Vienna Ensemble Pro - Version History

v8.1.834, June 19th, 2026

Fixed

• Event Input Plugin was not sending any events
• Windows: Version number displayed wrong
• Video Pro Plug-in: Blackmagic devices were not working
• Video Pro Plug-in: Dragging in audio files from folders was broken

Improved:

• macOS: Hardware acceleration

v8.1.830, June 17th, 2026

NEW FEATURES

MCP Server

• New MCP server integration: VE Pro now ships an MCP server (a native MCP client/CLI bundled into the macOS and Windows installers) that lets AI assistants drive VE Pro. Enable it for Claude, ChatGPT Codex or Google's Antigravity from the new MCP / API section in Preferences.

Audio Input Plugin

• The Audio Input plugin now works reliably across hosts, without the awkward, host-specific workarounds it used to need. Rather than depending on the DAW delivering input audio exactly on time, the plugin now detects when input arrives late, free-runs to measure how much latency it needs, and raises its reported latency so the next playback is in sync — replacing the previous hand-tuned per-host latency handling. The current Audio Input Latency is shown in the plugin settings with a Reset button, and persists with the project.
• A new shared-memory transport makes the input plugins work in out-of-process / sandboxed hosts the old model couldn't serve — including Logic and the macOS AU hosting service.
• Audio Input slots are now variable-width (mono / stereo / surround / immersive) instead of fixed stereo pairs.

Automation

• New dockable Automation Browser replacing the legacy automation tabs: Flat / By-source / By-destination views, a collapsible source-picker accordion (learn / none / Parameter / MIDI), inline single-click source and destination pickers with learn-pulse feedback, shortened parameter paths, sortable and user-resizable columns, multi-token and quoted-phrase search, and a redesigned toolbar.
• Automation edits (add / remove / edit source and destination / clear) and engine learn-captures are now undoable / redoable.
• Automation Browser view state (mode, sort column, column widths, scroll) persists across restarts and project save / load.

Channels, Mixer and MIDI

• Reworked folder and channel enable / disable model. Disabling a folder is now a pure folder-level action that silences the folder's bus without rewriting each child's own enable state (the previous model fanned disable state up and down the tree). Children under a disabled folder are shown as effectively disabled — their plugins close, secondary controls grey, and the enable button dims to a faint variant — while keeping their individual enable state, so re-enabling the folder restores exactly what was active before. The folder enable button now toggles only the folder's own state on a plain click, with Shift+click as the new gesture to fan the change out to its direct children. Old sessions are migrated automatically (a folder whose children were all disabled becomes a disabled folder with its children left intact).
• Folder Disable is now an automatable parameter (registered alongside Volume / Mute / Solo) so DAWs can automate folder enable / disable, and it is the single source of truth behind the DAW-facing instance Disable parameter (replacing the old separate engine-level Disable).
• Force Enable action — enables channels gated by disabled parent folders in one undoable step (ungating ancestors, self-disabling siblings); available from the Channels menu, strip/mixer context menus, Ctrl+Alt+F, REST and OSC. The plain Enable item is hidden unless a channel is actually self-disabled.
• Inline channel renaming from the mixer strip (Shift+double-click; a preference inverts this; Tab / Shift+Tab navigation, Alt group-rename, undo, folder support).
• Hierarchical MIDI-input picker that nests channels under their port, sets port + channel in one undo step, and flags slots colliding with other strips on the same port/channel.
• Opt-in "Enable channels on MIDI activity" preference, off by default.
• Preference controlling which MIDI events count as activity for instance focus-switching (default note+cc; notes-only / CC-only / any), eliminating unwanted switching from note-offs and incidental CC streams.
• Per-channel progress feedback while enabling / disabling channels and folders.

Saving and Backups

• Reworked auto-save into a configurable backup system. Final state: auto-saves and on-save backups are kept in two independent, separately-counted rotations ([name].autosave-NN and [name].backup-NN) written next to the project file; keep-counts are configurable and a count of 0 disables on-save backups. The Saving preferences were regrouped accordingly.

Plugin Hosting and Compatibility

• Comprehensive speaker-arrangement / channel-configuration support aligned with VST3 SDK 3.8 — many new immersive / 3D layouts (9.x, 7.1.x, 7.0.3, 22.0 / 22.2, Atmos variants, Sony 360RA, bottom-layer formats), enumerated from one shared list across the new-project dialog, FX-insert probing, and the VST3 / AU / veplugin / integrated providers; with correct metering and stability at very high channel counts.
• Automatic VST2 → VST3 migration: when a saved VST2 plugin can't be loaded (e.g. uninstalled), VE Pro migrates it to its declared VST3 successor on load and passes the saved state through as a proper FXB stream (verified with Kontakt 8).

