Anydesk 2.6.1 is a game changer. Simple to setup. You will forget you are using remote into the system. Every studio I manage uses Anydesk for slave installations. Find the older version 2.6.1 if you don't want bloat. Works flawless. Crushes every other utility.

Hey,

I've seen this problem before. I only fixed it by going back to ViennaEnsemblePro-WIN-6.0.15864 for the affected machines.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/nou7p11lekakljf/ViennaEnsemblePro-WIN-6.0.15864.exe?dl=0

I included a link here as I'm not sure it's very easy to find. This may fix your trouble guys. It was a very horrific problem I remember.

tagging this as I still haven't solved my own issue with Vienna audio engine crashing at 24 hours. Cubase + VEP 6 is experiencing this as well.

Thought I would chime in as I've seen some interesting perspectives. I'll add mine. I'm a professional user doing full pop production and light scoring. I also private tech for a few known composers and studios in nashville. I'm just gonna say it. Any professional user of Vienna Ensemble Pro needs to purchase the upgrade.

Paul and the team have provided free patch maintainence for years and has provided personal and most excellent customer support to the highest extend a small dev team can provide. There is a trust relationship over many years. I'm going to give VSL the benefit of the doubt when they price new product and provide an upgrade path. I don't have time to nitpick personally. However, maybe a few helpful notes for those feeling a bit burned:

- Pro Audio Software is a VERY small market

- We do not get any support from main OS companies, and computer hardware manufacturers are even less concerned with our specific needs as time goes on. Apple discontinued its pro lineup spawning entire grey market resellers of modified apple hardware JUST to meet specific needs in the pro audio market. OS Platform upgrades are RELENTLESS (especially Mac) and it is VERY difficult for small pro audio developers to keep compatible with an ever diminishing set of standards and SDK's that make our careers possible.

- Vienna as a company could BE FAR WORSE. Ever used "Software-as-a-service"? Mandatory $50/ month seat licenses for Adobe, an ever growing list of software you cannot even purchase (Slate DIgital I'm looking at you) and companies that desire to NICKEL AND DIME you to absolute death.

- VSL is the only software package that performs the task of VST load management for large scaled music production workstations. Someone said monopoly... but really... we are LUCKY to have this software. This helps smaller studios compete with larger (custom designed) studios and is an absolute game changer for composers and a boon for track producers.

- VSL does NOT complain and post sob stories about the cost of business or the shifting economy to make excuses for changing a payment arrangement. They could EASILY stop all development of older platforms and sell a smarmy, scammy, temporary seat license for "access" to their software or any number of predatory monetization schemes that would increase margins considerably. They have chosen instead, to provide the most ACCESSIBLE upgrade path yet... with the ability to upgrade a single seat just for single workstation implementation (testing) and very reasonable additional licenses....

- VSL is very much in line with other niche pro audio software packages. Check out ReVoice, Celemony Melodyne, UAD DSP, Breakaway VST, Soundminer, NI Machine and you will find a range of pricing far higher than VSL is charging. They could easily go into $500+ territory for these releases like ReVoice or Melodyne Studio Editor but they choose to price their software in a much lower tier.

- It is in our best interest to keep VSL in business. It is common in this industry for niche developers to shut down (even Steinberg was sold to Yamaha and Didgidesign to Avid back in the day) due to unsustainability. It should be every professional user's concern to help support the dev team that is providing the software we depend so heavily on. I understand if some of you are not as dependent on the software I'm just speaking from my personal perspective.

- I bought the upgrade license as soon as it was available. I don't know what features are coming. I don't know what is changed or improved and it is likely I won't even be upgrading for a long time but it is my priority to keep supporting devs of the software that is most critical to running my studio.

I understand there are many types of users and I think they are trying to find a balance here but I just wanted to add my thoughts on here because I don't think VSL is going to be able to say the things I did with the same perspective or potential impact.

Happy producing guys and looking forward to Vienna Powered Production for many years to come. Cheers!

Make sure to ONLY use sataIII ports that are NATIVE intel chipset sata ports. Many motherboard include an extra set (or multiple) that are added so the board can be listed as having 10, 12 or more satas. 6 Native sata ports are about normal for hi end boards. Some server boards can go up from there. If you see "Marvell" or "ASMedia".. turn it ALL off in bios. They have fundamental I/O issues that absolutely will always create problems, errors. This is a little-known but totally studied issue (even scientific journals have published papers on SATA controller predictable errors)

You will never have a problem if you get rid of externals, esata, non-native sata controllers. Use only the chipset native sata ports. Trust me.

