Sometimes, it seems software manufacturers doesn't ever talk to anyone who actually use their tools.

Why is this not an option? The woodwind trills are completely unusable, and I say that with experience of hundreds of concert orchestrations. No woodwind player EVER plays like that. That is especially true for Oboe, where the release sample is an entire phrase extra. And slow one, close to 16:th notes in moderate tempo.

Only workaround is to quickly attack with the expression to kill the volume, which is not worth it in a professional setting.

Originally Posted by: Eric Owyoung

I've got three servers running on VE pro that I am seriously considering retiring in order to run the same "disabled track" template you are talking about. Before I commit to a very large task of re-creating my whole template, do you have any advice or warnings for someone in a similar scenario who is about to do the same thing?

Oh, and have you solved the issue of RAM not going back down after disabling?  I'm slightly concerned about this as well.  Sounds like I'm not the only one:

https://forums.steinberg.net/t/hi-timo-question-about-ram-dumping/64236/18

There are an endless ways of designing Disable Track-template, but it has vast advantages compared to having everything loaded IMO. The most important thing would be that you have a cleaner project visually, with the advantage of still having all the bus routing and signal chains intact. When I start my template it's completely empty. Using different Project Logical Editor chains and Keyboard macros within Cubendo, you can create show/hide-presets for just about anything.

If you're going to transfer things from VEP, then get Keyboard Maestro and make macros for everything (saving Kontakt multis, etc). VEP to me has always been "half-finished" when it comes to workflow. Things that should have shortcuts doesn't, or it crashes when using the shortcuts, or text elements (track names, etc) randomly stops responding to keyboard shortcuts, so they need right-click-menus to be copy pasted to/from. All these repetitive tasks can break you down, it's better to use KM to record a macro that clicks for you. It takes some time setting up, but defenitely worth it.

The "purge RAM"-issue I haven't noticed any problems with, but I have 128GB RAM in both my workstations, so plenty of headroom.

I dropped VEP for good 2 months ago, now working with a "disabled track"-template. Best decision I've ever made.

Before dropping, I used disabled tracks, where Keyboard Maestro was translating a keyboard shortcut into enabling/disabling tracks via MIDI inside VEP, thinking that VEP was more CPU efficient.

It isn't. After removing that, I've seen about 20% CPU reduction in Rosetta and my iMac Pro Intel mac, even more when using Silicon Native on my Mac Studio M1 Max Ultra.

Running VEP localhost instead of hosting plugins inside the DAW is no longer the better option. The macOS version beyond iLok transition is not stable enough, and it uses more system resources. At least on my two systems.

I've used VEP for 10 years. It was a big step leaving it behind, but no regerets here. Using Nuendo 12 and macOS 12.6.

Originally Posted by: HONEYHILL

VSL LiveChat <>
           
17 Nov 2022, 19:26 (14 hours ago)
           
to me
Hello Oliver,
 
thanks for getting in touch.
 
You can use all our samples & software on the macOS Ventura. Our software also works with the M1 and M2 chips, and it works surprisingly well on Rosetta 2.

There are a couple of developers using this rethorics (Audioease, among others), and to me, either this is the pinnacle of condesending mumbo-jumbo, or – even worse – VSL don't understand the problem with this argument. I don't believe the last one if the case, instead it's just a way of confusing people.

The problem is not VEP itself. It's the fact that all DAWs except Logic has to be run in Rosetta2 mode. Which means all other plugins will run in Rosetta2 mode. Which means bugs, glitches, performance degredation, etc. Most of us has hundreds of plugins. Of which 99% are now M1 native, where all VSL related software is not.

Even mentioning this as a "positive" argument makes me so annoyed I feel it was worth permanently abandoning VEP just for the sake of not being humiliated.

I've decided to abandon VEP entirely. We've been waiting 2,5 years, and quite frankly, I halved the processing overhead in Nuendo 12 after removing VEP.

