Update, and some notes that might be useful for another novice, including myself if I forget:))): though there are few novices active in this forum, there must be others like me who struggle along to set things up, relying on what information they can glean from googling. I must have found my way to this forum a hundred times by googling, and if the info below was here, I didn't see it- or didn't understand it:). If this is confusing, misleading or a waste of space, feel free to remove it.
Thanks to my Vienna Pro 6 Trial I eventually completed a template of 12 VEP instances, each loaded with 6-16 stereo instruments, each with an individual output and routed to/from an individual MIDI track in Cubase Elements 8.
I am amazed how well it is performing so far, and plan to buy it very soon.
In my Cubase project I have about 240 tracks - nearly half of them the automatically-created VST Instrument audio outputs I suppose.
In Cubase Elements I'm limited to 64 MIDI tracks, which is more than enough for anything I'm likely to write, but if I want to try an instrument not currently routed to a track, I will have reroute a track to it.
I have these MIDI tracks in Folders, grouped (mostly) by Orchestra section. Initially I made a folder within each section, for each Library (mostly GPO, HSO and VSL). I also created about 6 audio tracks, some folders, and 5 Group Channels to cover all the output.
In the Instances I put all the instruments I'm likely to want to use or try within a group (eg Woodwinds High), then routed each track to a likely choice for that purpose..
After lots of confusion, trial and error, I eventually found it surprisingly easy to route all the tracks in Cubase one after another, once all the instances had been created, loaded and colour-coded in a safely-saved VEPServer Project.
In Cubase:
-All instances preserved, connected and coupled
1. Select track folder, look in Inspector window and down-arrow to move to first track in the folder
2. Click on "View instrument" button on VST Instrument slot for the matching VST Instrument
In the Cubase project, the VEP window for that VST instrument opens (the colour coding is reassuring) and in VEP the Instance opens. In VEP Instance, find the instrument you want to the track route to, read the port number - the left of the two little numbers side by side. (Don't laugh, this took me ages to figure out, as the second number - the Channel - is irrelevant in stereo or montimbral instruments, I think? Anway, I ended up setting them all to "All" -easiest and most flexible in case of using multichannel MIDI tracks, or Instrument outputs, in the future)
-In Cubase, select the matching MIDI input, and if necessary set channel.
I found it quickest to set all the Cubase midi track output CHANNELS (not ports) to "Any", all at once in the Mixer, using a keyboard shortcut. At the same time, in the Cubase Mixer, I set all the VST Outputs, instrument group by instrument group, to their Group channels. THIS WAS ONLY POSSIBLE once I had figured out how to rename the VST Instrument Output channel for each Instance, so I could identify each group of output tracks for routing to the correct Group Channel. Sometimes I could rename the track folder while creating and renaming the VST Instrument slot, but not always. I didn't find the answer in googling, just a lot of people wanting to be able to do it. I stumbled on a reliable solution eventually, (the feature was probably added at some stage?) so here it is, for Cubase Elements 8 at least:
-View the Inspector for the VST Instrument FOLDER. At the top of the window, the folder name is in a little window. Click on this till it highlights, then type your Instance name in there.