Crash / Hang Reporting

• New Help → Submit Hang Report item for manually submitting crash/hang .dmp / .txt files to support, with the event ID copied to the clipboard on success.

Vienna Video Pro

• Large UI redesign across the timeline browser, track controls, transport, fullscreen, markers / regions / streamers, import / export / settings / shortcuts dialogs, video pool, color picker, audio meter, timecode overlay and icons — including track volume up to +12 dB, snap-to-timeline-start, and a confirmation dialog when removing a timeline.

IMPROVEMENTS

Performance

• macOS realtime scheduling now relies on server workgroups (replacing the hand-tuned time-constraint policy).
• Channel-set presets now use a single app-scoped cache / watcher shared across instances (with a startup "Loading channel set library…" splash), fixing hangs when browsing Channel Sets and lag in embedded file dialogs.

UI / UX

• macOS-style title bars on dock, tool and main windows.
• Tall popup / context menus now pan (scroll) vertically so items past the screen edge stay reachable, instead of being clamped.
• Audited and filled in missing tooltips / status tips across the host, MIR and Server UIs.
• Browser filter now supports double-quoted phrases for exact matches.
• App-level shortcuts (undo / save / etc.) now work while a browser search field has focus.
• Swapped the enable / disable channel shortcuts (Cmd/Ctrl+E enables, +Shift disables).
• Plugin / project loading no longer stalls the UI: the modal progress dialog now renders natively instead of pumping the Qt event loop (which previously risked hangs and crashes, especially on macOS).
• Server interface plug-in NOT-CONNECTED screen reworked: the headline now names the host you tried to reach with a one-sentence, case-specific reason beneath it; it distinguishes a server closed cleanly from an unexpected drop, keeps showing the last-known host after a drop, with RETRY / ALL buttons, tailors the message for localhost vs. remote, and vertically centers the status / host / reason / connect-button stack (with a larger server label).
• Server interface plug-in server browser: added a server-discovery help popover; the CONNECT button is disabled until a valid IPv4 address is entered; and settings / error dialogs render inside the plugin window instead of as native OS popups.
• Audio / Event Input connect screen polish: denser, more readable server-interface list; in-window error dialogs; a "?" help popover explaining why no interface is listed; ASSIGN disabled until a valid interface is selected; a clearer "Use for automation" checkbox; and a red / green header tint.
• ASIO startup hardened for picky RME drivers (progressive open fallback; JUCE GUI initialised so drivers receive a valid window handle, fixing empty sample-rate / latency dropdowns).
• The plugin browser now has a toggle button to show/hide presets, so searching for plugins specifically becomes easier

BUG FIXES

Plugin Hosting

• AU channel mapping for surround / immersive layouts is no longer scrambled; broader AU layout recognition; AU3 reports correct per-bus I/O, applies the output channel-map and uses block-relative SysEx timing.
• AU3 reports the correct version (8.1.0) to Logic's Plugin Manager and reads server I/O counts via a shared app-group container.
• The VST2 wrapper now correctly offers a Quadro 4-channel configuration.
• VST3 plugins retain their identity (id / name / manufacturer) and unload reliably.
• Missing-plugin slots now keep their saved state across save / load for all plugin types (not just VST2).
• Undoing a move / replace FX-plugin operation no longer pairs signal-blockers with the wrong channels.

Integrated (Vienna Suite Pro) Plugins

• Fixed a crash when automating an integrated plugin's Disable parameter (the handler now runs off the realtime audio thread; receiver context added to receiverless signal/slot connections).
• The integrated-plugin Bypass is now synced with the host FxPlugin Bypass, and "Bypass" no longer appears twice as an automatable parameter (the engine now soft-bypasses through the plugin).
• Integrated plugins are no longer missing from the FX-insert menu on immersive / 3D buses (e.g. 7.1.6); the integrated provider now draws from the shared channel-configuration list.