I've been a VEP user since 2011, teaching it in universities and engaged in the community, but there's a limit to how long it's possible to wait. VSL is among the last to fix M1 compatibility, only passed by a couple of old-school plugin manufacturers like Lexicon, Musictribe and Kush Audio (which will probably never fix their plugins, their codebase is too old). I've abandoned those as well, and will recommend any students to do the same.

It was a pain rebuilding the template into disabled instrument tracks instead, but worth it. For remote usage of plugins and libraries, I'll look into Audiogridder instead in the future.

Hi Paul,

We really need some kind of ETA now. Personally, I use VEP in game production on a daily basis, and spent years refining my template, balancing, relying on VEP. I've been a VSL user since 2008, so been around here for quite a long time, also educating university students to use VEP, among other things.

My old computer is getting less and less reliable, so I bought a maxed out Mac Studio now, and still the processing overhead by using Rosetta in Cubendo is simply too high for any serious work to be done. Doesn't really matter if VEP works well, it's the other CPU demanding plugins that are forced to run Rosetta that will be bottlenecks.

If VEP is not made compatible within a reasonable time frame (months, not years, it's been almost 2 years since Silicon was first released), I'd have to redo my entire template internally in Nuendo, and after that I will never ever go back to VEP, or recommend any of my university film scoring students using VEP for that matter.

Please, give us something.

Originally Posted by: Paul

Hi, 

It's high on our list, but I can't give you an ETA - it usually only causes disappointment when things don't go as planned. 

But rest assured that we're on it!

Best, 
Paul

As people have already pointed out in other threads and forums:

We need the VEP VST3 plugin first and foremost converted to Apple Silicon, the server can wait since that could be off-loaded onto other computers, and/or can be run in Rosetta as it is not as dependent on CPU as the DAW that uses heavy audio processing with effects and signal chains.

If a plugin is not native Silicon, it will not show up if the entire DAW doesn't run in Rosetta. Which is much slower than running native. So basically, that makes VEP useless for any Apple Silicon user at this point since it will vastly reduce the performance of all other plugins.

I understand that iLok had to be a priority, and that software developers (which I partly work as myself) can't just wave a magic wand, but it would be nice to have some kind of roadmap made public now that it's been more than two years since the release of M1, so we can start planning the transition. My Mac Pro 2013 is running on fumes, and it seems like a total waste to have to buy an Intel machine just because VSL can't give any information about this.

Originally Posted by: jasensmith

I was talking about VE not Cubase. Sorry for the confusion.

AFAIK you can't freeze channels or tracks in VE. Disabling channels has to do with the audio engine feeding the channel. When you turn a channel off you are disabling it but it won't affect the sample load thus it won't affect the RAM.

I think the OP was under the impression that turning the channel off (disabling it) would reduce sample/RAM burden on his system but it reduces CPU load instead.

No, it doesn't only reduce CPU usage. When the channel is disabled it will unload the samples. Enable the channel and it will reload the samples.

VEP7 seems to be leaking memory though sometimes. Adding/removing a Kontakt instance several times increases RAM usage, and it doesn't really free up all the memory, but put in in the avaliable part of the RAM memory. But if you save an instance with a channel unloaded, restart VEP and add the instance again, it will load will 0 RAM usage.

Exact same behavour here. I've been in contact with VSL support that says "We don't know why, we can't do anything". This goes for both my work iMac Pro (High Sierra) and home Mac Pro "trashcan" (Sierra), so it's clearly not system specific.

As long as the DAW is connected, no crashing is occuring, this seems to be related to connection/disconnection, at least on my end.

Also tried reverting back to older version of Kontakt, no difference.

I use a setup with channel strip presets in Logic and coupled VEP instances. The only workaround I've found is to start VEP right before starting up the Logic Project. Any attempt to switch project crashes VEP.

I've used VEP for 6 years. It's a shame, the entire purpose of VEP is the stability. But if that can't be guaranteed, I'm moving all my libraries inside Logic instead.

