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  • VEP7 and MIDI Ports/Logic

    A
    A

    If anyone could help I'd be eternally grateful.  I'm tyring out VEP7 and Logic Pro X and trying to build a template.  I have been a Cubase user for a long time so I'm comfortable with huge orchestra templates and VEP, but I'm missing something in Logic.

    So far I created an instance with Kontakt in VEP and it has 15 woodwinds with separate outputs.  On the Logic side I created an AU3 instrument set to port 1.  Then I have aux tracks for the rest of the woods.  Here is where I get lost.  If on the same VEP instance I want to have another Kontakt instance and set it to port 2, how do I link it from the Logic side?  In Cubase I just create a MIDI track and specify VEP instance and port number.

    I hope this even makes sense.

    Thanks,

    Aaron
  • Dewdman42D
    Dewdman42D

    The AU3 feature is still extremely Beta and I would reccomend it only for experimentation.  I can't get it to work yet actually.  The AU3 plugin button is coming up with an orange ! indicator and doesn't work.

    Have you tried the AU3 templates that VSL provided as a starting place?  check the downloads section from VSL website.  They don't seem to work for me though.

    I was able to get something kind of to work by starting with an empty project rather then one of their templates.  

    If I put the stereo version of the AU3 plugin on a track and it seems to direct the ports the right way on VEP server, but the multi-out version of the plugin comes up with the orange ! error for me, and doesn't work.  Also, even though Logic is somehow taking the port field from the inspector and VEP plugin is routing it properly to the server...the Scripter plugin cannot see anything in the event objects to indicate port, so if you're using Scripter for any articulation management, you won't be able to until Apple improves LogicPro more.  

    Its not clear to me why VSL setup their templates for AU3 the way they did..the enviornment objects don't have anything to indicate port in them and the AU3 is reporting some unkonwn error with the orange ! too.

    Anyway, its considered Beta and really needs updates from Apple before I would spend too much time into a large template you plan to use for real project.  Wait until its more finalized.

    In the meantime, you can try these non-AU3 templates, they might help, you can create large templates with them and work fine for me.

    https://www.logicprohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=137085
  • A
    A

    Dewdman42,

    Thanks for the detailed response.  I recognize your name from VI-Control.  I always enjoy reading your posts.  I'll give the templates a shot.

    Hopefully this will all come together in the near future.  Although I'm very comfortable with Cubase and it's stable with VEP7 so far, I do miss Logic X.  I just love the fairly new articulation system - it's so much easier to setup compared to Cubase in my opinion.

    Thanks,

    Aaron
  • M
    M
    Dewdman42: Please ensure that you don’t have the “AU3 Mode” activated for the plugin in Logic. This will enable the out-of-process hosting mode, which is incompatible with VEPro right now. I’ll ask Apple to rename that checkbox, because it is really confusing. It is still an AU3, whether this box is checked or not.
  • A
    A

    Since the AU3 seems to not be quite ready, I'm curious how most people build templates with outputs for each instrument.

    I'm not sure if this is the most efficient way, but I'm creating a Multi-Output VEP instrument in Logic and then assigning aux channels to each instrument in a Kontaxt instance hosted in VEP.  It seems to work fine that way and I can create groups for STEMS.

    It's basically how I do it in Cubase without having multiple MIDI ports.

    Thanks,

    Aaron
  • Dewdman42D
    Dewdman42D
    last edited
    last edited

    @MS said:

    Dewdman42:

    Please ensure that you don’t have the “AU3 Mode” activated for the plugin in Logic. This will enable the out-of-process hosting mode, which is incompatible with VEPro right now. I’ll ask Apple to rename that checkbox, because it is really confusing. It is still an AU3, whether this box is checked or not.

     

    yep I saw that checkbox but I wasn't sure what it was for, I thought I left it unchecked, but I will double check that.  Would definitely like to try out AU3..

    ps - if you are actually talking to insider developers at Apple, please make sure they upgrade Scripter to be able to see what port events are on.  This will be crucial for many people using Scripter for articulation managment.  I imagine there are other midi plugins that might need to know this also..and the environment too.
  • Dewdman42D
    Dewdman42D
    last edited
    last edited

    @Aaron Garner said:

    Since the AU3 seems to not be quite ready, I'm curious how most people build templates with outputs for each instrument.

    I'm not sure if this is the most efficient way, but I'm creating a Multi-Output VEP instrument in Logic and then assigning aux channels to each instrument in a Kontaxt instance hosted in VEP.  It seems to work fine that way and I can create groups for STEMS.

    It's basically how I do it in Cubase without having multiple MIDI ports.

