I just hit this issue for the very first time.  This thread has been very useful - thanks to all who contributed and shared their solutions.

I usually start VEPro by clicking a file on my desktop.  Today I had the Kontakt sample data cache death spiral...

I was able to get my slave instances back using the File>Open method described in this thread.  When I did get my slave back open again, I found something interesting...  

I could tell that previously my slave was getting stuck loading my Spitfire Albion 1 woodwinds.  Once I was able to open my slave template again, I notice I left Kontakt5 Spitfire Albion 1 Hi Wood Legato enabled when I last shut down.  That instrument was showing that it was not connected to any audio (I route 4 mic outs) and thus, Kontakt was failing to launch properly. (this makes sense as I started my Slave before opening my Master DAW template).  Once I started my DAW and connected all my instances, Kontakt was happy again.

So I made sure all instruments were in disabled state, shut down, and started again using my desktop shortcut.  It loaded fine.  

Now, I'm sure I've loaded this same template with other instruments left enabled... Perhaps there's something particular about the actual Kontakt instrument that is left open?  Maybe because these Kontakt instruments need to see the multiple outputs in order to load properly...?  I've seen other Kontakt instruments that behave very badly (wont draw the GUI correctly or wont complete loading altogether) in VEP due to output routing before - usually drums with multple outputs like GetGoodDrums for example.  

Possibly they are...   We need to check your SUBNET MASK in order to confirm.  

If these computers also have a Subnet Mask of 255.0.0.0, then yes, your LAN and WIFI are on the same logical network - 10.x.x.x.  (this may also be the case if one of your computers or interfaces has a different subnet  mask)

If your Subnet Mask is 255.255.255.0, then they are not on the same network, they are on two different logical networks: 10.20.11.x and 10.255.255.x

The dropouts and crackles you hear may be an indication that your network buffer has been overrun... packets are either being dropped, or spending too long in the Network buffer to be delivered to your Audio Application on time.

From my own experience with Mac computers, it appears to me that OSX creates a separate data buffer for each logical network I create within my computer.   This means that my DAW<>Slave network data is isolated from my DAW<><WIFI traffic (within my DAW).   This is good - audio is clear and everything works very well.

If I put everything on one logical network, then it sounds like the traffic coming in over WIFI is causing my network data buffer to overrun.  This is bad - sometimes a single instrument plays okay, but the more I load it up the worse the dropouts and crackles get.

OH, one other thought comes to mind... something else that can go wrong - your Ethernet ports might be set to Auto-Sense - meaning they will decide if they are going to run at Gigabit Ethernet, or 100b TX.  This happened to me once because either cats or geckos, or cats chasing geckos in my studio.  Upshot of it all was that my ethernet cable was damaged and one of my Macs kept changing it's mind about running at 1000Mbps or 100Mbps.   That cause a lot of crackles and dropouts!   I found it better to manually configure my Ethernet ports to 1000baseT and static addresses.   That way it works or it doesn't. It's easier to figure out the cause of the problem this way.

You didn't mention Wi-Fi... Do you have Wi-Fi concurrently enabled on your DAW?  Is your Wi-Fi set to be the same network range as your Ethernet Ports?  If so, that will cause strange dropouts just like the ones you're describing.

Is anyone here using Vienna Suite VST plugins in Cubase 9 on Mac OSX 10.11.6?

I haven't fired any VS plugins up for a while, but when I tried to recently, every one of them is opening up in a shrunken state, about 2cm wide by 1cm tall.
 * If I right-click in the grey space between the Bypass and Read Automation buttons, then deselect Always On Top, the plug in displays fully.
* Right-click again and select Always on Top, and it stays open.
* Close it and open it again, and it's back to shrunk.
This is happening with the latest version (Vienna Suite 1.5 (OS X) build 2049)

Can anybody else confirm if they are seeing the same behaviour?

so in my case, I was upgrading the original 250G SSD to a new 512G SSD.  I installed the new drive in the MacMiniServer first, then used a SATA-to-USB cable to connect the original drive externally.  Next you need to boot off the old drive, but - it has to be from the Recovery partition of the old drive, since you are going to be cloning the active boot partition and you'll need those files left unlocked to be copied. 

The reason for my comment is that I tried using CarbonCopyCloner first - everything went smoothly but when I booted up on the new drive, the OS would reset itself every 20 seconds or so.  Apps would not even launch before the reset.

Not sure why I tried CCC first - maybe because I had a copy...

Anyway, the trick is to connect up the drives as mentioned above, then hold down the Option key when you power on the MacMini.  This will bring up a grey screen and allow you to select which partition to boot from.  Choose the externally connected Recovery Partition. Once booted, you can select Disc Utiilties.  Tab across to the Restore Tab, select your Source Drive (the external USB connected old drive) and the Target Drive (the new SSD installed in the Mac Mini) and fire away.  Takes a few hours, but it seems to copy something across that CCC missed.

I've not tried Time Machine for restoring or migrating a system before - I was under the impression it just restored whatever files you had targetted for it to backup (which may not be everything you need).  For my case, I wanted the 250G partition to be cloned and migrated onto a new 500G partition to give me more space. 

Hope that helps - Merry Christmas to all ;-)

Sean

Hi Pivot,

 Got mine in May, it came with 10.7.3 server edition.  During the inital startup I selected to NOT run any of the server services.  I did read about  how to regress to the non-server edition of OSX but decided to give it a shot as is and regress if necessary... and all has been fine as is.

 I keep this one offline so I never update it.  I have read forum posts claiming that Apple is inhibiting 3rd-party SSD support with newer OSX versions - but I can't say that I have heard or read that from a source I trust yet.  Nevertheless, I'll leave it at 10.7.3 until I have reason to upgrade.