Channels, Automation and Routing

• Channels copied from a disabled instance into an enabled one now become active instead of showing greyed-out players.
• Enabling a channel that was duplicated while disabled now refreshes its strips, and its VST3 slot is no longer stuck in bypass.
• Duplicating channels (and pasting / loading channel sets) places the new channels right after the selection, selects them all, makes the correct one current, and restores the selection on undo (including folders).
• Opening a channel's instrument GUI via the edit button now makes that channel current and selected.
• The missing-patches warning ring clears immediately when the instrument is replaced.
• Fixed automation targeting disabled channels / plugins: re-enable hooks are no longer duplicated or burned, the destination parameter name is preserved across disable / save / reload, unresolved entries are skipped in network parameter info, and per-plugin disabled state stays aligned with its ID across regeneration.

Stability / Crashes

• Fixed a crash from casting a channel to the wrong channel type.
• Fixed a crash when the iLok is removed during application shutdown.
• Fixed a crash when pressing OK on the missing-plugins dialog.
• macOS: fix to prevent the connected DAW being killed when the VE Pro server unexpectedly quits
• Preserved the PACE conductor across client reconnections after a crash (fixes spurious "peer limit" failures) and fixed an addPeer / removePeer data race.
• Restored macOS 10.14 compatibility on the crash-reporting path.

Project Load and Window State

• Cancelling the "Save Changes" prompt when loading a server project now actually aborts the load.
• Loading a server project no longer flashes and then clobbers the saved dock / window layout.
• Standalone windows restore geometry, dock layout, maximized state and splitter ratio across restarts.
• A maximized window is restored as maximized on macOS standalone reload.
• The INSTRUMENT dock restores the current channel's instrument after load.
• Multi-instance server loads show the correct current instance (fixes wrong-instance / invisible-instance GUI issues with Kontakt and similar plugins).
• Floating instrument-window position / visibility is restored and all windows open at save time are reopened; Video Pro window position persists.
• Fixed the UI becoming click-unresponsive after loading a server project.
• Fixed the mixer occasionally appearing empty (no channel strips) after loading a project.

General UI

• Removed a duplicate "Preferences…" entry and stray empty menu separators.
• Combo / selector buttons no longer stay visually pressed after their popup menu closes.
• Off-screen tool windows are clamped fully on-screen; the channel color picker opens with the cursor on the swatches.
• Double-clicking a knob near the right screen edge no longer immediately closes the value-edit popup.
• Widened Preferences spinboxes and fixed inverted min / max on the meter peak-hold setting.
• The CHANNEL SETS dock can no longer be shrunk to a sliver (minimum width raised to match AUTOMATION).
• Insert slots show a proper bypass icon instead of a power glyph.
• Menu icons render consistently, including the previously icon-less Save Project item.
• Consistent group spacing in the Preferences dialog across pages.
• Floating tool / dock windows show the resize cursor and allow edge drag-resize.
• Windows, high-DPI: fixed mispositioned popup menus, incorrect tooltip clamping, wrong plugin-window resize limits, and the integrated Equalizer's slider wrapping around, at non-100% display scaling (the screen work-area was being read in physical instead of logical pixels).

Presets

• Factory channel sets whose required Toolkit plugin isn't installed are now consistently hidden (installing one plugin no longer hides previously visible free-instrument sets).

Vienna Video Pro

• No longer sends stray stop / play MMC messages when relocating under MuseScore.
• Fixed a hang when closing a Video Pro window on Windows.
• Fixed a GUI crash when entering fullscreen.
• Fixed a GUI crash that caused the DeckLink output to show null frames.
• Corrected the AAX plugin id.
• Tagged the video plugin as a generator so Pro Tools keeps calling its audio thread continuously.
• The Cmd/Ctrl+S shortcut is no longer intercepted by the timeline split-region action.
• Video frames display reliably (the blit now loops until the frame is ready).

v8.0.585, 1 April 2026

Fixed

• Potentially very long connection times for some users
• Potential crashes when MIDI events were sent to VST3 plugins that were being disabled/removed (which can happen in many circumstances)
• Potential crash when saving VST3 plugin data (such as during project saving)
• macOS: Potential crash when locally connected master host crashes

v8.0.575, 26 March 2026

Added

• Warning dialog when disabling "Accept new connections"
• Video Pro: Edit positioning of Timecode in Settings
• Video Pro: Edit default marker color and position in Settings
• Video Pro: Can hide TimeCode/Markers/Streamers
• Video Pro: Can choose to export TimeCode/Markers/Streamers
• Video Pro: Can organize items in pools in folders
• Video Pro: Larger Radius for streamer hitpoint

