"Returning outputs to the DAW uses massive CPU."

I'm finding out that this is indeed the case which would explain why things are slowing up.

Thanks for the replies.

I'm creating a VEP template on my PC slave and have a questions about outputs.  I've typically used one output per instrument type within a Kontakt instance.  For example:  If I have 10 different flutes I'll route all of them to the same output in VEP.  Now I'm building a new template with an output for every patch.  So if I have 16 flutes from various companies, I'll create 16 outputs.  I could also compromise and have one out per company.

My thinking is that I'll have better mixing control in VEP.  The problem besides having a ton of outputs is that VEP really starts to become slow.  I don't know how it will perform because I'm still building it, but just doing simple things like changing a channel or adding an output is pretty slow.

On the Cubase side I just have one input for each instrumnet type.  So I would have the most mixing control in VEP.

Thanks for any input or suggestions.  I hope all this makes sense.

Aaron

Dewdman42,

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

Aaron

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!

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

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

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

I have pretty much the same setup although I'm still on Sierra, but I doubt that would be an issue.  I have my second monitor going directly into the iMac and use Microsoft's Remote Desktop to view the Windows side.  It works perfectly and I can show any combination of operating systems on both screens with the control and arrow keys on the iMac.

I finally figure it out through trial and error.  What I hadn't done was change the number of outputs on the Mac side of VEP.  I only did it on the PC slave.  What a dummy I am.

Aaron

I hope this isn't a dumb question.  Right now I have a max of 25 stereo outputs in VEP which gives me 25 stereo inputs in Cubase.  I'd like to increase that slightly, but can't figure out how.  I increased audio outputs to 120 in VEP 6 preferences, but I still only get 25 inputs in a Cubase rack instrument.  I can't figure out if I also need to do something in Cubase.

I may not even be asking the question in the right way.

 

Thanks,

Aaron

I just discovered that if I open the standalone version of Kontakt first and then open my VEP template it doesn't crash.  I tried it several times with the same result.  Everytime I open my template without first opening up the standalone Kontakt, VEP crashes.

And once my template is open, if I quite the standalone Kontakt, VEP crashes. Very strange.

Aaron

Hi Paul,


I'll try out your suggestions on my MacBook Pro. It's a pretty small template so I can work away from my studio. I do have a slave PC with a very big template and rarely have problems with that one. I have 1200+ tracks on the big template.

Thanks and I'll report back.

Aaron

Hi Paul,

Thanks for the update.

Aaron

James, did you ever find a fix?  I still can't load my template and haven't heard anything yet.

Aaron

Paul,

Have you made any progress on this?

Thanks,

Aaron

Paul,

Thanks for looking into this.  So you think it's OT?

Aaron

James,

Do you also have generic file icons?  On my PC slave the icons have the VSL logo, but on the Mac they are just plain file icons.

Aaron

Here is what the file looks like.

Hi,

I made a template for my laptop to have a portable sysmtem and VEP 6 keeps crashing now. VEP is the latest version and I have the latest version of OSX on my MacBook Pro. I'm using the latest Cubase, but that shouldn't matter because it won't open by itself.

I'm using the 64 bit server version. What is weird is that the file icons are generic looking. I'm not at home at the moment, but I'm pretty sure the icons should have a graphic like most file icons.

Thanks for any suggestions,

Everything works well on my main system at home, but that's a Windows slave.

Aaron

Edit: VEP 6 starts to load and crashes in a few seconds. The first instance is OT Berlin Woodwinds. Also, I have a 3 month old MBP with 16 GB or RAM.

Hi,

I'm in the process of creating another template in VEP 6 and for some reason the RAM seems super high for only around 600 tracks.  So far I've loaded:  A full section of VSL woodwinds, OT woodwinds, Spitfire Audio woodwinds, Spitfire Brass OT brass and some VSL brass.  I've purged samples in all of the Kontakt instruments so I would think the memory footprint would be low.  I'm wondering if there is some setting in VEP that should be optimized.  I have friends who have over 2000 tracks and are below 64 GB with samples purged.

Thanks for any suggestions.

Aaron

As it turns out I was doing everything correctly, but for some reason I had to go through the process a second time.  It now shows up.  Perhaps something got corrupted.

I must be a dummy here because I've done this several times, but it's been awhile.  I just purchased a bass clarinet, downloaded it and registered it on my eLicenser.  How do I get the instrument to show up in Vienna Instruments?  I'm probably missing some really simple step.  All my other downloaded instruments show up in "Download Instruments Patches."

Thanks,

Aaron

Hi Paul,

Yes I did check that. I have an Apollo 8 Thunderbolt with the latest drivers installed and iTunes, Logic, and all other audio plays fine. That was a good suggestion, but unfortunately not the problem.

For the moment everything is playing fine, but the problem will mostly likely appear again. I'll try and take note what I did just before I notice the distortion. Restarting both computers helps sometimes.

Thanks Paul,

Aaron

Hi Paul,

I'm using Windows 10 on the slave computer.  I'm a complete idiot on Windows machines since it's my first PC.  Do you think the IP address issue could be causing my crackles?  Again, it's not all of the time, but enough that I need to solve it.  When the sound isn't distorting everything works great.

I'll read through the article you sent.

Thanks much,

Aaron

I know this is a pretty common problem and I Googled the topic but I still can't solve it. I get serious crackles and pops with VEP 6.

I have an iMac with 32 GB of RAM running Cubase 9. My slave is a 12-core Xeon processor with 128 GB of RAM. I'm running about 1000 tracks with samples purged so I am only using half my RAM on the slave. The performance meter is low. I am using a gigabit ethernet switch and I have new cables.

Some suggestions I've tried to no avail: switched off wifi, no other audio programs running, ASIO Guard off, trashed Cubase Prefs and restarted both computers. It doesn't happen all the time, but enough to cause me to loose a fair amount of time because it takes around 20 minutes to load my template.

Someone posted on this forum something about creating a static IP address. I read the post, but I didn't understand. I had somebody help me hook it up initially so I have no idea about the IP address or even how to change it.

This is the post from Paul from VSL: Manually assign one of these IP addresses to the computers and ethernet ports in your setup: 192.168.0.x or 10.0.0.x, and assign a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0, then it should work.

Thanks for any help or suggestions.

Aaron

That was it - problem solved.  As soon as I installed it UVI was available in VEP 6.  I appreciate the help Bill.  I wish all my technical issues were this easy to solve.

Aaron