Haven't tried the latest version of VEP yet, but I've managed to work around it. Restaring the VEP server application after force disconnect makes the connections go back the way they should.

https://vsl.co.at/community/posts/t26135-Stuck-Notes#post172590

Here's an old post describing the exact same problem.

This happens only in Kontakt.

The easiest way of reproducing this with Kontakt is writing a bunch of legato lines, press play and then click in the top bar to "jump around" with the playahead among the legato lines (forcing logic to trigger "note off" and start playing from a new position). After a while some of the lines get stuck. This is probably not a "note" getting stuck in the conventional way, but a voice getting stuck (since many orchestral libraries use stacked voices on the same note for X-fading, etc), which also explains why "note off" doesn't help, since the voice itself doesn't respond to this.

It tends to happend less when "chasing notes" is disabled in Project Settings. In the thread above, an explaination is offered where it is suggested that this has to do with VEP "forgetting" to send note off in large templates. This would probably be reasonable in my case, since I have almost 255 instrument channels which in turn consists of 16 midi channels. Maybe you could try creating an incredible large template with as many VEP-instances and try if that helps reproducing the problem.

The reason for suspecting VEP is that it doesn't happend when the exact same Kontakt instance, loaded on the exact same channel, doesn't get any stuck notes.

BUMP. Still no luck.

So, since VEP6 have been updated, and this problem still persists, I though I'd try this again:

Since day 1 I've used Logic and VEP together, I've been having problems with notes getting stuck on stopping playback. I've tried EVERYTHING in terms of changing any settings in the VEP server, in Logic, and I've googled and read through forums. Nothing. Except that it seems like there are plenty of other people having the same problem.

The problems is this: Using Kontakt inside a VEP instance sometimes hangs the notes on stop when playing back from Logic. Occationally this problem showed up in Cubase as well (I switched a year ago), but not nearly as often.

Midi reset doesn't help. The only thing helping is the panic button inside Kontakt. Which can't be automated.

From what I've learned, it has something to do with regions being cut into smaller pieces. So let's say I want the first half of a event in Logic, I'd cut the even in middle and remove the second half.

So, before I kind of throw all my equipment out the window, I'd like to check it someone finally found a workaround for this. This is currently by biggest workflow hog.

It affects all my Logic projects. All my slave computers, including connecting to localhost with VEP. It affects different libraries, and I've been through all versions of Kontakt before 5.6.

Suggest anything I can try.

Not yet, I'm in mid-production, I'll get back when I've tried it. Thank you.

It's from all files, but it's all from the same template file, which I've been using for about a year.

The .vesp64-file is done from the ground-up, and the affected channels strips were added after VEP was upgraded to v6.

BUMP. I am now able to reproduce this:

1. Creating a Logic Project.

2. Creating VEP instances on localhost.

3. Connecting to Localhost.

4. Saving the project file.

5. Closing the project file, then closing Logic.

Reopening Logic and opening project file remembers the connectings to Localhost just fine.

Now this:

6. Force-Quit Logic (to emulate a crash).

7. VEP6 believes Logic is still connected, so I'm doing "Disconnect All".

8. Reopening Logic + the project file.

HERE'S WHAT DIFFERS:

9a. Logic asks if I want to load the Autosave. If I respond "Yes" here, VEP doesn't reconnect to the local host connections.

9b. I respond "No" to loading the Autosave and use the original save, VEP will reconnect to the localhost connections.

So basically, loading an Autosave in Logic currently doesn't work with VEP6 localhost connections.

As the headline says: doubleclicking a .vesp64 file opens VEP in standalone, and since it's only one .exe to associate the file ending with, how do I make it open in server mode?

Thanks, I'll do that.

This happens with entirely different project files on different computers.

I have static IPs, I have no firewall on either the DAW nor the slaves, and the sub netmask you've specified.

It seems less common that VEP forgets the slaves but it almost always happens with the localhost connection. I just now had a Logic crash where the project opened fine the first time, but after starting Logic and loading the file, all the VEP instances that were connected to the localhost has now "forgotten" to reconnect. It reconnected fine to all the slaves though.

