I have a large orchestral template setup across several computers using VE Pro7. This covers most of my use cases, but occasionally I want to change the panning, levels, etc. of various instruments for a given project without having a completely different server project. 

I can do this now by not decoupling the modified instances so that the modifications get saved with my Cubase projects. However, this leads to huge Cubase saves and is very error prone. I have to work with the instances decoupled and then remember to turn off decoupling when I save or I will lose all the mixer change that are specific to the project. I could theoretically just always work with decoupling off, but this is not practical because it takes forever to save.

Ideally, I would like to have the same decoupled instances for all projects, but just change mixer settings between projects. Is there any way to do this? If not, this is a feature I would gladly pay for.

I guess the other option is to modify my template so there are outputs for each instrument running back to my DAW, and then use the DAW for mixing instead of VE Pro, but that will likely cause problems due to a ton of network traffic. 

Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks!

Progress! It is most likely a Kontakt problem. If I manually disable the host tempo sync in *every* instance of Kontakt, it seems fine. I guess Kontakt 5 has issues with tempo sync and large templates. I'm not sure if this is specific to instances of Kontakt in VE Pro or in general. I'll need to change my setup to test it directly in Cubase, but I'll report back on anything I find.

Sorry for the swarm of messages, but I keep finding new information. If I completely mute everything in Cubase, so there is no midi data being sent to VE Pro (or Kontakt), the CPU usage still jumps to ~100% on my VE PRO slave.during the tempo change.

I also tried all combinations of buffer sizes and reducing the midi and audio ports in VE Pro.

In my latest tests, the CPU during a tempo change is over 90% during a tempo change and only 20-30% at other times. Unfortunately, my previous "fixes" (either reducing the Kontakt instances or reducing the size of each instance) don't actually work because a single reduced instance still has the CPU around 85% during a tempo change. So, there actually isn't a workaround because even if I replicate VE Pro instances, the CPU will just jump back to 100%.

I've tried almost everything I can think of, with the exception of reverting back to VE Pro 4.

I just noticed that during the ramp tempo change, the CPU usage in VE Pro jumps to ~99%. This is definitely the problem, but I'm still not sure of the cause.

I tried Kontakt with the multiprocessing settings both on and off and it didn't seem to make a difference. The only other libraries I have installed on my Kontakt 5 machine are VSL and Play libraries, which don't seem to be having the problem. However, I also found that if I delete some of the instruments from each Kontakt instance, the problem goes away (even with 5 Kontakt instances). 

I don't think the problem is with LASS because I bypassed the LASS scripts and was still getting the problem.

Another interesting result is that if I solo one of the 5 Kontakt instances, I still get the problem. But, if I delete the unused instances, it seems to work. So, the issue seems related to the number of instances loaded, not the number of instances involved in playback. Weird.

Good questions:

1) no

2) I'm using LASS 2, which requires K5

3) Small tempo jumps do not seem to cause a problem

Here is some other info I found. I currently have one VE Pro 5 instance for LASS2 with 5 Kontakt instances. As I start to delete Kontakt instances, the problem gets better (less distorted). If I get down to one instance, I *think* it is working correctly. This suggests a possible workaround of 5 separate LASS instances instead of 1 with 5 Kontakt instances. 

However, I would still like to figure out the problem because this prevents me from getting the most benefits from VST3. I also have a huge template on other machines, so I need to reduce VE Pro instances whenever possible. Thanks for the help.

I haven't found the exact cause, but when I use smaller Kontakt templates, the problem does not occur. I will experiment with different sizes to see if I can create a reproducible test. 

By the way, this problem does not occur for VSL instruments or for Play instruments (at least the ones that I've tested). I haven't tested other Kontakt libraries, but I will soon.

I'm using LASS loaded in Kontakt 5 inside of VE Pro 5 on a slave machine that is triggered by Cubase 6.5 (using VST3 64-bit). Anytime there is a tempo change in Cubase, the audio from VE Pro gets distorted. For example, if you have a "ramp" tempo change in Cubase, during the ramp, the audio is distorted, but at all other times, it is fine. Also, if you watch the VE Pro window during the tempo change, the focus randomly and quickly shifts between different Kontakt instances. In other words, the highlighted instances change rapidly like they do when I manually click them. Also, I verified that Kontakt is getting the tempo changes (shown on the master editor tab). However, it seems like the tempo changes are making VE Pro go crazy.

Here is my exact setup:

Cubase 6.5.0

VE Pro 5.1.11252

Kontakt 5.0.3.5812

Windows 7 64 bit

I've also tried Cubase 6.5.3 with the same problem. I just recently upgraded all of these tools, but I never experienced this problem in the last version of VE Pro 4. Thanks for the help.

I have the same issue, but with LASS loaded in Kontakt 5 inside VE Pro. During ramp tempo changes in Cubase, the audio sounds very distorted, almost like it is using the wrong sample rate.

I downloaded the Cubase 6.5 demo, and I am not having the problem. I extended the test to include 8 ports with 16 instruments each, with 4 separate CC changes at the exact same time in each track. I haven't verified all 8x16 Kontakt monitor scripts, but the ones in the 8th port are receiving the data! This strongly suggests the problem was in fact with Cubase. It is strange that nobody every noticed this with Cubase 5.5, but at least it works now.  

 If anyone else wants to test it, here are some project files:

(removed)

Here are the instructions I sent to support:

"I attached a Cubase project with identical clips on 16 tracks across 4 different ports (you might want to check that the channel and port setting were preserved). Each clip sets 4 different CCs at the same time. There is one VST3 VE Pro instance in the project that will likely be disconnected. Next, create an instance on the VE Pro Server and load 4 Kontakt instances across 4 ports. Load the attached Kontakt multi (monitor.nkm) in each Kontakt instance, which contains 16 empty instruments with the midi monitor script enabled. Connect the instance in Cubase and everything should be ready to go.

In each instrument in Kontakt, you can monitor the received CC messages as described in the thread (I suggest enabling verbose mode so you can see the entire log). If you check the instruments on the first two ports, they will receive all the messages. If you check the instruments on the last port, they will not receive the messages. On VE Pro 5, I received the messages on the first 2 ports, but not the last 2. On VE Pro 4, I received the messages on some of the instruments on port 3, but not port 4."

I reported the problem. I hate to speculate, but is it possible there is a buffer that overflows when receiving too much midi data in a short time? If the data isn't showing up in Kontakt, that suggests it is being lost between Cubase and Kontak (i.e. Ve Pro). I initially thought it was Cubase, but if I load Kontakt directly, there are no lost messages.

Also, I have tried all buffer sizes in addition to various combinations of midi ports and audio ports amounts. Thanks for the help.

This sounds like a different problem. My CPU usage on these tests is around 4% and CC data is being lost. In some cases, it is losing sustain pedal messages when they occur close to other CC changes. I'm ok with imperfection, but this makes it nearly impossible to work. I have to play things back and hope nothing important is lost.

I downloaded VE Pro 5 and confirmed that the same thing is occuring. In fact, VE Pro 5 is losing more data than VE Pro 4. With VE Pro 4, I would lose data after 40 instruments. With VE Pro 5, only the first 32 instruments receive anything.

As a further test, I soloed all the instruments after the first 32, and then the CC were received for those tracks (likely because there was less CC data being sent). This strongly suggests that VE Pro has a problem with numerous CC messages that occur at the same or similar times.