Don't let windows 7 do the indexing. Software like Kontakt and DAWs use their own indexes to load file tables. You can try different KONTAKT indexing settings (called LIBRARY) but other than loading lists of samples out of windows explorer (which DOES use indexing), you won't see any benefit. SSDs a DEFINITE NO ANYWAY.

To answer your question... no I still have this issue on the latest vienna 6. ANY version of cubase does this... I also converted my system back to Vienna 5 and tested... and still the same issue. Not sure what went wrong or how this keeps happening but I just unload and load at the beginning of every production session as a habit now. costs me about 10 minutes per session.

Hey, a few versions were updated since we had this issue, and I went ahead and tried updating to the LATEST version, a few past the one we had trouble with.

I believe, at least for me, Paul fixed whatever was causing these weird audio glitches. I haven't had any anomlous behavior and I am on the latest official build (6.0.17011).

You can connect midi cc to individual parameters. you need to use quickcontrols (vst) in device setup.

I tend to believe this doesn't have anything to do with a certain windows 10 update. I am on windows 7 and experience the problem as well. Additionally, you can fix it by going to the 15864 update so it should prove that it wasn't the windows package that changed anything. Best of luck.

Thanks guys for the update. At least we know the fix is to stay with 15000 block for now. Glad you are back up and running Shad0wLandsUK.

Hi Paul,

Just letting you know both my studio and another composer friend of mine (who I provide tech support for) is having this weird glitching on certain kontakt blades, omnisphere patches switching that goes away by downgrading from the latest to the 15864.

I am a windows 7 x64 install and he is a win 10 x64 FYI. Happens with server hook into Cubase or Digital Performer (latest versions respectively) and also happens as a standlaone instance.

For anyone wondering, downgrading is EASY. You simply just execute the installer and it kindly replaces whatever version of the software you have (earlier or later) with the installation package are running. VERY EASY to flip back and forth versions to test.

DOWNGRADE to 6.0.15864

You can find it in the myVsl SOFTWARE ARCHIVE.

Something happened between the latest and this version that causes some weird distortions randomly. Noticed in Kontakt 5, and Spectrasonics... maybe more but fixed after downgrade.

Hey man that's fantastic to hear you are hitting your expectations with the settings switch! As for ASIO-guard, from my perspective, I lay the blame squarely at the feet of Steinberg who I believe funded the development of ASIO-guard to eventually put Paul (VSL) out of business... they know that their system resource management is over 10 years out of date... this is their attempt to shift their software architecture forward. At least they had the good sense to allow us (for now) to turn it off.

1.) Anydesk 2.7.1 easily loads as a service and can be shortcut from the master... in fact I have three shortcuts that are preset on my main taskbar for my slaves and even remote servers at a live performance array I administrate (I use 7+ taskbar tweaker to customize the taskbar but win10 might be different). I say 2.7.1 because one day i tried an update, and there were nag screens and changes.. so I advise only up to 2.7.1 which you can still easily find on net.

2.) I wouldn't worry too much about virtual memory until you get upwards 128gb. The idea is to manage which kontakt samplers (or intstruments like PLAY and OMNISPHERE, KEYSCAPE etc) are using DFD (direct from disk) or SAMPLER mode (direct from memory). This will be more important once you start using SSDs which can handle (to a certain extent) disk streaming at low latency. If you keep an eye out for instruments that could be streaming from disk INSTEAD of using your RAM... then you can provide an optimization step institutionally to squeeze even more performance out of your setup. Likewise, certain instruments (like 8DIO) can be run at even lower latencies if you force them to load entirely in memory, prohibiting DFD ad-hoc... I've just made a habit of loading 32-48gb of system memory with the instruments that need the fastest stream speed, and then using DFD spread across a 10TB ssd array selectively.