What it seems like (which has always been the case) that if Logic crashes VEP still believes that Logic is connected, so I have to force-disconnect all instances before re-opening the Logic project file. It has worked fine with VEP5 for several years, but not a single time since I upgraded to VEP6.

I can reproduce this problem on both my DAW Mac pro and my slave Macbook Pro.

Doubleclicking a .vesp64 file loads the template, but crashes VEP6 when finished loading. Opening VEP6 and then loading a file via "Open Server Project" works.

This is highly annoying since I'm using keyboard macros to open template files.

Edit: Mac Pro DAW running OSX Maverick, Macbook running Yoshimite.

Hi,

I recently upgraded to VEP6. I'm using Logic X 10.2.2.

After a crash, VEP6 randomly forgets the connections to instances. It affects all my 4 slave computers and local host connections. VEP5 never had this problem.

Any ideas?

Hi,

Quick question: I have two VEP5 licenses (for a total of 6 machines). Does upgrading require me to buy TWO upgrade licenses to make all these into VEP 6?

Best,

Andreas

Originally Posted by: yt020490_13791

For what it's worth...

When I first set up Logic and VEP I was getting quite a few pops glitches and hung notes until CRUCIALLY I disabled "Internet Sharing" in the OSX system preferences. I was using it to pass the internet connection from my master machine to the slave. But it seemed to f***k everything up. Now all our slaves are running totally offline with only one LAN connection for VEP running on its very own LAN cable with nothing else going down that cable.

We're running 2 slaves systems on Mac Pros with logic, running 240 tracks of (currently) Kontakt 4.1.1, Omnisphere, Massive, FXPansion Sysnthsquad. And they're really running pretty much flawlessly.

In our Logic template I've used the environment to add a special MIDI track for the very infrequent occasions when I get a hung note... This track has all note data removed (using transformers in the environment), and then passes everything else to EVERY midi channel on EVERY VEP instance (routed in the environment)!! This way, if there's ever a hung note, I just unmute the "all notes off" CC message which I keep in Bar -2 on this special "all VEP slaves" MIDI track, and BAM, it's gone. I also use this special "All VEP" track to send Modulation and Pitch Bend resets at the very start of every cue. This way if there's missing dynamics programming on a track, at least the playback results are always consistent.

(Very, very occasionally, I do have an issue with some Kontakt patches hanging _within_ Kontakt. This isn't cured by sending an "all notes off" message. I'm pretty sure this is in fact a bug in Kontakt, or possibly a bug in the scripting of specific patches. Although having said that, I don't think I've ever seen this behaviour when running Kontakt straight in Logic, so it may be related in some way to hosting Kontakt inside VEP. None the less, I've only experienced this maybe 2 times in 3 months, so it's no biggie.)

More useful info for Logic users... I find the following latency settings work best for us:

Audio Buffer: 128 or 256 samples (can be increased during mixing if necessary)

Process Buffer Range: Medium

VEP AU host Latency: 2 buffers

and one last thing. ALL professional Logic users MUST read this thread on the Apples forums about how the currently selected track in the arrange window is in "Live Input Mode" and the entired signal chain for that track runs on CPU core 8...

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3161

Peace out... and community forums FTW!

Will Rice

p.p. Sheridan Tongue

A couple of years later: I have this issue, still. It only affects Kontakt, and occures when stopping playback (seems random), which makes Kontakt internally hang notes, which can only be removed by pressing "Mute" INSIDE Kontakt. This is a real pain in the ***, I'm having to VNC into the Slaves and find the correct patch EVERYTIME this happen, since the Mute-button inside Kontakt can't be assigned to any midi-command.

PLEASE; can someone suggest what the hell this bug is about? This affects all my 3 slave computers, so it's not system specific on the VEP Server side.

Logic Pro 10.2.1, OSX Maverick, Mac Pro 2013 8-core, 64GB Ram, 3 different slave setups, everything SSD.