Quite a timely thread...

I've been running a 2012 MacMiniServer with 250G SSD and 750G SATA flawlessly since June.  Problem is I keep loading it up with more libraries.  I run VSL and Omnisphere/trillian, and occaisionally I load it up with my 8DIO Kontakt libraries.   

It was time to increase the capacity so I just today completed upgrading the lower drive bay to an OCZ Vertex 4 512G SSD, and kept the 750G SATA in the upper bay.   (First tip, just MacOSX Disc Utilities Restore instead of Carbon Copy Cloner to do the migration!)

The OCZ Vertex 4 says it supports TRIM but I'm gonna run without it enabled (based on some forum guidance).

So far it's stable - will report in if I experience any issues.

(BTW - picked up the 512G Vertex 4 during the Thanksgiving sales for US$299 from NewEgg)

Since VSL uses eLicenser protection scheme, there should be no risk sharing the .cab files in the public domain ( peer to peer networks), no?  It would greatly offload the data center requirement for VSL and offer global customers multiple faster connections to the bulk of the download content (once it was seeded sufficiently).

 Has anyone at VSL considered this?

ah, ok got it now...   I am a Cubase user and it includes a thing called Input Transformer which allows you to translate midi CC messages.  I've never tried using it to control two CCs at the same time though - you've got me curious if it can do what you're looking for ;-) I don't think it will be the solution but I'll have a play with it later.

I did a google search for Midi Translator and came across this:

http://www.bome.com/products/miditranslator

Might be worth jumping on their forum and asking if anyone had used their software to achieve what you're trying to do.  I can see how you can use it to filter out the values you don't want to send, but as you said, the real finesse is getting the values translated so that the full range of motion of the Mod Wheel is effective...

approaching it from another way - why not just set your controller to a min and max value?  (all the midi devices i have allow setting min/max values)

(I had the same issue with Velocity XFade and that's what I did to get around it  - which is a workable solution if you've dedicated a specific controller for this purpose)

I'm also using a MacMiniServer via Screen Sharing and noted that when viewing the shared screen, under Apple>view menu, you will have the choice of "Adaptive Quality" or "Full Quality".  Obviously Full Quality is the better choice.  I experience no impact on the audio performance (the Gig Eth connection should be more than enough bandwidth).  Using Adaptive Quality does get hard on the eyes - Full Quality isn't perfect but the image is much sharper.

Can't speak from experience with the windows environment, but I'd hope there was some parameter to throttle/increase screen refresh rate that you could tweak to improve the image.

I have that same machine and have recently pondered all the upgrade options as well.

In the end I increased my RAM to 24G and bought a MacMiniServer (Quad i7 with 16Gig RAM and SSDs) to be a slave.  The MacPro upgrade options are hella-expensive, but once you've got one, slaving one or more MacMiniServers with VEP is very cost effective and works beautifully.

Nope, you don't need a repeater, switch or router - just a cat5/6 cable will do nicely.

I just added a Mac Mini Server with Lion 10.7.3 as a slave to my MacPro running Snow Leopard 10.6.8.  In my case, I tested it using a straight Cat5 cable but later found I had a crossover cable made up already so now I am using that.  Mac hardware autosenses the polarity anyway so either a straight or a crossover cable should work.

Ports are default configured to DHCP their addresses so you will need to go into SystemPrefs => Network and do some configuration to set up the IP network between the two machines.

One small trap on the MacPro - it has two GigEth interfaces and I believe Ethernet2 is set to innactive by default.  Under the list of interfaces is a + and  - and then a wheel/cog icon... you need to click that one and choose Make Interface Active (kicking myself for missing this the first time around).

When you get this far, you should be able to look at the Network pages on both machines and see Ethernet1 (or 2 on the MacPro) show up as Connected.

Then you need to Configure IPv4 MANUALLY.  Make sure it's a different network to the other interfaces. (assuming you are ok with IP Addressing?)  Macs will route automatically so you wont need to set Router(Gateway) and DNS details on these interfaces.  For Simplicity, I went with 10.0.0.1 on the MP and 10.0.0.2 on the MBP.  Both with 255.255.0.0 subnet mask.

One more tip, click the Advanced button, then choose Ethernet button and set your configure:Manually, Speed 1000bT, Full Duples, MTU 1500. Make sure both Macs have these details set the same.

Hope that gets you working.

Sean

I'd like to ask - are you setting the default ethernet frame size (MTU=1500) or setting Jumbo Frames (MTU = 9000)?

 I'm on the road but heading home with a Mac Mini Server to slave up to my Mac Pro, so I haven't tried it myself yet.  Just curious if someone had tried it with VSL. It's either going to speed up the transfer of chunks of audio back to the master, or screw up the timing as the larger packets occupy the wire longer and may interfere with transmitting smaller control messages or midi.  Seems worth a try though.

Have you seen the press release announcing Waves V9, which includes 64bit versions (at last!)?

http://www.clynemedia.com/waves/WNAMM12/V9/Waves_V9_WNAMM12.html

The release says Q1 2012, which ends in the coming weeks... hopefully they can deliver on this.

Hi guys, first post here...

I have Native Instruments Complete 8, which I recently discovered has a IR module in Guitar Rig 5.  It sounds like a long way to go about things, but I loaded up a couple of instances of GR5 with 'Reflector' loaded in VEpro on send busses and it added some lovely warmth beyond my other options...  Not sure if that meets your requirement for 'innexpensive' or not - to me it was dirt cheap since it was bundled with something else I had.

I've only just begun researching the issue of importing IRs and where to find other impulses.  I have read that not all convolution reverb players accept all formats and some have issues with truncating longer impulses...  Seems there's much to read up on the subject.