Finally, the reason we are inherently biased AGAINST windows virtual memory, is there is no transparent way to see exactly which tasks, services or applications are being allocating ACTUAL WICKED FAST MEMORY or slow, performance crushing disk cache access. At 64gb and careful memory management, I'm securing the entire system performance expecations, provided I'm aware of my memory headroom... By feeling a performance hit, it's evident you are approaching that headroom limitation of the 64gb enfironment and should probably keep it automatic (or fixed to a generous amount on your least used drives) until you are able to provide excess system memory to your workstation... I'm looking toward 256gb ECC in a dual Xeon (ES) setup.. I've built a few.. and have been blown away at their inherent capability for such a low cost.

3.) The MMCSS tool should not have been suggested to you since I now see you are Windows 10 and overlooked that fact. MMCSS is something I've noticed windows 10 already does quite well and I have not yet tweaked a win10 daw with that in mind... so most likely not a step I can advise at this point. The idea in that step of optimization was to provide instructions to the OS to prioritize CPU (during Pro-Audio tasks) over GPU and provide only 10% reserved for environmental system tasks... netting you a 10% increase from the typical setting of 20% reserved. It also implies that you keep the system scheduler virtually empty and prohibit all unnecessary processes from running in the background as is best practice in DAW machine management.

4. Regarding background processes: yes this is a surprising step but makes perfect sense after I did multiple steps of testing... as Vienna is reporting its processor requests to windows as a PROGRAM and does not load balance its own memory PID through windows service manager (BACKGROUND)... if it did, then we would have to select background instead of program... now as far as ASIO device driver process management..

...I honestly do not know how Steinberg, Novation, Avid or RME (or other developers) deal with process management internally frankly because they are not transparent enough to provide the necessary information and I just don't have time to track each process step down... honestly I believe that is the primary reason VSL GmbH will continue to provide software that absolutely decimates its competition for years to come.

As confusing and unaccaptable as this is, nothing can compare to the sadness I feel for my Apple-centered studio friends who are dealing with nothing short of a literal seige on their profession by their own software establishment. I have aided in the Windowsification of more Mac studios than I would like to admit in the past few years; **sigh** I guess us windows guys will soon no longer be the rebels in this profession... makes me wonder how Linux for pro-audio is doing these days lol. jk.

one more thing... I use AnyDesk (2.7.1) as a BRILLIANT solution to be able to access the slaves as if they are just additional local instances of vienna on the taskbar of the main windows daw... I even changed the anydesk logo to vienna's logo (just slightly different color to signal a "remote" window)... so right next to my local instances... is a permanent remote portal into the other machines... which seems as smooth and quick as a hardware KVM switch...

that's thanks to the 'secret weapon' that truly is the AnyDesk utility. I advise NOT using the latest version.. because they put more nag windows in the newer softwares... however the 2.7.1 version is quite possibly one of the most expertly, efficiently and miraculously devloped applications I have ever discovered...

it's impossible to overstate the importance of AnyDesk in my current workflow.. no stones left unturned at this point and absolutely ZERO phsycial movements to have full access to all the horsepower setup in the equipment room.

I am on deadline right now.. don't have a ton of time but wanted to give you something...

I follow almost everything in this guide:

http://www.overclock.net/t/1433882/gaming-and-mouse-response-bios-optimization-guide-for-modern-pc-hardware

this is my shortcut target for Cubase.. I launch from the desktop even though I have Cubase pinned on the taskbar... it just doesn't hold the target settings for me if I don't start from the desktop shortcut EVERY time... so when I go to MIX, I let cubase have EVERYTHING it wants... only during the arrangement MIDI phase will I limit cubase to two cores... then let vienna fight over the rest. My next move is to build an absolute MONSTER dual xeon 44 core (88 with HT) because I have a feeling vienna will know EXACTLY how to use the cores... and basically work with the cores more exclusively... but for now:

C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /c start "Process Monitor" /affinity 3F "C:\Program Files\Steinberg\Cubase 9\Cubase9.exe"

On Cubase-> Devices -> VST Audio System...

Release Driver when Application in Background: NOT CHECKED

Activate Multi Processing: CHECKED

Activate ASIO-Guard: ABSOLUTELY NOT! even in VSTi plugin setup in cubase, I have specifically disabled asio guard for vienna plugins. There was a history where ASIO guard + the Vienna BUFFER would FREEZE and do weird things. I don't trust it and my workflow truly doesn't benefit from it... if I DID need it, I certainly would just build two main templates, one for arrangement, and one for mixing with heavy plugs... but I wouldn't be crazy enough to try using MIDI, vienna AND ASIO-Guard.. I mean, I'm not suicidal.

