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  4. Mac Pro with PC Slave via VEP Advice

  • Mac Pro with PC Slave via VEP Advice

    J
    J
    I am looking for some advice on the virtues of running a Mac Pro with Logic Pro and a PC Slave with Vienna Ensemble Pro. I am still deliberating over this so if anyone who has experience of it could answer I would really appreciate it. Particularly users of East West Play instruments.

    1. Do you also run VEP on your Mac as well outside of Logic or other DAW? If you do, other than convenience of having VIs constantly loaded does it offer performance boosts over VIs loaded in Logic 64 Bit?

    2. How does a PC handle core usage with East West Play as on a Mac in Logic one instance uses one core, I have heard on a PC it gets spread more evenly? Sometimes I get overloads on one core due to this. Play seems to eat CPU usage on a Mac, especially with their Hollywood series.

    3. I am considering a 6 Core i7 3.2Ghz 3930 or a 4 Core i7 3.4Ghz 3770 with 32GB Ram and OCZ Vertex SSDs. Does anyone think the performance of a 6 Core is worth the extra cost (is it fully utilised in VEP and Play)?

    4. Anyone using VEP with a Mac and Logic, whats the performance and workflow like, any issues?

    My Mac setup: 2009 2.66Ghz Quad Core Mac Pro
    32GB Ram
    Logic 9.1.7
    Play 3.0.40
    3 SSDs (1 a PCIE RAID SSD card)

    Prospective PC:
    6 Core i7 3.2Ghz 3930 or a 4 Core i7 3.4Ghz 3770
    32GB Ram
    2 x OCZ Vertex SSDs
    VEP
    Windows 7 Pro

    To close my plan would be to run the 3 HW series on the slave PC and everything else Play and Kontakt on the Mac.
  • M
    M

    Janicek,

    I'll address the Mac / Logic 9 / Vep 5 workflow.

    If you have access to another DAW, you may want to consider using it as Logic 9 and VEP 5 don't particularly care for one another.

    Yes there are workarounds, and those who use them seem happy, I eventually decided against them.

    As Logic is so easy to create with, I do still use it (with Vienna Instruments) during early project development.

    I then migrate the project to ProTools 10, introduce VEP 5 / MIR / Vienna Suite and anything else I'll need to tweak, mix, then Master.

    P/S: One of the things that moved me away from Logic was it's use of only one core at times while using VEP 5.

    I have too many cores on too many Mac's to have Logic use just one...  [;)]

    Again, I think there's a workaround, and some seem happy using them.
  • M
    M
    last edited
    last edited

    @Janicek said:

    Does anyone think the performance of a 6 Core is worth the extra cost (is it fully utilized in VEP and Play)? 

     

    You want your slave to be as strong as your budget will allow. The more cores the better IMO.

    The i7's are famous for HyperThreading which VEP does utilize.

    So 6 cores become 12 threads, vs 4 cores becoming 8.

    Not a huge jump on the surface, but remember these are the (official) assignable threads.

    Behind the scenes VEP 5 uses 40, 50 or more threads... I have no idea where these come from.       [:S]
  • J
    J
    I have read the workarounds for Logic and multiple MIDI ports. I see there are two solutions both with drawbacks.

    1. An environment layer
    2. An event plugin

    I also looked at the original VEP 5 Overview video where it mentions using several "instances" in VEP and connecting to each in Logic. How much overhead does this actually use?

    It strikes me this is much easier to implement than the workarounds and if you create instances for say Strings, Brass, Woodwinds it would actually help in simplifying each section's management.
  • M
    M

    Honestly I never got beyond 1 Instance....

    I couldn't handle watching 1 core spike in Logic while all the others remained silent.

    Remember, on a Mac you can't open VST plugins in VEP 5, (only AU plugins).

    So any VST plugins must be opened in Logic where they too will only use the 1 core..... This is not ideal.

    You can however, open VST plugins in VEP 5, on that PC slave you're considering.

    Hopefully Logic X or Ten will resolve some of this.

    Riddle me ths:

    If in fact (in Logic) each Instance uses its own core, what happens when you have more Instances than cores?
  • J
    J
    I am confused with your answer!

    Are you saying you never got beyond one instance of the AU (eg Play) or one instance of VEP Server?

    What about the AU midi port issue, did you use more than one instance of VEP Server in Logic or did you use one of their workarounds (Multiport environment or Event plugin)?
  • M
    M

    Sorry about that.

    By Instance I'm referring to VEP 5 Instances only.

    I never got beyond 1 VEP 5 Instance connected to Logic. So I do not know how taxing multiple Instances are.

    I brought up VST's because you may intend to use them, and I wanted you to know that each VST opened in Logic,

    shares the same 1 core Logic uses while connected to an Instance of VEP 5 (and that WILL STRAIN YOUR SYSTEM)

    AU plugins can be opened directly in VEP 5, and VEP 5 will use as many cores as you assign it. 

    There are many in this community who do use Logic with VEP 5 and are very productive. Perhaps one or more of them can chime in.

    As I said earlier, I decided against the marriage of Logic and VEP 5 and have no interest in any workarounds.

    Have you considered a trial version of VEP 5 ???