Uh oh...... does that mean that on a slave machine, LASS and Symphobia won't respond to program change messages if being hosted by VEPro? Yikes. That changes things significantly -- at least for my template. If this is the case, is there a plan to have VEPro support program changes in the future?

Thanks,
Mahlon

As long as you use the VST2 connector when you need program change transparency, it should be all fine. We'll have to see if there is some good way to convert program change messages over the VST3 format.

You're right. That does change things a bit! I know VSL has never been big on Program and Bank Changes in general, however it can not be ignored for 3rd party plugins like Kontakt. All our templates work on Prog Changes.

Thanks for your prompt reply Martin.  I appreciate it.

I tried this out this morning and indeed instantiating the VST2 VE Pro plug allows program changes.  But as we know this restricts things to a single midi port allowing for only 16 channels so rather than using a single instance of VE Pro I would have to use many.  But then there's the 8 VE Pro plugin limit.

So I think to myself, perhaps this isn't so bad.  Given my heavy dependence upon Kontakts instrument banks I probably only need to load 4 - 5 Kontakts which equals 4 - 5 VE Pro VST2s and I can load the reamaining synths etc that don't need to receive program change messages (Omni, RMX etc) on a single VST3 version of VE Pro and still keep under the limit of eight VE Pro plugs in total.

Except for the CPU hit.  As an experiment I loaded all eight VST2 versions of VE Pro and loaded a single K3.5 into each.  Then I loaded a string multi into the first Kontakt and patched an Aux back into the host upon which I loaded a single Roomworks reverb.  Playing a simple stac string patch live had the CPU ticking at 10% on average.

Then I removed all the VE Pros and loaded eight K3.5s into Cubase directly via the VST Instrument rack, loaded the same multi into the 1st Kontakt and patched it into the Verb, started playing and the CPU sits at 2-3%.

I know it's quite obvious that more separate VE Pros would use more CPU, but given that I'm looking at using a single machine maybe I should take another look at JBridge.  Still, I'm certainly very impressed with VE Pro and the preserve function may well be a huge plus for me.  To explain my situation, I'm a loyal and long term FX Teleport user however due to lack of development and consequent problems with newer OSs and newer plugins not to mention lack of 64-bit support has lead me to contemplate alternatives such as JBridge and VE Pro.

Another factor is the audio routing. I know that VE Pro wasn't really designed with multitimbral VSTis in mind given that it's heritage is VE2 and 3 but it's more awkward than usual to duplicate my setup.  Maybe I should look at how I work. 

At the moment (not using VE Pro) for example, I might have a single Reverb in Cubase itself, but I can set up each separate Kontakt (either loaded locally or on FXT slaves) to send via the Aux busses to that single Reverb instance saving me loading more than one of that type of reverb.  It's a great system because each individual instrument in every instance of Kontakt, even instruments contained within Banks, can have it's own individual send to that particular reverb which for orchestral writing is great given that sometimes within a library, say symphobia, some patches need more verb than others, and I have only a single instance of that reverb for all Kontakt instances saving significant CPU.  However using Kontakt with VE Pro, I have to set up inputs to route audio from the Kontakt Aux to one of the spare VE Pro audio outputs in cubase and repeat this is any other Kontakt output that I wish to utilise (other that for outputs 1+2 of course).  Also, this means that labelling is less clear within the Cubase VST instruments folder because Kontakt is not reporting it's audio config to Cubase directly but rather to VE Pro.  Still, I guess once a template is set up though...

Just thinking out loud. Thanks.

Brett

 I've yet to load VE Pro (hope to this weekend; currently under deadline), but I have a couple of questions about the connector plug-in. Are there two plug-ins that ship with VE Pro, a VST2 and a VST3? Do they both communicate from the host machine with VE Pro Server on a slave machine?

Is the VST Connector plug-in the plug-in you launch on your host (as a VST)?

When I was using VE3, was I using the VE3 plug-in?

I'm a little confused on the *2 and *3 part.

Thanks,
Mahlon

@Another User said:

When I was using VE3, was I using the VE3 plug-in?

Yes.

when I download VE PRO for my computer (vista 64-bit with cubase) I get 2 plugins.  One of them is a VST3 32-bit and the other is a VST2 64-bit.  I'm confused... I've looked for about 2 hours for an answer to this and how I can get more than 16 midi channels out of one instance.  Could I get a step-by-step instruction or link to one? thanks!

@justinraymiller said:

when I download VE PRO for my computer (vista 64-bit with cubase) I get 2 plugins.  One of them is a VST3 32-bit and the other is a VST2 64-bit.  I'm confused... I've looked for about 2 hours for an answer to this and how I can get more than 16 midi channels out of one instance.  Could I get a step-by-step instruction or link to one? thanks!

From memory:

1. Start your 64bit or 32bit (or both) server.
2. Click Preferences
3. Set up your choice of number of ports and audio outputs
4. Start Cubase and open your project
5. Load a VST3 (///) version of VE Pro into the VST rack
6. Click connect and choose what instance you want to connect to. If you are working locally there will only be one choice (or a 32bit and 64bit choice)
7. Connect to your MIDI tracks

DG

I too have been trying to figure out whether it's possible to get more than 16 MIDI channels out of one instance.  The preferences dialogue in VE Pro Server don't seem to affect how many MIDI channels each *instance* seems to have.

Can anyone from VSL help shed some light on the matter?

@christophertin said:

I too have been trying to figure out whether it's possible to get more than 16 MIDI channels out of one instance.  The preferences dialogue in VE Pro Server don't seem to affect how many MIDI channels each *instance* seems to have.

Can anyone from VSL help shed some light on the matter?

I assume you're using the AU version then. This spec is decided by Apple, and they have decided that this is what it should be. The VST and RTAS version both allow multiple MIDI ports per instance.

DG

Hello Martin

It will be great if you implement the full Program/Bank change into VSL PRO, that will simplify so much the Environment I made to do it.

What I did is to use the Bank Change  to select the Performance and the Program change to select the Matrix [:)]

Thanks in advance

Best

Cyril

P.S. Please do not forget also add the use of the "driver Core audio Input/output names"[:)]