Audio Priority: BOOST

Activate Steinberg Audio Power Scheme: NOT CHECKED (But only becasue I have manually unparked all cores using special registry hacks... there are apps that can do this easily... it wasn't easy to optimize, and I am not balsy enough to try this checked option anymore because it literally messes with your CPU and Power settings every time you check it. I'm worried its gonna screw with my nice low latency setup)

Disk Preload: 2

Adjust for Record latency: CHECKED

ALSO----- i have ASIO latency compensation on BOTH Vienna and Cubase OFF until I'm in the mix stage... the idea being.. I don't want either program introducing artificial delay while I'm mocking up and really want to feel no latency with the performances of each instrument... however once programming is past midi... it might be appropriate to enable those settings for the render in place I just haven't tested enough.. And honestly theres so many variables on the sample libraries, instruments etc... on how much delay exists IN the sample itself to make it almost a non issue in almost every case... I just bounce the loops and then deal with any audio sync problems as needed... maybe nudging stuff forward an back as a whole as a final step...

------------------------------

Also its important to note I use an app called: Vista Multimedia Scheduler Configuiration Tool

Network throttling index: Disabled
System Responsiveness reserved CPU: 10%

Task: Pro Audio
Affinity: ALL
Clock Rate 10000
GPU Priority: 8
Priority: 1
Scheduling category: High
I/O Priority: Normal
Background Only: False
Background priority: blank

Make sure to backup entries before you jack with this... and SAVE AND EXIT.

--------------------

Another important setting for this setup, is the Windows System Properties / (tab) Advanced / (section) Performance - Settings... / (tab) Advaced

Processor scheduling: PROGRAMS
Virtual Memory: 0mb (disabled)

-------------------

I use all SSDs: 6 Sandisk 960gb ultra II for normal crap, two samsung evo 850 for operating and daw recording and a Samsung 950 evo for my highest demand kontakt and vsti. I have one older spinning drive for temporary storage which is a SATA internal 3tb drive... this is a staging area to do heavy audio processing, archiving, extraction.. anything that is just wasted write cycles on the SSDs I can do on the staging drive...

NO usb or firewire drives!
NO network shares
NO running processes etc... be smart... fixed IP addresses for all machines... enable net bios over TCP/IP etc...
NO HOMEGROUP CRAP

NO HPET (disabled using "bcdedit /deletevalue useplatformclock" and also disabled in BIOS")
----

I see where you are going with the core issue... the best I can do for now is advise setting Vienna options-(tab)-Instances: "Multiprocessing" setting to 2 threads across your entire setup. don't set it to 8.. and DO NOT TRY TO MESS WITH AFFINITY FOR VIENNA... I've tried it... and it actually creates SERIOUS problems for vienna... so leave it be.

by setting it to 2 threads... you are basically using ONE true core (there are really only FOUR cores... the other four are hyperthread virtual cores... BUT for sure, kontakt and vienna LOVE hyperthreading... there is signifigant performance gain of realtime processor calls between NO HT and YES HT... so leave it on.

Then go ahead and just let kontakt have multiprocessor support in its own settings like I said before.... I also do that with Battery 3 / 4 and reaktor.

-----

overall my RME Raydat is set to 128 buffer... for normal session... 256... in mix stage.. probably getting to 512 and if I bring up Acustica Nebula (for the absolute secret sauce when only the best sounds will do, then I'll take it 1024-2048... with a similar Nebula SERVER setup to the vienna setup...

Remember to just do a system image before you start jacking with settings like this... its so easy to mirror up a drive image (I'm LOVING LOVING LOVING EaseUS Backup software for mission critical imaging and low-profile installs across my machines) Once I've achieved a working setup.. I date and image all machines... because... oh my goodness if one day I wakeup and this thing just doesn't work right... it WILL be faster to flash back to an image than tracking down a million or so potential problems.

WHICH REMINDS ME. WINDOWS UPDATE NEEDS TO DIE DIE DIE DIE... no updates.. or you will have problems.