    Thanks,

    Aaron

    Even when Apple gets the AU3 stuff completely working, be advised, that at least presently you are still only able to return 16 stereo channels from VEP to LogicPro.  If you mix them in VEP as stems, that is generally not a problem, but if you're wanting to mix every track in LogicPro, then you will still kind of be limited to 16 stereo channels per VEP instance in terms of the audio coming back.  Paul mentioned about this in his AU3 video, and I didn't get the feeling Apple is going to expand that, but hey you never know. 
  • Cyril BlancC
    Cyril BlancC
    last edited
    last edited

    Hello Martin

    Where is the "AU3 Mode" ?

    Best

    Cyril

    @MS said:

    Dewdman42:

    Please ensure that you don’t have the “AU3 Mode” activated for the plugin in Logic. This will enable the out-of-process hosting mode, which is incompatible with VEPro right now. I’ll ask Apple to rename that checkbox, because it is really confusing. It is still an AU3, whether this box is checked or not.

    MacBook Pro M3 MAX 128 GB 8TB - 2 x 48" screen --- Logic Pro --- Mir Pro 3D --- Most of the VI libs, a few Synch... libs --- Quite a few Kontakt libs --- CS80 fanatic
  • Dewdman42D
    Dewdman42D

    In the plugin manager there is a new column that has checkboxes for AU3 plugins.  All other plugins its N/A.  The column header for the checkbox says "AU3 Mode"
  • Cyril BlancC
    Cyril BlancC
    last edited
    last edited

    Many Thanks Dewdman42

     

    @Dewdman42 said:

    In the plugin manager there is a new column that has checkboxes for AU3 plugins.  All other plugins its N/A.  The column header for the checkbox says "AU3 Mode"

    MacBook Pro M3 MAX 128 GB 8TB - 2 x 48" screen --- Logic Pro --- Mir Pro 3D --- Most of the VI libs, a few Synch... libs --- Quite a few Kontakt libs --- CS80 fanatic
  • Dewdman42D
    Dewdman42D

    but take note of Martin's comment above, it should NOT be enabled for this....
  • Cyril BlancC
    Cyril BlancC
    last edited
    last edited

    I did check, AU3 mode is not enable😊

    @Dewdman42 said:

    but take note of Martin's comment above, it should NOT be enabled for this....

    MacBook Pro M3 MAX 128 GB 8TB - 2 x 48" screen --- Logic Pro --- Mir Pro 3D --- Most of the VI libs, a few Synch... libs --- Quite a few Kontakt libs --- CS80 fanatic
  • MackerM
    MackerM

    Aaron, I've found a way that lets me create more than 16 MIDI channels per VEP7 instance using Logic's AU3 multiport 'feature'. I'm now happily using VEPro7 with various multiport Logic AU3 templates I've made from scratch - but only after several long sessions of cursing and wrestling with Logic's weird ways.

    I guess you've already been using the "Track/Other/New Track With Next MIDI Channel" menu item (or [CMD+RTN] default key command) to create 15 more tracks in the Track List, all assigned to the Instrument mixer strip with the VEP7 AU3 client plugin. But now if you try to create any further new tracks using the same method, you find that instead of incrementing the port number and starting a new MIDI channel count, Logic assigns each new track to the next available Instrument strip in the mixer, creating a new Instrument strip if necessary. Also, the Main Window Track Inspector won't let you re-assign the new track back to your original VEP client Instrument strip. Gaaaahh!!

    It seems Logic's AU3 multiport implementation is still only half-baked. (I have a strong suspicion that too many of Apple's Logic Pro X software engineers indulge in smoking weed; I'm not sure how else LPX could have become so incredibly flaky, cowboyish and irrational, compared to the good old Emagic Soft- und Hardware GmbH days.)

    But all is not lost. The trick is this: we just have to hop over to the Mixer layer of Logic's Environment. There, once the Instrument Channel Strip objects have been dragged, one by one, out of the big pile Logic has made in its creation of each  new Track-With-Next-MIDI-Channel, the Environment Object Inspector can then be used to re-assign each of these additional (i.e. duplicated) Instrument track strip objects to any Instrument (using the "Channel" popout menu), any MIDI Port (1 to 48) and any MIDI Channel (1 to 16).

    Only one thing I find a bit too weird to use now: in any VEP instance, If I assign the audio output of any mixer channel to the "base" channels 1 and 2, then in Logic's Environment ALL the duplicated Instrument Channel Strip objects assigned to that VEP instance show that same audio stream dancing on their meters. For me that just goes against the grain so I avoid audio channels 1 and 2, leaving me with only 15 stereo pairs per VEP instance. Hmpff.