Fixed

• Potential crashes on loading projects with Kontakt (and possibly other plugins) in them
• Disabling "Accept new connections" still advertising the server locally
• Crash when auto-save triggers during plugin scan (such as when scanning through the Preferences dialog)
• Random crashes when instances/channels/plugins got stopped/closed in various circumstances
• Selecting an expanded folder showing the entire folder with all of its contents in channels/mixer view, rather than just the actual folder itself
• Status/tool tips of insert strips showing incomplete information for plugins
• MIDI activity focus needing multiple events in quick succession to actually trigger, rather than just one
• Crash when loading factory channel sets with an old version of Synchron Player still installed
• macOS: Saving on quiting in standalone would prevent the application from actually quitting
• macOS: Installing Synchron Stage Reverb SO separately would override the integrated version
• macOS: Crash on quitting while a third party plugin is showing a modal dialog (such as a Kontakt "missing samples" dialog)
• macOS: Dragging a dock widget out of the main window to redock not working (it's still interrupted for third party instrument plugins, but workable)
• Windows: Potentially high Windows service CPU use due to ongoing server discovery
• Windows: Slow disappearance of removed servers
• Video Pro:: Crash when exporting 10 bit videos on macOS

Improved

• RAM usage during loading of server projects
• "Channel Sets" and "Automation" dock widgets now keep their width when resizing the main window
• More room for title text on channel strip (condensed font, better spacing)
• Minor GUI tweaks

v8.0.490, 12 February 2026

Fixed

• Various crash fixes, both reproducible and preventive
• Crash on receiving malformed OSC messages
• Waves plugins (VST and VST3) not validating successfully
• Potential crash when loading a VST3 plugin preset
• Potential crash when a VST3 plugin requests all parameters to update at once
• Potential crash during OSC server initialization
• Potential crash when updating mixer/channel strips
• Standalone running with only one audio thread, regardless of set preference
• Standalone not able to receive OSC messages
• Also show plugin manufacturer in plugin validation dialog
• Various VST3 plugins potentially not validating successfully
• macOS: Fixed Intel builds not producing usable crash reports
• Video Pro: MacOS 12 was displaying a black Video
• Video Pro: Follow playhead when Sync to Host is off
• Video Pro: Black flickering on some Windows machines

Improved

• Various small GUI improvements
• Ensure that a channel is selected after deleting channels, so keyboard navigation can continue
• Ensure channel set browser relinquishes keyboard focus after a drag/drop operation, so user can actually undo instantly using Ctrl/Cmd+Z
• Windows: Use modern native style, including dark mode support, if available
• macOS: Added backspace key as additional shortcut for deleting selected channels

Added

• Video Pro: Reset playhead setting so playhead jumps back to where you started playing
• Video Pro: Additional shortcuts (see manual)
• Video Pro: Import dialog for markers with different import modes
• Video Pro: Marker import now also reads the colors of the markers (Cubase default color map)
• Video Pro: Marker text color auto adapts now depending on brightness of marker
• Video Pro: Double click to fit object in view also added to markers and audio objects. Was previously only working for videos.

v8.0.442, 28 January 2026

Fixed:

• Update check was not working
• Windows: Potentially high CPU use from svchost.exe process

Added:

• Import of Cubase marker files (drag and drop the xml file)
• Drag and drop support for channel sets window

v8.0.430, 26 January 2026

Improved

• Updated application icons
• Video Pro: Refreshed audio meter design

Fixed

• Plug-in error dialog text formatting
• Potential crashes when launching, loading a Server Project, or quitting the application
• Deleting a plug-in user preset would not update the plug-in preset browser
• Channel sets can be saved to and loaded from disk again (in addition to the included browser)
• "Change Name…" (Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+N) shortcut not responding
• Server "Find…" (Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+F) would not bring up the search box when instances were listed vertically in the sidebar
• The entry for "Vienna Ensemble Pro Manual" (F1) did not link to the updated VE Pro 8 manual
• Local server: Changing the Server Name would replace "localhost" in the plug-in
• VST3: User presets would not appear correctly in host preset browsers (requires a full VST3 plug-in rescan)
• macOS: Removing instances would not correctly update the menu (prevents duplicate menu entries)
• macOS: The Preferences menu item would disappear after "Delete All Instances"
• Win: Menus transparency not rendering correctly

v 8.0.419 - 21 January 2026 (Initial release version)

Fixed

• Reliability of server advertisement/discovery
• Crashes when loading some projects
• Windows: Transport play/stop not working in Pro Tools
• macOS: Closing an effect plugin window could cause the entire application to close