can't say I really agree about slowing the workflow. By far and away the biggest advantage I have seen in using VEP6 / Cubase 9.5 with all VI's hosted in VEP is that my workflow is much slicker. For large projects, particularly orchestral, it's the best approach I've ever used.

One huge advantage that I don't think has been mentioned is that in VEPro you can have hundreds of Kontakt intruments with presets set up, and any number of soft synths, all nicely tucked into their own labelled folders and with midi pre-assigned from Cubase, and then have them all in standby ready to load up any time you need (will take a second or two only) - so they are not taking up any CPU power or RAM when you're not using them - that simply cannot be done in Cubase, you either have them in your project or you don't - and that's another serious time-saver.

As it happens I also have a hardware Access Virus TI which has historically been a pig, but it is rock solid in VEPro6, so it gets used all the time now.

As for Synchron, I haven't seen the player yet, (although I do have synchron strings and percussion libraries on VIPro) - and (I'm touching lots of wood here) I'm currently running latest versions of C9.5, VEPro6, all SSD's and running on El Capitan (still) - it's more robust than any large bunch of software I've ever run before. Crashes are, not quite, but virtually non-existant. - Let's touch some more wood, just to be sure....:-)

Originally Posted by: Paul McGraw

I have 48gb of RAM, and I know how to use the ram efficiently in both Kontakt and VI Pro, so RAM has not been an issue for me as of yet. I have had a few problems with CPU workload with a full orchestra. I have an i7, but if I use MIR Pro, plus lots of other plugins, it can get to be too much for my CPU. So far my best solution is to render in place some of the instruments or sections, which then frees up CPU power. 

I have heard that VE is easier on resources. This seems a bit hard to believe since it is an additional level of program running. But if it really does save on CPU strain, that would be a big incentive to use it. Anyone actually test this out? Does it really use less CPU power?

I'm using a 12 core Mac and 64GB RAM so I don't expect to see too many resources issues (except for what seems like a bug I reported elsewhere) A full orchestral project I was running a couple of days ago which had some synths going too (including Serum which is CPU heavy) was running at approx 25% CPU in activity monitor during realtime playback and RAM usage is less than 50%. But that case would be with less than 10 Kontakt instruments. Most VIs being VSL. And also because the samples are on SSD I have RAM preload in VIPro Directory Manager at a much lower setting than I'd need with spinning discs. This all helps.

I wouldn't like to hazard a guess as to which method would really stress the CPU more with the exact same / equivalent project information - but Cubase definitely is more spritely than when I used to run everything on that, and crashes less often too. But if it does crash, it tends to take VEPro with it. Don't know why.

As to the time invested in creating a new orchestral template using the VEPro method - it took me at least a week's work, possibly two altogether, and with lots of changes along the way - and trial and error. It was far from simple but I'm genuinely glad I made that effort.

As you own MIR Pro I would personally say that on it's own is a great reason for trying it out. You can load up a couple of instances with VI's relatively quickly (and of course use just a single MIR Pro "instance" per VEP instance, because that's the way it works) in order to make a judgement about the CPU / RAM usage.  You could do that in half an hour. Just use the duplicate instrument function (cmd D) if you want to hammer the system quickly. It dupes the instrument and all the midi/audio routing and any plugins too.

There is a CPU usage monitor bottom right corner of the VEPro window which helps too. I can't say I understand how that relates to core usage though.

To give you a rough idea my String section VEPro instance is split into the usual parts and I have 8 1st violin VIs all active at once (with some inactive extra ones ready to switch on) and a similar idea for the other parts of the string section - I count 31 altogether including a couple of ensemble patches (synchron ensemble and Cinematic Strings 2) These ones are all active and set up with MIR Pro Synchron stage.  The CPU usage monitor in VEPro says 25% during playback, but this figure is not 25% of the entire CPU - VSL would have to explain it properly but I think pertains to the core usage and thread count set up in VEP (mine set to 3 threads). In reality it's no more than 5% of my entire CPU, if that. Hope that helps.

I use ensemble because I dont need 100 instances of VI running. My primary soundfont collection comes from Vienna, with a spattering of soundfonts from EastWest (namely their choirs), Spitfire (brass), and cinesamples (when I need that epic booming percussion that eastwest and vienna lack). The reason ensemble is so good is that the instances of Vienna Instruments are all contained within ensemble such that when I maximize ensemble, all my vienna instruments and the control panel is self contained there.

Its all about organization for me. Spending time finding the thing annoys me to no end, which is why I spent the time to setup a template that works for 95% of what I write and requires little customization, and I get this all by opening a cpr file for Cubase, which in turn, loads ensemble, with all the soundfonts for every instrument I use already pre-configured, as opposed to having 20 instances of instruments pro running and searching for the instance that is my fanfare trumpets.

Of course, it is very possible I dont know what Im talking about and there is a way to configure Instruments Pro to handle more than 8 instruments...haha, that would not surprise me :)