    Hope this helps. Don't hesitate to ask for more or clearer nitty gritty details if you need them.
  • Dewdman42D
    Dewdman42D

    For some reason I can't get it to work

    Image
  • MackerM
    MackerM

    Hello Dewdman42,

    I get that orange "!" for about one second after I've inserted a new VEP7 AU3 client plugin, then it goes away and I can assign the Logic-VEP connection. I'm afraid I have no clue where or how your AU3 plugin's persistant error may be happening or WTF might be going on there.

    I saw Martin's info about having the AU3 checkbox not ticked for the VEP7 AU3 plugin in Logic's plugin manager; had a look at mine and no surprise, it's not ticked.

    I'm using LPX 10.4.4 in a 2017 5K iMac (7700K i7 option) with High Sierra 10.13.6. No tricks or fancy workarounds to get VEP7 working; it just did right out of the box.

    Hope VSL help you get that sorted soon.

    BTW, I saw you comments about Logic's MIDI Scripter. Because I also use a few scripts of my own I checked up on the Scripter situation in the multiport configuration. You're right, currently it appears there's no way different Scripters can be placed on different ports or even MIDI channels, within any one VEP instance. Whatever MIDI script happens to be inserted in the instrument mixer strip that has the VEP client plugin, it just gets duplicated along with all the other stuff belonging to that original instrument channel strip.

    Although right now it seems Port and MIDI channel assignments are the only parameters that can be changed between duplicated tracks, we just don't know what Logic's AU3 features, functions, configurations etc will eventually be. Pretty sure Apple and VSL have a very tight Non-Disclosure Agreement, so even if VSL know what's coming in Logic they can't tell us anything about it.
  • Dewdman42D
    Dewdman42D

    It will all get worked out eventually, but I personally think it will be quite some time before its working correctly, reliably and completely enough that the "port" concept can be counted on LPX.  

    Scripter will have to be modified, for example, so that in a typical Scripter script, you can use a "port" atttribute from Event objects, etc..  WIth multiport, you have even more channels funneling through a single Scripter script...as many as 768 total channels could all be funneling through a single Script, and you will need to be able to identify Event objects by both their channel (which it already does) and their port, in order to decide what to do.  

    That's just one example.  But what about the enviornment, transformers, etc..  There is a lot of old legacy code that frankly could end up broken.  

    What about the articulation set framework?  It will need to become port aware also.

    Most of the other midi plugins, if they ever did anything related to channel, they will need to become port aware.

    Piano roll, event list, and on and on...many places in LPX that will need to be updated to support and know about a new port attrtibute of event objects.  

    I am not that optimistic that Apple is going to fully enable everything we need enabled for multiport to work, at least not right away.  They will get there eventually, hopefully, but its going to take some time and probably several broken iterations of LPX.  IMHO.  In my view this is much more difficult thing to add to LPX then people realize because of all the old legacy code.  Take the enviornment, it is still litered with decades old bugs that have never been fixed and probably will never be fixed, a lot of it was coded back in a time when code had to be made extremely efficient in order to deal with older and slower machines...  Code like that takes advantage of every bit, and is often difficult to change.  To this day, the enviornment is completely unaware of ArticulationID, for example.  Transformer still can't see it or set it or do anything related to it.  It gets piggy backed onto Event objects somewhere along the line and passed through, but that's about it.  Will that be the case with the port attribute?  I would say highly likely yes.  

    Anyway we shall see how it goes, but I just personally think we all need to be a bit patient with AU3 and multiport, LPX has a lot of changes that need to happen.  And by the way, LPX can only support 16 channels of audio coming back from the AU3 plugin also...so...there is that limitation as well.
  • Cyril BlancC
    Cyril BlancC

    I have contact Markus, Logic's developper, he does not want to comment about fixing the baby !

    MacBook Pro M3 MAX 128 GB 8TB - 2 x 48" screen --- Logic Pro --- Mir Pro 3D --- Most of the VI libs, a few Synch... libs --- Quite a few Kontakt libs --- CS80 fanatic
  • A
    A
    Marker, Thanks for the explanation. I’ll give it a shot, but although I used Logic quite a bit a few years ago, I am very rusty. Getting into the Environment will probably send me running to the Xanax bottle. For now I’m just making a smaller template compared to my huge one in Cubase. Except for a few things like easy multiports and the Logical Editor, I miss using Logic Pro. And I love the new (new to me) articulation ID. So far VEP7 is at least stable for me in Logic and Cubase. Aaron Edit: Sorry for misspelling your name - damn auto correction!
  • Dewdman42D
    Dewdman42D
    Aaron check out the link I posted above to some multi port templates that can handle thousands of tracks. AU3 will be the future but right now those other templates work pretty well and you don’t have to open the environment.
  • A
    A

    Dewdman42,

    Thanks for the links.  As soon as I get home from vacation I'm going to try them out.

    Aaron