Technically the most efficient is one instance.

I don't use all those return channels, which is a bear to CPU.
I could actually do with one. I use several instances because I would be approaching the max number of automation parameters, and in Cubase all of that in one instance is unwieldy, with say 4 I can hide 3 and focus on the one.

The reason I do more than one stereo returning is I tend to mixdown a master bus with reverb separately but at the same time. I don't have a need to return 16 or whatever stems, I mix in VE Pro with automation, rarely touching even the volume of the instrument channel.

Cool. Thank you both for taking the time to share your best practices. Cheers!

I prefer one or two large instances.  Stereo return.  I only will break off other return audio for a specific case where I NEED to bring them seperately back to my DAW, but actually I prefer to mix it all entirely in VePro whenever possible, I host MirPro there and it just all works nicely together there, plus I can reuse the same orchestral template in VePro across numerous DAW projects very easily that way.  I don't think it makes much difference either way in terms of CPU frankly.  I did a perfromance test a few months back with LogicPro and VePro, comparing one single instance vs one-instance-per-instrument.  There was only 1% difference in CPU utilization, single instance, was the better of the two but not enough to make it decisive reason to use way one or the other.  Choose the workflow that works best for you.

Logic Pro X does better with more instances with less in them. Also, that  way, it is more like a score page.,

Originally Posted by: Dewdman42

Originally Posted by: Ashermusic

Logic Pro X does better with more instances with less in them. Also, that way, it is more like a score page.,

I tested it both ways in logic and it actually performed better in terms of cpu usage with a single instance playing 90 instrument tracks vs 90 instances, one per track. But only 1% better, which basically means it performs about the same either way. It comes down to a workflow decision for which there are pros and cons both ways. One big reason for using seperate instances is because Logic Pro can only run one midifx script per instance, which can be kind of complicated if you have 90 instruments that all need their own articulation script.

CPU usage is not rthe only way to measure how Logic does with more/fewer. Back when I tested both methoids exrtensively, as did Peter Schwartz and George Leger, we all concluded that Logic was more stable and spread the load throughout the cores better with more.

That said, that was three years ago and it is possible that things under the hood in VE Pro and/or Logic Pro have changed that.

Originally Posted by: Dewdman42

Asher I still don’t understand your workflow case about one staff per track. I don’t know logic’s score editor at all and I know you have literally written books about it, but don’t midi tracks all get their own score staff? Why do you need an isolated vepro instance for each score staff?

First of all, I have not used MIDI instruments in years and have no desire to revisit using them. But this way, each VE Pro software instrument, e.g. Violin 1, connects to a VE Pro instance with 1 instrument and all its articulations, again  e.g Violin 1.

Just like a score page.