 GOOD LUCK !!!! Let me know how this goes.

everything I've tested leads me to leave multiprocessing on on all three softwares.. in almost every possible configuration... I'm using a nearly identical setup to you. Only difference is I have 64gb of DDR4 ram.

my best setup yet is actually letting cubase only see 2 cores (there is a way to set processor affinity), and run THREE instances of VEP using 2 cores each (this is very easy to do.. thanks paul!!!) ... thats 8 total being allocated, BUT ALSO let kontakt use 6-8 too. I have not tested the latest Kontakt 5.6... this was on 5.5... also I'm averaging 8 instrument lanes in EACH VEPro instance..

I've also found there is no penalty for having more racks than 8.. it's more about balancing the load... for instance, if I have THREE keyscape instances... it works MUCH better if you split them up over 3 separate VEPro instances than having one VEPro instance try to negotiate the realtime priority of THREE heavy instruments simultaneously. I cant figure out WHY.. just observing my experiences.

I have two additional slaves that each use 4 VEP instances with 2 cores each vienna rack (8 total). Similar set up on the 8 instrment lanes.. about 64 slave instruments making 88 if I'm counting the main machine.

Also, I use a single instance of Kontakt for each sound.... I've tested both ways and always found that 8 kontakts racks playing the 8 sounds you want is more efficient than having a single kontakt playing the same exact 8 sounds in a multitimbral setup... even so... there are certain instruments in Kontakt (like Abbey Road Pianos) that seem to NEED the multiprocessor no matter how you set it up...

I'd be very happy to learn if anyone has any results or workflows that disagree with my findings... good luck guys.

Hey I made some progress... is everyone using the same sound card for system audio and also daw use? I noticed my RME driver not changing with a buffer change while recording vocals the other day... tracked it down to the system audio (windows 7). As soon as I disabled the use of my RME in windows, cubase was switching the buffer perfectly.

Just curious to see if anyone has the problem even if their operating system isn't using the interface for system sound.

windyweekend,

I have a feeling that if the kontakt update did not provide the fix... we are going to need to detail out the specifics of our vienna racks to track this down fully... Im 5 days into a slave configuration that hasn't had the issue... though like I said before, my racks aren't fully loaded as normal, where i first experienced the problem we've all reported in this thread... based on what I know now, I'm almost positive the problem is not hardware, os configuration, network config... has to be DAW-VEP or VEP-INTERNAL.. both server and standalone.

I'm about to architect a new upgraded multi-slave setup of a friend of mine who happens to be a much busier and credited composer than me and really would like to have this problem licked before signing off on his templates...

I will post the details of each setup that either has the issue or does not as soon as I can guys. peace.

I'm still tracking it down... but try updating Kontakt 5.6.6... I'm using a slightly lighter setup (not fully loaded) and haven't had a disconnect in the last two days. I'm thinking it could be library specific to Kontakt... or perhaps they did fix something in recent update. later this week I'll be able to load a maxed template again and see if the disconnect will happen. Are we certain it is VEP6 specific? I just can't remember if I ever had this issue on 4 or 5.. music-brain.

Paul,

Since you asked, I HAVE been running decoupled... I love being able to label the tabs clearly in this way.. however for troubleshooting I'll do a few trials overnight with cubase-coupled instances. I kept in same thread to help narrow  down. No intent on confusing the issue however I suspect both configurations could be faulted by the same issue.

Jesse

Same problem with a 2xslave setup cubase 9 host.

i7-6770k 64gb ram win7 host - RME raydat (radar24-clocked) 256buffer - cubase 9 (latest)  - vep6, 16+kontakt, ew play, spire, serum, sylenth, uvi wrkstation, omnisphere, keyscape

i7-2600k 16gb ram win7 slave1 - vep6 - same software

i7-2600k 16gb ram win7 slave2 - vep6 - same software

Gigabit through hardwired switch and static ip. cat6 cable I crimped myself.

Literally the same issue... the audio engine is just blank after an extended period of time. it's never quit during use, just after returning from a 24 hour period+ of not being used. Midi appears to be functioning but no audio seems to be coming back through the ASIO lanes.

Paul, if you want to track this down even further, let me know what you would need. I have a background in software development so i'd be open to helping you nail this one down. Definitely not a sleep or hibernation issue on my end. What else could possibly cause a timeout issue?

Also, I have not taken the time to roll back to 5 or 4 and wait for the problem fyi. Next time I get the issue, I'll see if there is ANY way outside of close and reload that can fix the issue. might help in tracking down the source.