Thank you Dietz.  I forget to read all of the manual from time to time.  Actually I did RTM thiis time but I missed that part because when I read it, I was looking for more basic things like dragging instruments around and setting the direction, so I missed that detail.  Thank you for correcting the error of my ways,  Knowing the page number saved me from reading the whole thing again.  I appreciate that very much.

There many posts about how to change the path of Vienna Intruments library files.  I already knew how to do that without reading.  I can find no posts, however, about how to move the room files for MIR 24 to another hard disk.  They want to be on my system drive and I do not want them there.  Can I move them to another drive?

I can't tell you how happy this had made me.  I never could get it to work with Ensemble Pro 5 inside of Sonar and had to use the old method of standalone with LoopBe.  That was a painful setup to use.  This new VSTi plug-in is what I dreamed of when I bought MIR after it first came out.  It works like a champ with Sonar X2.  Now I have that beautiful sound with ease of use inside of Sonar.  Thank you so much for this and bravo to the software engineers!

I watched all of the videos, read all of the manuals and addendums and I am unclear of how this new version of MIR/Ensemble is supposed to work.  First I followed the new August 2012 manual for ensemble for setting up Ensemble Pro 5 in Sonar X1 step by step.  It created an instance of Ensemble Pro 5 server connection, 16 audio tracks in Sonar with their inputs set to Ensemble and a new blank Ensemble/MIR window.  I added 16 MIDI tracks to Sonar as instructed.  I then added a new Vienna Pro instance to MIR and filled it with a matrix.  That track is set to MIDI channel 1 in Ensemble/MIR.  I set Sonar's MIDI 1 channel out to Ensemble.  I get VU movement in Sonar and in the track for Vienna Pro, but nothing in the Master channel and no sound.  The Ensemble track out is set for Master.  Is it supposed to loop back to one of the 16 audio channels auto created in Sonar?  It is very unclear to me how all of this is supposed to work in Sonar.  In the old days, when I had to use LoopBe for MIR, I had that all down pat.  This has me baffled.  64 bit Sonar Producer X1 Expanded with all 64 bit VSL, if that matters.  This is all on one computer and yes, the Ensemble Server is started first, before I create the project.  Help anyone?

Just watched the five new Vienna Instruments videos on YouTube (VSLVideos channel).  Although they were for the normal/lite version, I learned a few things that I did not know that will help me with VI Pro.  Nicely done and very helpful videos.  Thank you for the time and work involved.  Keep them coming.  Maybe consider posting the HD versions on YouTube.  Low res did not prevent me from learning but I had to squint a few times.  I know they are probably on your site in HD but it is nice to have all of the videos together in one place to select from, rather than scattered about your site.

When I installed Special Edition and Special Edition Plus last year, it installed the extended libraries and gave me a temp license for them.  When I purchase Special Edition vol 2 and Plus vol 2, do I just install the license and it will pick up the files already there or do I have to download them and install the files again?  In other words, will it look for them in different folders than before?

Changelog for Vienna Suite says August 2011.  I almost did not read it until I saw the word Goniometer.  Not trying to be the grammar police.  It may confuse others as it did me, though.  Love all of my VSL products.  Vienna Suite is an especially valuable tool for me.

The new download manager does it all in one step.  It downloads, installs, registers with the website and tell the software the path to the library.  Ah well, you still have to run e-licenser, so two steps.  I was only one version behind with the software, but upgrading VI Pro did fix the issue. It appeared, albeit not under matrix, but under presets.  Thank you.

I just ordered and downloaded the full Lithophone library.  I used the new download manager to install.  Everything looks fine.  It took the license key in e-licenser, it is registered on my web page, the files are in a folder in the same place as all my other VSL libraries, but when I open VI Pro either as a plug-in or as stand alone, the Lithophone does not appear on the list.

 Jasen, 

Thank you so much for your reply.  Sorry it took so long to get back, but I got involved with another time consuming project and I needed the time to try what you said..  I was doing something not normal with the software.  I took the demo and saved it as a template in Sonar.  I thought that it might save me some time in doing new project if I loaded that file as a template.  That does not work easily.  I found that I could do that if I did something not normal.  If I load the demo as a Sonar template, and then load an instrument, and then go to the "Perform" section and click on the Learn button, the sound will play.  If I don't do that, I get nada, doodley squat, no sound.

If I load a brand new instance of VST 64 bit and then load a sound as in the great videos that I disrespected at first, it works as it is supposed to.

If I load a preset, on top of other presets, I get the noise train.  What does this sound like?  I once read an article about Black Oak Arkansas’ Jim Dandy Mangrum.  It said that he sounded like a freight train in pain.  This VST sound that  I describe is a freight train in pain to the nth degree.  I have found that 75% of the time, if I shut down Sonar, that disappears.  The other 25% of the time, I have to reboot.  But once again, let me repeat, this only happens when I use the Vienna demo as a Sonar template.  If I start from scratch, none of these problems exist.  VSL rocks!

Thanks, Jasen, for taking the time to answer my question.

 I have tried following the written instructions and am having problems within Sonar 8.5 with the Special Edition patches as a VST plug-in, along with other downloaded sounds.  I have also watched all of the videos, but they all seem to me like advertisements, rather than tutorials.

My main issue is that if I try to just load sounds, as the person does in the videos, I get no sound coming out.  The MIDI track VU is responding, as well as the Vienna track, as indicated by the Vienna window VU meter, but no sound comes out.  The only way that I have found to get sounds to come out is to load a preset, which loads much more than I need for one track.  I have 12 GB of memory, so that is not an issue, yet, but as I build tracks, it may become one, if I continue to have to load huge presets, just to get this to work.

My system idles at 2.5 GB of memory.  I am halfway into a song and now am at 50% (6 GB).

My other issue is that some of the patches produce garbage on some of the notes, especially when a fortisimo key action is intiated.  Today, it is the normal harp sound.  Less than one octave plays, even when struck softly.  The rest is garbage and some of the soft struck notes turn into garbage when struck just a little harder, so I would say my harp is about 0.4 octave of usable notes.

I just tried loading the library again and it fails on the same notes, so it is not garbage on the hard disk transfer.

I am using Windows 7 Ultimate, 64 bit, with an i7 960 CPU, P58 Intel chipset, 12 GB of Corsair premium triple channel memory, basically a computer approaching state of the art.

Any help out there for me?

 There is a free utility which allows you to save the process priority.  It add a new save feature to the priority menu.  Links to 32 bit and 64 bit versions are on this page:

http://www.askvg.com/how-to-permanently-set-process-priority-in-windows-task-manager/